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Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 11. May 28 1979

[Introduction]

This Tuesday (May 29) the Student Association is screening Robert Altman's Nashville (Memorial Theatre, 2.15 pm). It's one of about half a dozen really good films they're showing this year, and well worth skipping lectures or selling your grandmother into slavery to see.

Altman is perhaps the most innovatory and exciting (and certainly the most prolific - he's released three new films in the States within the last year, all of which were still waiting to see) of the present generation of American film-makers. Whereas directors like Lucas and Spielberg and Coppola (their films have been the top grossers of all time) remain basically traditional in their approach to the medium, Altman is continually experimenting. Films as diverse as Mash, Three Women, and Buffalo Bill and the Indians, evidence the different directions he has moved in, in both content and form, in his career. Three Women is his most stylistically adventurous work to date, and as such is a resounding success. Until this film Altman's main centre of interest has usually been the sound track. The soundtrack to Three Women is certainly very clever, packed with aural jokes, but in this film the visuals demand our closest attention, particularly the way selected colours (blue, yellow and pink) and the grotesque murals are used in the narrative. Perhaps he felt held already developed manipulation of the soundtrack to its logical conclusion. Because this is (part of) what he achieves in Nashville.