“Number one: all of us are equally involved with politics whether we know it or not and whether we like it or not. And number two: we can do something about it. When you pay more for an automobile than it cost Columbus to make his first voyage to America, that's politics.”
People hear that a movie is titled “Nashville” and they naturally think it is going to be about the music industry. While ostensibly about the country music industry, Nashville is really about politics pure and simple. The intermingling of politics and entertainment is really a statement about the state of politics in the post-Watergate world and what is most astonishing is how precisely prescient it was in predicting how the worlds of entertainment and politics would one day become utterly indistinguishable.
"Only time I ever went hog-wild, around the bend, was for the Kennedy boys. But they were different."
Foreshadowing. Subtle, to be sure. This is a reference, of course, to John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. Criticism leveled toward the film even by those generally praising has often focused on the shocking conclusion with the centerpiece of critique being that it seems jarringly disconnected from the rest of the film. In fact, several subtle examples of foreshadowing can be detected when one watches the film with the foreknowledge of what is to come. Such as this quote.
"It don't worry me."
The lyrics to the song written by one of the characters include:
“You may say I ain't free
But it don't worry me
It's not gon' worry me
The price of bread
may worry some
It don't worry me”
The title and everything that it connotes regarding politics in America becomes a motif of sorts that is repeated occasionally out of context of the song and the song itself becomes a kind of centerpiece of the film’s commentary.
“You may as well face the fact you cannot sing. You ain't never gon' be no star. I wish you'd give it up. They gon' kill ya. They gon' tear your heart out if you keep on. They gon' walk on your soul, girl.”
Sueleen can’t sing. It’s true. And because she can’t sing, she was forced into doing an embarrassing striptease in front of a room full of businessman at a fundraiser. The nexus of show business and politics crosses here at the lowest point and make a statement about the predatory nature of both endeavors. That Sueleen remains committed to believing she has talent can be read as a metaphor for blind faith, whether applied to oneself or to one’s political leaders.
