“I can’t stand it
I know you planned it
I’m gonna set it straight, this Watergate…”
For this one, we go back to the seventies again, to what was then considered a time of political tumult that naturally, most thought could never come again as much as it had never come before. Here’s a film that encapsulates how this all came to be perhaps better than most—as well as the one that helped codify the feel of the modern thriller, and encapsulate the zeitgeist of conspiracy obsession that in many ways still lingers with us. Here’s my take on All The President’s Men…
In a nutshell, the film adapts the non-fiction book by journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, played here by Dustin Hoffman and Hollywood legend Robert Redford respectively. Things start, as they so often tend to do in fiction and reality, with the very small—and here, it all kicks off with a security guard discovering something odd at the Watergate hotel complex.
And so our two reporters from The Washington Post are put on the case—what starts with a look at a group of Cubans wiretapping soon leads to a much wider picture leading up to the very top of the Nixon administration, with political skulduggery and questionable cash wires aplenty. It’s difficult to describe what a watershed moment this was for America, in all the senses—combined with the military mismanagement in Vietnam, economic struggles, and more, these were the events that bought down trust in the federal government. Nixon not only demonstrated to the electorate the dirty tricks someone like him could pull, but in time to the rest of the world of politics.
And to have this spelt out like that here would in turn birth the litanies of conspiracy theory that can trace their roots back to legitimate corruption, a foundation for which distrust and paranoia would mutate into the absurd and dangerous in and of itself.
So yes, on that level, All The President’s Men remains an interesting watch—it’s still well made, with great performances from our two leads, and the cinematography is nice as well. Much like fellow seventies classic The Godfather, this one makes excellent use of shadow for some compelling visuals, with great long shots of the various areas around Washington DC. Between tense meetings with mysterious sources and more, you can see well how this would influence future projects like X-Files, and many other a political thriller on screens both big and small.
You can find companions of sorts to this film—in recent times we’ve had Spielberg’s The Post, and to flip the perspective, there’s also Nixon from Oliver Stone (a filmmaker who I have at best great ambivalence as a person, but it can’t be denied he’s turned in memorable pictures before). But in terms of setting what would be the feel and mood of a decade, there’s really not many like President’s Men.
The difference, of course, between the likes of Nixon and those that came later, was that Nixon had some competence to him.
Comments
Post a Comment