All the President’s Men November 5, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1970s , trackback
Intelligent, engrossing suspense films have always been few and far between in Hollywood. All the President’s Men
The story of the Watergate break-in of the national Democratic headquarters by men later found to have been hired by government officials directly under President Nixon was essentially buried by most media after it happened in 1972. The advantage that Woodward and Bernstein had over other reporters, and probably what ultimately resulted in their breakthrough, was twofold. First, they were situated in Washington, D.C. and therefore had easy access to interview subjects. Second, and maybe most importantly, they were quite low on the totem pole in the newsroom and thus had ample time and opportunity to pursue the story. In the film, Woodward is portrayed as quickly catching on that there’s more to the Watergate burglary than initially meets the eye and Bernstein is shown as eager to break out from his lowly position at the Post. Regardless, the undeniable truth is that the two reporters most likely would never have broke the most damning parts of the story had they been more established newsmen.
Renowned screenwriter William Goldman wrote the script from the book of the same name about these two mostly inexperienced cub reporters who brought down the President of the United States. The plot remains just complicated enough (without being impossible to follow) to make the viewer feel like he’s putting together the pieces of this massive political puzzle of a scandal along with Woodward and Bernstein. “Follow the money,” the enigmatic informant known as Deep Throat (who was finally unmasked as G-man Mark Felt over thirty years after the fact) tells Woodward in one of their clandestine parking garage meetings. This advice leads the two men to various off-the-record interviews that eventually help establish Nixon’s direct knowledge of the break-in, funded by the still humorously named CREEP (which stood for the Committee to Re-Elect the President). Along the way, they’re both discouraged and encouraged by Post editor Ben Bradlee (played by Jason Robards in the first of his two consecutive Oscar-winning performances).
Director Alan J. Pakula made a career out of smart, suspenseful thrillers with All the President’s Men at the very top. His earlier political thriller The Parallax View, starring Warren Beatty, served as somewhat of a warm-up and is a fine, thoughtful slice of 70s paranoia that belongs in a sub-genre of similar works with All the President’s Men and another Redford vehicle, Sydney Pollack’s intriguing Three Days of the Condor. The recent two-disc DVD from Warner Bros. has several interview subjects raving about Pakula’s directing style and actors obviously responded to the freedom he gave them, as evidenced by the three Oscars that actors won for his films (Robards, Jane Fonda for Klute, and Meryl Streep for Sophie’s Choice). Personally, I’m also a fan of Harrison Ford’s work in the Pakula-directed Presumed Innocent, based on Scott Turow’s novel.
Not surprisingly, then, the performances here are top-notch. Redford, who’s never been given his due for the many fine performances he gave in the 70s, was probably never better. He had the disadvantage of playing someone that was at least fairly well known at the time (and who looked nothing like him) and now regarded as the most famous American reporter in modern times, yet his unsure demeanor comes across quite well here. It’s not a terribly juicy part, but Redford does a nice job and Dustin Hoffman, who wasn’t upstaged in anything he was in from this heyday of American filmmaking, is also impressive as well in a non-showy, second banana kind of role.
In addition to Robards’ Academy Award-winning turn, Jane Alexander was also nominated for a small, but effective performance as a key source for the reporters, but lost to Beatrice Straight, who had even less screentime in Network (which, incidentally, is also in Warners’ Controversial Classics, Vol. 2 - The Power of Media
Ultimately, though, All the President’s Men succeeds as a brilliant political thriller infused with little touches of conspiracy paranoia and as a detective story where two young reporters struggle to get to the bottom of the Watergate burglary. Woodward and Bernstein, as portrayed by Redford and Hoffman, are simply looking for the truth, without an axe to grind or any personal agenda to forward. That’s part of why the film works so well, even on repeat viewings, since the audience probably knows the end result of their investigation. The 2-hour plus running time breezes by and the tension rarely subsides. It’s as much a story of their struggle as it is a story of Watergate.
All the President’s Men is the rare film steeped in modern history (it was made in 1976, a mere four years after the burglary which opens the film) that succeeds in providing compelling entertainment despite its well-known story. Too often films are made soon after real life events that feel perfunctory or like an attempt to cash in on public interest. That’s not the case here. This is a fascinating study of two young men that simultaneously works as an important historical snapshot. The DVD does a good job of discussing the film’s impact on investigative journalism, but also makes the depressing point that Woodward and Bernstein most likely would not be able to uncover such a high-profile story today. Power structures and attention spans have vastly changed over the past thirty years, to the point that subpoenas and jail time have mostly quelled the use of secret sources of this magnitude.
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