A great work of art. Maybe even the equal of Rules of the Game.

No, I wasn't personally alive in '75, but I don't think there's been a better portrait of a time and place than this film. This film really is about post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America. Is it a comprehensive, encyclopedic look? Of course not. That's how you get a shitty mini-series like "The Sixties." But this is film is an incisive, moving look at a confused, hurt, scared nation that was just waiting for the Reagan 80s to make them feel better. And by nation, I do, in fact, mean, middle-America white protestants (thus the brilliant decision to make a political film not in D.C. but in the country music capital).

Regarding empathy: it's true that Altman fiercely resists using technique to help the viewer empathize with his characters. Some will find themselves reacting fairly coldly to the first time through. Yet Altman keeps not an ironic distance, but a polite one. My suspicion is that Altman, like Antonioni, resists emotional string-pulling not out of lack of ability but because he is genuinely moved more easily than most of us. And if you give this film a chance with repeat viewings, you'll be moved too.

The characters are all wonderful and all have independent lives which avoid and defy explanation. Look at the Sunday morning sequence: who is in which church? Who isn't in church? Which couples are in different places? The answers aren't what we'd expect, but none of it is deliberately making any sort of "point."

The culmination of one of the greatest 5-year runs in film history:

MASH (1970)
Brewster McCloud (1970)
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
Images (1972)
The Long Goodbye (1973)
Thieves Like Us (1974)
California Split (1974)
Nashville (1975)

I think Altman made some great films after this run, but he was clearly in a magic zone (ala Sturges 40-44, Godard 59-65), probably the result of being creatively denied for so long.