It was a joy to discover 8 hours of Robert Altman's best work that I had not previously seen or even heard of. In the last week in the UK the BBC has screened the series Tanner 88 on its late night cultural ghetto channel BBC Four, followed by the recent update, Tanner on Tanner filmed largely during the 2004 democratic convention. This work has a breadth that has not been seen since Nashville, and, with a screenplay by Garry Trudeau, it also has a rare depth.
It is, of course, difficult for me to judge how well Tanner on Tanner would stand up as a film on its own. Much of the pleasure of the film is in seeing how the characters have matured over the 16 years since the original series, notably Alex Tanner played by the 22 year-old Cynthia Nixon in 1988. As a British viewer I learned a lot about the American political system from watching these films, although Tanner on Tanner is as much a satire about film-makers as it is a film about politicians.
It was clear from the beginning that the successful project would not be Alex Tanner's film about her father but her student's study of Alex, which we see at the end as Diary of a Mad Filmmaker. However, the anticipation of the irony did not detract from the pleasure. To my mind, the best scene in the film is where Alex Tanner and Alexandra Kerry find themselves double-booked to film an interview with Ron Reagan. They alternate Kerry's serious questions about stem-cell research with Tanner's ditzy questions about what it's like to have a celebrity father. I don't know what the future may hold for her father ( this is written 2 days before the election) but Alexandra Kerry would certainly seem to have a future as a comedy actress.
