Robert Altman: Tanner '88

I spent most of last weekend watching the mini-series Tanner '88 and its sequel Tanner on Tanner both directed by Robert Altman and written by "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau. Overall eight hours pretty well spent. I think these two will serve as excellent companion pieces to Altman's classic Nashville - all together they are like a mini-course in American politics, media and culture. Besides being educational, it is also hugely entertaining even for those like myself who are not really keen and attentive followers of nuts and bolts of American politics.

The basic idea of the series was quite revolutionary at that time though it has become very familiar now, in this age of ubiquitous reality TV. They created a fake democratic presidential candidate Jack Tanner, played marvelously by Michael Murphy who also played a similar role in Nashville, complete with a past career etc, gave him a fake campaign management team and sent him on a real (as in really real) campaign trail where he meets and greets real people and real politicians and public figures. The main theme of the series is that there is no (okay, make it very little) reality or authenticity in American democracy or politics. And for this same exact reason, Altman seems to remind us, a reality TV show can capture the essence of the American democratic process because there is very little reality in reality TV either! It is also a fabrication, it is all about image!

What makes it so interesting and engrossing is that the series shows this process by which a normal human being gets transformed into an image created by TV and media. We are introduced to Jack Tanner as a professor with a PhD and his campaign slogan is an obvious joke: "For Real". Soon we see a random sample of people disapproving of the promotional video which prompts his team to do a video critique and do alterations which will be more in line with people's expectations and opinions. Like for example, he can't hold a baby properly (ruining a photo-op) so his staffers bring in a fake baby so that he can train himself. He goes to some self-help pseudo-Yoga institute where he gets to learn how to never get tense and lose his cool by controlling his abdominal muscles and on and on.

Jack Tanner is just one of the huge cast of characters and in typical Altman fashion even the most secondary characters get chances to shine in front of the camera at some point or the other. Other than Tanner we have his chain-smoking hyper-energetic chief campaign manager "T.J. Cavanaugh" played wonderfully by Pamela Reed. Her assistant is a little ditzy, and a bit dim female staff who has many funny moments. His daughter is again a hyper-energetic politically idealistic teenager who is always getting her dad into trouble, like getting him arrested in an anti-apartheid protest. There are usual bunch of journalists all portrayed in typical Altman-esque fashion - in short they are all wonderful. Their polyphonic banter and chaotic tos and fros reveals more about human character that even a well-written monologue won't be able to do. There are lots of scenes in the series which are memorable. One of my favourite is when Tanner's Dad, an army man, raises a toast to his son's wedding (a shotgun wedding to be particular but I won't reveal the details here). Another wonderful scene in which Tanner breaks into a monologue about "the favourite Beatle". Yet another memorable and powerful scene is when he visits Detroit and listens to a rap performance about urban decay and street violence. It is really spine-chilling. Youtube doesn't seem to have the clip.

Of course one needs to know all the names to fully appreciate all the jokes: Mike and Kitty Dukakis, Gary Hart, Gloria Steinem, Phyllis Schlaffy but in an in-joke Studs Terkel says that he supports Jack Tanner because he is the only candidate who knows the name of some obscure labour leader (I have already forgotten the name) indicating that even the American public and people in active politics also don't know all the finer aspects of the politics so may be it is okay to see it from a point of view of ignorance. In another joke, one of the guys on his staff says that he would like to marry Gloria Steinem just by looking at her picture on TV without knowing who she is (a feminist critical of the institution of marriage)!

Tanner on Tanner the sequel which came 16 years later keeps all the good things from the original show and ups the ante on drama and self-reflexivity even higher. His daughter Alex Tanner is now an activist documentary film maker who is planning to make a documentary on his father's presidential run in '88. After a disastrous screening at the "rough cut festival" and getting an advice from Robert Redford himself (for real) she follows her dad to the ongoing democratic convention to record his interviews with his colleagues asking them to reminisce about what the 88 campaign really meant to them. She has an absolutely hilarious three way confrontation with Alex Kerry, daugher of John Kerry and a documentary film maker in real life, and Ronald Reagan Jr which is really just one of many great moments in the film. This is also much more self-reflexive than the original show. Everybody seems to have a video camera. There are documentary film makers who are making documentaries about documentary film makers. There is a student who is following Alex to make a film for his class project etc etc. As Martin Scorsese, in a hilarious cameo, exasperatedly says in the beginning "Everybody is making pictures these days!" Cynthia Nixon in the role of Alex just steals the show as it is much more focused on her character than the original which was much looser. Besides politics Tanner on Tanner works as a satire of documentary film making itself too.

Altman in the interview says that it is the most creative work he has ever done which may or may not be true but it is without doubt a very complex and fascinating piece of work which at the same time is also illuminating and also entertaining and that is really a lot. More details from these articles in Slate and New Yorker

Robert Altman: California Split

As a recent Robert Altman convert I have been trying to see as many of his films as I can. He had an almost incredible run of artistic (if not always commercial) success in the 70s. This 1974 film suffers in comparison a little but that is only because other films like McCabe and Mrs Miller, MASH, Images, Nashville, The Long Goodbye and Thieves Like Us are all such great masterpieces. I will try to write down about these films soon too when I get time and a chance to re-watch them which I think is necessary because his style is so rich and complex that even the most attentive and active viewer can't grasp and follow everything in just one viewing alone.

First, because of his oft-mentioned soundtrack design which incorporates multiple narrative voices at the same time. Altman doesn't distinguish or privilege one from the other, it is not as if there is something in the background running only for an effect and atmosphere. The viewer has to actively choose and decide what to listen to. Similarly his ever mobile camera preempts traditional audience expectations because we are never sure about who the real protagonist is in any particular scene. One character might be speaking and before he or she even completes the camera moves away from him or her and some other background track comes into focus. He is truly a great experimental film maker but his experimentation never comes across as gimmicky and are never meant to alienate the audience, on the other hand they inspire the audiences to do a lot of hard work of their own.

Coming to California Split the film follows two Gambling addicts Will, a magazine editor played by George Segal, and Charlie, played by Elliott Gould doing the same inspired mumbling-to-self routine which he perfected to sublime heights in The Long Goodbye, as they tour the poker, gambling, racing and betting centers looking for money to win and lose. Charlie is just a layabout who lives with a couple of prostitutes, one of them played by Gwen Welles who was painfully vulnerable in Nashville as a talentless singer who is forced to do a striptease to get a singing break and plays a similar role here. The other actress Ann Prentiss is quite good too though they both have only a few scenes. Will and Charlie strike up a friendship at the beginning because they feel that their companionship brings luck to each other. The film just follows a few parallel narratives in the lives of these four characters the main of which follows Will as he struggles with his financial obligations. He finally decides to make a final and major killing in the small gambling town of Reno and ropes in Charlie to go with him but his success there leaves him with a feeling of crushing emptiness and on that note the film ends.

It is not that hard to notice that Altman wants us to see Gambling as a metaphor for life itself and specially life as defined by all the decisions we make and in that specially the life lived in America. He was himself a compulsive and recovering gambler and though his criticism is never harsh or categorical but it is still very powerful in the end. He sees it as a means of escape from "real life", the life defined by purposeful action and personal responsibility, without which there can be no real meaning to life and no genuine or lasting happiness. I personally know very little about card games (and nothing about Poker) and so I got a bit bored at places but he thankfully never overdoes it in the film, though still giving a fantastically detailed, even documentary-like, tour of this particular subculture in America. In short not as great as Altman's best but quite close... An article on the film here

Robert Altman: Images

I came to Robert Altman late but he has now become my favourite modern American film maker. (David Lynch also has a special place in my heart and moreover he belongs to a younger generation.) Interestingly this 1972 venture sees Altman venturing into a territory Lynch would make his own a decade later. In the interview on the DVD Altman says that he first got the idea of the story from watching Bergman's Persona and at first he just had a single scene in his mind - that of a young woman mistaking her husband for a stranger and running off in fright when he tries to kiss her in bed.

The final finished story is difficult to summarize. It basically is a series of episodes over a few days from the life of a young married children's author Cathryn (played brilliantly by Susannah York) who suffers from hallucinatory fantasies about strange phone calls, ghosts of dead former lovers and a friendly neighbour attempting to rape her, as she and her husband have retreated to an eeriely remote place in the hills. This place might itself be part of her imagination since it looks more like a dreamscape. The film was actually shot in Ireland and it looks spectacular as captured by Altman's regular cinematographer if the period Vilmos Zsigmond.

More than Persona the film it reminded me of was Roman Polanski's Repulsion. In Repulsion it was sexual repression and pathological shyness which drives the young girl over the edge, while in this film it is the guilt of a previous extra-marital affair coupled with her own feelings of insecurity which makes her see things which may not be "real." She is afraid and suspicious of her husband's philanderings which makes her imagine phone calls with mysterious female voice informing where her husband might be. She feels guilty and is afraid of her past which makes her see her dead lover in person who she then tries to "kill" for real. One of her neighbours and house-guests tries to seduce her and may be since she is conflicted about her own desire she interprets it as an attempted rape resulting in a grisly scene similar to the one in Repulsion. "Woman having rape fantasies" is something that will make feminists nervous but this is only what I thought of. The film itself is too inconclusive and totally open to other interpretations.

His Persona inspiration is much more obvious in 3 Women. This film suffers a little in comparison because unlike in 3 Women we don't really see Altman's sharp and critical observations about how people talk and behave in the company of others, which is arguably what makes him so special and where his real strengths are. It is far too much introspective and interiorized. It is still much more than just interesting. I specially loved the way he weaves the children's story that Cathryn is writing and which she narrates on the soundtrack. A complex interleaved soundtrack is another Altman signature. Just like in complex deep-focus based mise-en-scene in which the viewer has to consciously decide which part of the frame to look at, in a Altman's film he has to decide which part of the soundtrack he should listen to. He also has this fantastic ability to make actors seem like real people and turn real people into actors. The camera is always moving, there are no lingering close-ups and no iconic shots. Stars or secondary characters all merge together in one background.

As I said before the the outdoor landscape shots are extraordinarily beautiful and evocative. Altman in the interview says that he deliberately kept the place from being specific so that it would have a dream-like quality and he succeeds brilliantly. This wintry, cloudy, fuzzy, somewhat impressionistic quality of the image was there in a lot of his other films of the period (McCabe and Mrs Miller, The Long Goodbye, Thieves Like Us) but this actually exceeds even all those other efforts. I personally love Altman when he is being satirical and critical but this self-consciously "arty" Altman also belongs in the top-tier.

A Prairie Home Companion

May be it is what Edward Said called "late style." Robert Altman's last film is completely devoid of the casual cynicism and misanthropy that is characteristic of much of his work. Instead what we get is a warmhearted and generous elegy, a self-evidently valedictory statement (He died not long after it was made). It is easy to see Altman himself contemplating the Last Things as he made the film. What is remarkable is that there is not even a hint of bitterness or even a regret. There is absolutely no sentimentality or narcissistic self-boasting either. "I don't do eulogies," as the master of the ceremonies himself says. Also as another of the character says in the film when one old man, his colleague in the radio show, dies suddenly, "an old man's death is not a tragedy."

At another level it is also about another death - the death of local culture and community with these a mode of life which was based on shared beliefs, values and traditions which the titular community radio show stood for. In our world when everything is contingent on financial realities, shows like these have no reason to exist. In fact the only villain in the film is the businessman from Texas (called "the axeman") who has bought the theatre to convert it into a parking lot. Even for him there is no anger or bitterness though the film does make us expect his demise with anticipatory glee. Death itself is made alluring by embodying it in a figure of a traditional femme fatale in a white trench coat who stalks the backstage of the radio show looking for "victims."

Like in all Altman's films it is impossible to decide who is better than the other. It is as if all actors were part of some ecosystem, each nourishing the other. Even smaller roles get amplified the way Altman shoots the scenes. It is not hard to see why actors loved him so much. It is not an easy way to shoot, all those overlapping dialogues or spontaneous monologues, but with Altman it is as if he had shot it while sleepwalking on the set. It is also full of wonderful folk songs. In fact I had postponed watching it since I thought it was a backstage musical which would bore me but the songs with their own brand of folk wisdom and dry humour were all magnificent. One doesn't even need to be part of that culture (I am certainly very far from there).. there is something very universal in those songs which moved me and also made me smile. This is really a wonderful film. A fitting swansong for a great master artist.