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Alfred Hitchcock treated actors like cattle, then Robert Altman treats them like cowboys—he refuses to fence them in. The director's masterpiece, the sometimes squirmingly intimate epic Nashville, is a prime argument for giving thespians room to roam. Though Joan Tewkesbury officially wrote this downbeat, episodic drama about one eventful weekend in the country-music industry, Altman's enormous cast of character actors contributed lots of material and even helped write the songs they sing, including the Oscar-winning "I'm Easy." Henry Gibson, Ned Beatty, Shelley Duvall, Keith Carradine, Ronee Blakley, and Gwen Welles (performing the saddest striptease in the history of mainstream cinema) turn in authentic work, but all are topped by Lily Tomlin's wrenchingly soulful turn as a gospel singer who falls into an adulterous affair. Nashville's