Robert Altman's GrandHotel is the Grand Ol' Opry; here he takes pot shots at the AmericanDream as it is scurried after by no fewer than 24 different characters.Much of the dialogue is improvised-as is the character development-bythe actors themselves, which lends a feeling of collage to Altman'smulti-leveled, mini-episodic style. The musical score, bril- liantlyintegrated into this scheme, includes songs written and performed by theactors themselves. A veritable treatise on language and politics in themid-seventies, Nashville will undoubtedly remain, on seeing it today,what Pauline Kael dubbed it in 1975: "The funniest epic vision ofAmerica ever to reach the screen."