The snow came, followed by freezing rain, but I was prepared. Friday, in that ugly building, pretending to do our stupid jobs, doing nothing, my office mates and I spent the day following the weather reports, studying streaming radar images on the internet, and discussing what movies we'd watch over the weekend since it looked like we'd be snowed in. On the drive home I picked up Tanner '88 which had been issued on dvd this past election season.
The Altman-Trudeau collaboration was an eleven episode series for HBO. A satire that doesn't always stick to satire, it's got lots of guests spots that were unscripted and come off as true as fiction gets. A sort of meta-political event.
The 2004 release has introductory commentaries by the characters, looking back on the campaign. In episode five, Jack Tanner (Michael Murphy) discusses the outcome of his arrest at an anti-apartheid rally:
Unless you're Nelson Mandela there's not really a big electoral payoff to going to jail. It doesn't have the glamour that it does in other parts of the world. In the Czech Republic or Argentina, past imprisonment is part of your political narrative; it's your log cabin. But in this country being arrested is a liability. Better to be busted on a few DUI's like Bush. That's just cars and beer. It's manly. It's American.
Posted by Bobby Farouk at December 11, 2004 02:51 PM