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Nashville (1975)

🕑 Added 2025-07-04 16:37:28 +0000 UTC

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JM63

Interestingly, non-agricultural business and commerce were regarded as low-class activities until fairly recently, around the last 200-300 years. Roman law prohibited aristocrats from engaging in business, although many got around this by using proxies. And as late as the American Revolution, aristocratic French officers who volunteered to fight for America found it hilarious when American officers, who came from a variety of trades like shoemakers and booksellers, asked the French what their “occupations” were back home. (A “gentleman” would never sully his hands with commercial activities, at least not openly.) Even a highly educated lawyer like Alexander Hamilton, who served as interpreter for the French, would be regarded by them as little better than a servant. And what about entertainers, like singers, jesters, and actors? Even though a few achieved relative wealth and fame, in general they were regarded at best as servants and at worst as the lowest of the low, only a step above prostitutes and beggars.

JM63

After sleeping on it, Nashville is already starting to work its magic on me. This film is many things, but one aspect that stands out is that it’s a statement on how the fundamental American ideal of equality has been corrupted during its first 200 years. But while that corruption has taken place in America, it wasn’t corrupted “by America” – instead, I believe it’s due to something more inherent to human nature. So even though Nashville was an excellent AFI pick for the 4th of July, it has a universal message. First, in order to contrast it with America, a little background on the social structure of Europe. Since Roman times, European society was dominated by wealthy landowners. And in the early Middle Ages, knights were viewed as barbaric thugs who behaved more like Mafia enforcers than heroic saviors. Over time, however, the landowning class and their hired muscle merged into an aristocratic warrior elite that professed chivalric ideals but in practice focused on exploiting as many peasants as they could. Peasants were seen as vital to the social order, for obvious reasons, although most existed in a social spectrum between near-slavery and full freedom. But even free commoners were expected to show public and private deference to the nobility – backing up to clear a path for them in the street, bowing and curtsying, addressing them by formal titles, and generally groveling and showing subservience to their betters.

JM63

You can watch Nashville on the Internet Archive (using Firefox instead of Chrome lets you expand picture-in-picture mode to any size): https://archive.org/details/nashville.-1975.1080p.-blu-ray.x-264.-aac-5.1-yts.-mx