Preamble: I started watching the Criterion DVD of the 1988 HBO miniseries "Tanner '88" just after listening to a compilation of audio clips on the Minnesota Public Radio website from Eugene J. McCarthy's campaign for the Democratic Party's 1968 presidential nomination, and watched the fictional campaign of a Texas Latino congressman Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) on "The West Wing" between episodes of "Tanner." "Tanner '88" occupies a middle ground not only in chronology between the McCarthy and Santos campaigns between fact and fiction.

Having made at least two (I think four) speeches (at the ripe old age of 14) for Barry Goldwater in 1964, my experience of backing hopeless presidential candidates is very long. My mother, who had been the GOP county chairperson before I came long, particularly loathed Hubert Humphrey and inculcated a distaste for the mendacity of Lyndon Johnson in me. She was not a big fan of foreign wars with murky objectives and not completely startled when I joined "the children's crusade" for Minnesota's then senior senator, Eugene J. McCarthy during my senior year in high school. Ousting LBJ and ending the US misadventure in Vietnam were goals she understood (BTW, when the Republican Party made recriminalizing abortion a basic plank, she voted against the senior Bush, who had flip-flopped from being one of the most vociferous advocates of family planning when he was a Texas congressman).

I have yet to vote in a presidential primary for anyone who has gone on to be elected president. I'm not sure for whom I voted in the 1988 primary. My initial choice was for Bruce Babbit of Arizona (a state in which I had lived twice by then). He was the first candidate to drop out of the race (but has the best appearance on the Tanner campaign trail). Jack Tanner was not on the real California ballot, and I voted for someone other than Michael Dukakis or George H. W. Bush. My contempt for the junior Bush is well-known to any of my regular readers. I was frustrated by the campaign of the Democratic nominee, who was somewhat in the Tanner mold in being unwilling to repeat simple-minded slogans over and over (something with which the president is very comfortable) or to engage in the character-smearing ("hardball") that Karl Rove has used to elect George W. Bush governor of Texas and president of the United States.

Before beginning reviewing the two-disc DVD, I might as well add that, although he has played many other roles, for me Michael Murphy, who played Jack Tanner, is firmly tied in my mind to his role (John Triplett) as the advance operative for an anti-establishment presidential candidate in Robert Altman's exhilarating masterpiece Nashville. This inhibited my regarding him as a would-be president rather than as a political hack. (That we are both Spartan alumni did not affect how I saw "Tanner '88" in any way that I recognize.)

The review (at long last!)

During the 1988 campaign for presidential nomination, HBO backed Robert Altman filming the campaign of a former central-Michigan Democratic congressman, Jack Tanner (Michael Murphy) for president, with scripts supplied by "Doonesbury" cartoonist Garry Trudeau. The series was shot on locations of primaries (and the eventual Democratic convention in Atlanta) with interactions with those who were candidates (including Bob Dole, Jesse Jackson) and a mix of fictional and real-life news reporters.

As comes out in a 2004 reunion of Altman and Trudeau in which they recalled the fun they had making "Tanner '88," both had E. L. Doctorrow's novel Ragtime in mind as a model for what they were doing, specifically in mixing fictional characters with historical figures (though in the present of 1988). Trudeau recalls that keeping up with events meant that he was faxing script pages the night before shooting. This makes Altman guffaw and correct Trudeau, saying the pages were often faxed during a day's shooting.

Altman also explains that he did not ask the politicians to learn lines but to respond as they would to particular situations. Not that they aren't actors, but they were playing themselves (as politicians do). The most contrived of these guest appearances is near the end why Kitty Dukakis asks Jack's fiancée (who had been a Dukakis campaign official) to help get Jack to endorse the nominee. It is contrived in that it depends more than the other cameos on a long-standing relationship that is fictional. BTW, the most compelling of the guests playing themselves is Bruce Babbit walking with Jack around the Tidal Pool at the Jefferson Monument, urging Jack not to substitute calculation for pressing his policies ("Be true to thyself" in effect, though what voters want is simulacra of a trustworthy self...). Both he and Jack have considerable self-deprecating wit. Bob Dole also shows a sense of the absurdity (of tromping door-to-door in New Hampshire as a step on trying to become commander of the world's most advanced military). The snakiest player is the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who also gets a genuinely hardball question in the simulated debate.

Backtracking, the reason Jack left Congress was that his only child, daughter Alexandra was critically and seemingly terminally ill. She recovered and, played by Cynthia Nixon, before "Sex in the City", is a loose cannon very much on the campaign trail. She gets Jack to a demonstration at the South Africa embassy before he is supposed to testify to a congressional committee. They are both arrested. She also pushes her father to advocate recognizing that the "War on Drugs" has been a counterproductive failure (this was obvious already in 1988) and follow the rescinding Prohibition (of alcohol) into tax revenue-production.

The Tanner campaign gets attention in part because of the savvy and organizational abilities of campaign manager T.J. Cavanaugh. In this role Pamela Reed at least temporarily broke out of her consignment to roles as long-suffering wives, prefiguring Allison Janney's C. J. Craig (whose name strikes me as an homage to this phenomenal predecessor). She is very funny as she tries to bring discipline to the campaign, the candidate, and her initially shy and loopy assistant, Andrea Spinelli (Ilana Levine) who is the character most transformed by involvement in the campaign. It is fun to watch T. J. operate.

And I wouldn't want to overlook E. G. Marshall, who plays Jack's father, a retired admiral who was a very distant father and now feels left out (and in one scene, lashes out to an extent that makes viewers as well as characters' jaws drop). (I was a fan of Marshall on "The Defenders" during my youth; it encouraged the expectation that I shared that I would become a lawyer...)

The viewer knows that Michael Dukakis won the nomination and George W. Bush (with the Willie Horton smears) won the election. At the end of the series, most everyone is dismayed at the then forthcoming choice between Bush and Dukakis. Although that now looks less dismaying than the Bush who occasionally stops by to maintain possession of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C., the series showed the soul-destroying ordeal of running for president. The betrayal of 1960s idealism is a long-running theme in "Doonesbury" along with the absurdity of US presidents' characters and policies. The balance of chagrin and absurdist humor in "Tanner '88" (and the mix of "real" and fictional character) is very similar.

Altman won an Emmy for directing the penultimate episode, "The Boiler Room" in which a last-ditch attempt to open the convention by challenging "super delegates" (party regulars not selected by state caucus, convention, or primary votes). It is a very dramatic episode with T.J. in high gear.

I was not immediately enraptured by the first episodes that introduce the characters and (the second and third) feature a benefit in Nashville (where Murphy worked the local music scene on someone else's behalf in "Nashville." The press bus breaks down, and I'm not quite sure when or whether those who hitch-hike get to the fundraiser (which has had an assassination scare). By the end of the third episode, I was hooked, and had accepted that the series has Altman looseness rather than high-gloss and tight editing of "The West Wing." Altman is more into letting scenes develop (than Aaron Sorkin et al. are). Sometimes this works (Altman's "The Player" is also notable for having many of the characters playing themselves), sometimes it doesn't (can I take another whack at "Quintet" and "Beyond Therapy"?). It mostly works in "Tanner '88," though episode 8 seems to me to meander too much, but the pace pick up in the next two episodes.

BTW, the low-tech campaign seems quaint, but attempts to "spin" stories (especially to an aging NBC correspondent played by Veronica Cartwright) and extreme invasion of privacy were not lacking. I have skipped the soap opera pairings and crises (that are also very "Doonesbury").

The DVD

it's Criterion, so one knows the transfer will be as good as possible (which is not great, since the original was shot on videotape). It seems that there is a shortage of extras: only a thin booklet and the 2004 conversation between Altman and Trudeau (fascinating as that is). Instead of a commentary track or a featurette of cast members reminiscing, each episode begins with T. J. and/or Alex and Jack in fresh (2004) mockumentary interviews. That is, Reed, Nixon, and Murphy play the same characters 16 years later looking back at what happened during the campaign and commenting on what they learned (usually the hard way). These were shot and placed between "on the previous episode" segments and the original 1988 programs for 2004 Sundance Channel broadcast of the series.

I wish Criterion had arranged to interview some of the guest politicians, too, Babbit, Dole, Andrew Young, and Kitty Dukakis in particular.

Close-captioned subtitles are also available on the disc.


©2005, Stephen O. Murray




Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD