The Filmkollektiv Zurich's documentary Cinema - Dead or Alive is an excellent introduction to Tanner's methods. Whereas most on-the-set films tend to be aimless collections of handheld interviews, concerted backpatting, and pre-release hype, Cinema - Dead or Alive is a highly-structured film in its own right, an imaginative investigation into how a movie is made. The movie under examination is Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000, Tanner's witty and moving postscript to the post-'68 generation. Centering on the shooting of a single, key scene in Jonah, the documentary leads one to an awareness of the many complex levels that constitute Tanner's cinema, then branches out to show the film in relation to its actors, producer, financiers, cameramen, editor, projectionist, audience, and so on. Combining concrete analysis with witty plays on Tanner's own brand of semi-Brechtian technique, Cinema - Dead or Alive achieves, like Tanner himself, “a film which seeks a dialogue with its audience.”