“Wild Rose”: Three Chords and the Truth

Yahooo! Rose-Lynn’s been let out of prison (where she was sent because of a small problem involving a package of heroin). There’s fringe on her leather jacket, a rebel yell on her lips, and an ankle-monitor underneath her cowboy boot,. After a quick stop at the country-music bar where she used to serve drinks and front the local band, she heads for home, but her re-appearance after a year away doesn’t exactly spark joy. Sounds like the makings of a country song.. But this isn’t Nashville. Nope, it’s Glasgow, Scotland.

In the appealing new slice-of-life drama called Wild Rose, Jessie Buckley plays a young woman so vibrant that you can’t help rooting for her even when she’s making a hash of her life, She’s quick to fight, quick to blame others for her own mistakes. (In her mind, her incarceration is entirely the fault of the judge who sentenced her.) Most egregious, she’s all too ready to break the promises she’s made to her two young children (tellingly named Lyle and Wynonna) when these get in the way of her dreams of music stardom in America.  

There are some creaky elements to Rose-Lynn’s story, most of them involving a would-be benefactor played by the charming but unlikely Sophie Okonedo.. Post-prison, Rose-Lynn comes to work for this wealthy lady of leisure as a housekeeper, putting her musical ambitions on hold in a bid to lead a responsible adult life.. But soon, once Okonedo’s Susannah discovers the singing talents of her feisty new “daily woman,” she offers to play fairy godmother for Rose-Lynn’s dream trip to Nashville. Of course the trip eventually happens—but not in the way we would expect, and with a far different outcome. It’s a treat, though, to see the awe on Jessie Buckley’s face as she stands on the stage of the “Mother Church” itself, Nashville’s timeless Ryman Auditorium. One of the film’s many pleasures is a chance to catch a glimpse of Nashville, the world’s Music City, while also introducing us to the more low-key attractions of workaday Glasgow.

Rose-Lynn may blossom in the company of the kindly Susannah, but the real key figure in her life is her down-to-earth mother, Marion, played by the always capable Julie Walters. It’s she to whom Rose-Lynn turns for emergency childcare, and for the hard-earned nuggets of wisdom that she’d really rather not hear. Marion can be tough on her only child, but she’s also her biggest supporter, one who understands that Rose-Lynn will need to grow up in an emotional sense before she can earn the opportunities that may someday be waiting for her. It’s ironic that in the last few days I’ve been learning about Anzia Yezierska, a novelist so determined to devote herself to her craft that she literally wrote her young daughter out of her life for many years, letting the child be raised by an ex-husband and erasing her from her own autobiography. That’s what some artists -- both male and female -- do in order to pursue their careers unhindered by family responsibility. But Marion’s not one to let that happen, and her down-to-earth goals and Rose-Lynn’s soaring ambitions make for a powerful combination.   

Understanding the thick Glasgow accents in this film sometimes makes for a challenge. But the soundtrack is splendid indeed, featuring the voices of some of Nashville’s finest female singers, and also Jessie Buckley’s own  powerful pipes. Her character has tattooed on her arm the classic description of country music as Three Chords and the Truth. Wild Rose has convinced me of the wisdom of that sentiment.

Nichols vs. Altman: Two Paths to Glory

For months I’ve been researching director Mike Nichols and the second film of his career, 1967’s The Graduate. Last night, on my version of a busman’s holiday, I watched Robert Altman’s 1975 film, Nashville. Both Nashville and The Graduate ably reflect a fertile period of American filmmaking that has come to be called the New Hollywood. Still, they are shot in highly disparate styles. A “making-of” documentary that accompanies the Criterion DVD of Nashville has convinced me that one key difference between the two movies lies in the personalities of two very different directors.

Mike Nichols began as a comic actor, hailed for his satirical performances with  Elaine May. After May broke up the act, Nichols moved on to even greater success as a director of Broadway comedies. Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park catapulted him into a career in Hollywood as well as on the Great White Way. Elizabeth Taylor chose him to direct her and spouse Richard Burton in a film adaptation of a controversial stage play, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Nichols’ version was a popular and critical success. But – given that it focused on a mere four actors who played out their corrosive interaction against a single interior set – it did not take full advantage of the motion picture medium.

On The Graduate, Nichols was far freer to experiment technologically. The film is full of flashy camerawork that explores the psychology of the characters while conveying what Nichols saw as the sterility of SoCal life. Working with a cast made up largely of stage veterans, he rehearsed for three weeks before the start of shooting. In rehearsal, actors were encouraged to contribute their own ideas, but once the cast moved into production there was little tolerance for deviation from the finalized script. In his early films, Nichols was brutally hard on his performers. Dustin Hoffman, for one, felt completely off-balance, convinced he wasn’t up to Nichols’ standards of excellence. On Nichols’ part this was at least partially strategic: it was both a way of amping up his leading character’s agitated mental state and a trick to deflect attention from his own jangled nerves.

Robert Altman, by contrast, came across as jovial and laidback. In casting Nashville, he relied solely on instinct, giving major roles to those (like singer Ronee Blakley) with no real acting experience, once he sensed they were right for a particular part. (Explains Keith Carradine, “He hired behavior; he hired essence.”) On set, a performer was free to discard the script pages and try something completely different. Altman’s experiments with zoom lenses and with multi-track audio recording allowed him to shoot crowd scenes in which no one quite knew which characters would ultimately be featured on camera at any given moment. And the film’s many songs were all recorded live. The result: an improvisational feel that contributes to Nashville’s life-like spontaneity.

Though Altman hardly lacked a strong sense of self, he wanted his cast to blend into a community. That’s why he kicked off location filming with a 4^th of July barbecue at the lovely rustic cabin he and his wife had rented. The barbecues continued throughout the months of shooting, and actors were encouraged to watch dailies together, thus reinforcing their feel for the overlapping stories in which they all played a part.

Almost everyone was housed at a local motel throughout the shoot. The one exception was Karen Black, who was whisked via limo to Nashville’s best hotel. Castmates who complained discovered Altman’s logic: no one else in the film was supposed to like Black’s character very much.