All The President’s Men screens August 6th at 7pm as part of our HEY! DID YOU KNOW IT’S AN ELECTION YEAR? series. Tickets and more information are available HERE
There are film trilogies that exist because a story was too sprawling to be told in 2 hours, whether adapted from a book (Lord of the Rings), or original sagas that would become even larger franchises (Star Wars). But what about trilogies that are not decided on ahead of time, but reconsidered by critics and audiences after a filmmaker has produced enough works that play together thematically?
Alan J. Pakula likely did not set out to have his films from 1971-1976 be seen as a continuation of one another, as they cover a variety of subjects from different vantage points, all feature different actors, and various studios and producers. Yet, thanks to the consistent brilliant cinematography from Gordon Willis, and a true masterclass in suspense and paranoia in their blocking and structures, we can look at Pakula’s run over these years as his very own Paranoia Trilogy.
Coming not long after the most turbulent period in American politics and life (at that point in time), the unofficial trilogy was kicked off by only the second directorial effort from Pakula, who made his name producing films like To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and his directorial debut with the Liza Minelli-starring The Sterile Cuckoo (1969). The real trilogy began with Klute (1971), featuring then-controversial choice Jane Fonda, fresh off her protests against the Vietnam War, and the late, great Donald Sutherland, coming off the smash hit MASH (1970).
Klute tackles paranoia from an extremely personal level, following Sutherland as the eponymous John Klute, a detective who travels to New York City to investigate the disappearance of his close friend Tom Gruneman. His findings quickly lead him to Bree, a call-girl who has a connection with Gruneman, although she has no recollection of their interactions. Klute and Bree quickly develop a strange, symbiotic relationship, as he moves into the basement unit of her apartment building, where she receives mysterious calls and threats from the New York underworld, acting as Klute’s guide.
There’s no large, wide-reaching conspiracies at play here, the villains have personal relationships with the heroes. They have names, families, responsibilities. Pakula gets at these subtle threats with a low-key and off-putting opening. The very first shot of the film is a tape recorder spinning, capturing sound. The next is a family dinner, with Klute sitting centered at the table, framed by who we soon find out to be Gruneman and his wife at either end. As husband-and-wife smile at one another, Pakula takes us through a simple shot-reverse shot, except when we go back to Tom – there’s only an empty chair. Suddenly we have leapt days ahead with no warning. He’s there one second and gone the other. Mrs. Gruneman and Klute are in their same positions, only now there’s a detective questioning them, and Gruneman’s boss standing off to the side. It’s not a flashy cut, but by using this basic film tool Pakula is able to undercut what appeared to be a pleasant gathering into a scene of questions and uncertainty. What Mrs. Gruneman tells us, and the detective doesn’t provide any answers either. It seems like he really just vanished.
The title sequence shows another recording taking place, at that time with an unknown woman voiceover. In just the first five minutes, we are enveloped in a mysterious and dark tone, and our awareness to the potential of being recorded and followed is high. Even the visual introduction to Bree’s character, taking part in a lineup of fellow aspiring models, captures the same themes of surveillance as the casting directors walk by and casually toss out harsh and judgmental thoughts about the women’s appearance. We don’t see their faces, but are dollied past the many women reacting to their rejections in real time.
Klute caught on to the paranoia wave that was becoming more prevalent in American culture at the time. Just three years after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., eight after John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. and as the unpopular Vietnam war was just beginning to end. There was a deep distrust in politicians and public figures, although not much clarity or sense of direction. This takes us to the next film in the series, The Parallax View (1974), starring Warren Beatty as an investigative reporter who notices that following an assassination of a U.S. senator, many reporters and members of the senator’s administration are being killed or disappearing.
Again, there is plenty of dark visual intrigue thanks to Willis, who’s mastery could also be seen in the same years’ The Godfather: Part II. In addition to the welcome use of shadows and darkness to provide a sense of mystery and paranoia – who knows who’s waiting around those corners or in the background – Willis also utilized zoom lenses and wide compositions that not only provided a sense that Beatty’s Joe Frady is being observed and followed, but to scale how small he is compared to the conspiracy he stumbles on.
The Parallax View can be read as an echo of the high-profile assassinations of political leaders that didn’t always add up to a lone gunman theory. As Frady dives deeper into what happened to the first U.S. Senator in the film, he finds documents belonging to the Parallax Corporation, who seem to be responsible for the first assassination, as well as the cover-up murders that followed. Frady joins the corporation after believing to be compromised in yet another follow-up assassination, and we see his initiation which involves viewing a strange and frightening film that features quickly edited images, implying some use of brainwash on the Parallax operatives.
Two more assassinations of potential presidential candidates follow this in the film, to which Frady finds himself closely involved. While we don’t ever find out the exact reasons these killings are ordered by the corporation, or if there is a group higher up that is providing instructions, there is at least a direction to go to for the viewer, a suggestion of a person or organization that is responsible for the political upheaval. Each assassination in the film is followed with an organization placing blame on one gunman following an investigation, not dissimilar to the Warren Commission’s finding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone during JFK’s assassination. Again, the film reflects this case as Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby before he could admit his guilt or prove his innocence, and Ruby died of cancer before he could be tried, leaving American citizens with a lack of evidence or reason to the unthinkable events in 1963.
Part of what makes these conspiracy thrillers work is the sense of closure and causality that we often don’t find in real life. Having a clear villain with motives that is found out by the hero by the end of two hours lets us live vicariously through them, in a more black and white world. At the time of these films, the world was becoming more complicated in a more visible way very quickly. Interestingly, the June 1974 release of Parallax came just two months before Richard Nixon’s resignation as President over the Watergate scandal, which would be the subject of Pakula’s next film. Roger Ebert’s review of Parallax even hints to the heroic reputation of reporters like Woodward and Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters who broke the story.
The reverence of reporting and true journalistic instincts and lifestyle is part of what makes All The President’s Men so thrilling. You wouldn’t think a procedural film about reporters would make for a compelling drama, but the commitment of stars Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford (the anti-Beatty), the creative direction of Pakula and again the stunning visuals from Willis all make the film come together as one of the greatest works of the medium.
Instead of a wide-reaching, invented villain like the Parallax Corporation, Woodward and Bernstein follow a hunch that leads them “all the way to the top”. At the first reporting of the Watergate break-ins, Woodward (Redford) is assigned as a new reporter at the paper to a story that didn’t seem like it had much significance. Quickly, ties to the CIA, and White House are found that bring in Bernstein (Hoffman), and the participation of Deep Throat, an informer who acts almost as a checkpoint for Woodward, not providing much new information but hinting if they are on the right path, and in one of the film’s enduring quotes, to “Follow the money”.
The film had an incredibly fast turnaround from real-life to celluloid, being released in 1976 following the publication of Woodward and Bernstein’s book in 1974, however Redford supposedly was in discussions with Woodward back in 1972, as the events were just beginning to unfold. It’s hardly flashy in a traditional sense, outside of some creative split-diopters to capture the entire newsroom and the growing respect between the two reporters, and the potentially the best use of Willis’ now signature shadows in the nighttime parking garage meetings with Deep Throat since Don Corelone was introduced in The Godfather (1972).
The trilogy followed the sense of paranoia forming over the decade, from the lose, more implied danger in Klute, to a search for reason and answers in Parallax, finally to the facts of what is possible in politics and government with President’s Men. In all, the films make for a fantastic series, each starring a different range of stars from the era, Fonda and Sutherland to Beatty to Hoffman and Redford. Pakula develops as a director over the films as well, his visual storytelling becoming more confident and pointed as the decade progressed. Even from Klute’s somewhat convenient reveal to the despair of Parallax’s climax, the matter-of-fact ending of President’s feels like it most captures the sense of the decade. It’s time to stay vigilant, pay attention, and get back to work.
— JL