02 Dec Tanner on Tanner (2004)

Woven Folds, Flattened Levels

I keep my own list of films worth watching and from that I draw a smaller list of “number fours,” films that everyone should see before they die. The rules of this short list provide for only two films from any year and two from any filmmaker. I have this slotted for one of my 2004 necessities.

Altman has often made good films and sometimes very important ones. Some are shocking in how they innovate, particularly in how they have the camera discover rather than anticipate the actor — starting with “Long Goodbye” and leading to “Gosford.” “McCabe” was the first film I know that deliberately obscured details, just as in life. “Cuts” was a great advance in parallel facets of the same reality.

But now we have the most elaborately folded “conventional” film I have ever seen. Folding is where the narrative explicitly recognises and often merges with its telling. The simple case is a film within a film where the two films are related.

In this case, we have two films: this one and the original (of 1988) which it cites and follows, using both the same characters and actors. We have two realities: “real” reality and the reality of the film which combine and overlap. We have the performance of film of life and of politics: distinct and yet the same. This film and porn.

Okay. Been there several times. But then we have the story itself. It involves a filmmaker doing a documentary — another film which relates to all of the folds and levels previously mentioned. That film is done once, discarded and done again (and discarded again), to be bested by a documentary of the documentary. At one point, a film crew asks to do yet another documentary layer, and several scenes involve yet other films and performances: Garofalo, Rose, Frankin…

There’s one scene which involves children of three candidates, Reagan, Kerry and the fictional Tanner. The latter two are both named Alex (with Alex Kerry is a real documentary filmmaker). That scene has the following cameras rolling:

• Alex Tanner’s camera
• Alex Kerry’s camera
• Ron Reagan’s camera
• Alex’s student’s camera
• An HBO camera that was doing a special on the event —
• Altman’s camera, the one we experience at the moment and in the background, the convention, likely the biggest collection of professional video cameras ever assembled.

Along the way, we have many small pleasures. These aren’t the greatest actors and know little about folding in the small. But in Altman’s hands, even the shoe salesgirl who appears for no more than 10 seconds is a special adventure.

Posted in 2004

Ted’s Evaluation — 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.

IMDB