The Parallax View (1974)

Ah, the seventies. Could it be the best era of filmmaking there’s ever been? Between the lack of codified 'rules' that strictly define how Hollywood films are supposed to work - rules that wouldn’t come along until the success of films like Jaws and Star Wars toward the end of the decade - and the bleak mindset that seemed to dominate the decade overall, it just seems that the seventies has a higher batting average than any other decade in the history of cinema. Films like Chinatown, Coma, The Conversation, the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Soylent Green, The Tenant, and, without wishing to spoil my entire opinion right away, The Parallax View: perhaps the definitive paranoid political thriller of all time.

We could go back and forth over why exactly the seventies were as bleak as they were. Was it the harsh reality check of Vietnam? Or did it have more to do with the infamous free concert at Altamont Speedway and the failure of the hippie movement in general? Watergate? How about the Manson killings? Who’s to say, but it’s obvious when watching today’s film precisely what inspired it, and that’s the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy and the subsequent investigation into his death: an investigation that came to the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing him, and that his subsequent death at the hands of Jack Ruby was nothing more than one lone nut killing off another lone nut. Nothing to see here…

Obviously, Alan J. Pakula and Co. weren’t the only ones who didn’t exactly buy this premise, but what separates The Parallax View from other pseudo-factual films like Executive Action and Oliver Stone’s massive waste of time JFK is that this film doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not: this is a totally fictional tale, dreamed up by people who feel something about the assassination wasn’t right, but would rather use it as a launching pad to create great art that captures the zeitgeist of the era than try and create a compelling case based on any one of the hundreds of JFK conspiracy theories. The fact that Pakula takes his concept seriously despite this distinguishes the whole thing as a work that stands out in a sea of similar thrillers and films inspired by the assassination. And somehow, regardless of its fictional status, it represents the single most terrifying spin on political assassinations there’s ever been and certainly the most believable. Its central conceit might even cause one to begin reflecting on all the real-life nuts that have been going off the reservation in the last two decades. No, forget that: the last two years. In that way, the film might actually seem more plausible in '23 than it did upon release.

A view to a kill

But let’s back up and outline things a bit. The film begins with a young female reporter named Lee Carter interviewing presidential candidate Charles Carroll just before he’s assassinated mere inches from her. The lone gunman is chased up to the top of the Space Needle where a confrontation takes place that ends with him falling to his death. A few months later, a congression committee assigned to the assassination determines the deceased assailant acted alone.

Soon after this, however, Lee Carter shows up at her ex-boyfriend and investigative reporter Joe Frady’s place, seemingly terrified. She tells him that she and other witnesses present at the scene must have seen 'something' that someone doesn’t want to come out, and so are being killed off one by one in ways that appear at first glance to be natural causes or freak accidents. Believing she’s next, Carter begs Frady to help her, but he doesn’t take her seriously and the encounter goes nowhere. Also immediately after, Carter is discovered dead of a drug overdose and the guilt-ridden Frady decides he must investigate. 

It isn’t long before multiple attempts on Frady’s life have been made, and thanks to a ‘lucky break,’ he finds himself as a believed-dead unperson who must attempt to infiltrate the mysterious Parallax Corporation if he ever hopes to find answers. But will those answers really be worth the cost?

"There will be no questions."

So it’s got a great, almost horror movie premise: someone or something is killing everybody who was present at the Space Needle that fateful day, and the world at large seems to be largely unaware and/or uninterested. It’s creepy, and it only gets steadily creepier as the film goes on, culminating in an ending that is genuinely unsettling and difficult to forget. The narrative maintains a mysterious, shadowy tone - enhanced by smart directorial choices - that never quite fully answers many of the questions it brings up, but it answers just enough to avoid feeling like a disappointment. What we don’t know and can only speculate on just makes the whole thing more unsettling. It's also thanks to this that The Parallax View is able to capture the spooky appeal of real-life conspiracy theories so well; in real life, we generally never get hard answers to these sorts of questions, and that's why the myths and legends that spring up in their place retain their power decades after the fact. The film's ending also avoids feeling out-and-out unsatisfying: unlike the ending of something like De Palma's Blow Out, which just felt like a joke, this ending punctuates the story beautifully and bookends things in a way that really makes the whole narrative feel as artfully engineered as fine clockwork.

Another thing that I appreciate about the film, and which I think makes it even more prescient in 2023 than it was upon release, is its imaginative take on the lone nut theory.

*start of brief spoilers*

Essentially, the film proposes a secret network of anti-social weirdos (like the kind that are usually the perpetrators of such crimes in real life) that are being manipulated by shadowy higher-ups. Their hang-ups and latent issues are taken advantage of: not only are they much more willing to stand their ground and go out swinging due to their lack of engagement outside of their work, leaving no trace after they’ve been ‘activated,’ but they simply don’t raise much suspicion. Everyone will just say “Hey, you never know about some people,” and move on. What makes it interesting to me is that… well, consider the seemingly endless number of spree-killings that occur regularly in this day and age, usually carried out by similar lone nuts. It seems the Parallax Corporation has moved beyond assassinating political targets in ’23; now, they’re more into mowing down crowds of innocents in schools, nightclubs, churches, and nail salons, though for what purpose is anyone’s guess…

*end of spoilers*

Now obviously, I don’t exactly believe a word of this, but neither does Alan J. Pakula; he’s asking questions, not pretending to provide answers, and that puts The Parallax View in a whole other ballfield when compared to similar films. I also appreciate that the film tries to distance itself from directly mirroring the Kennedy assassination (which was by that point nearly a decade old,) and coming across as tasteless the way the “back and to the left” scene in JFK does. 

Pulling the strings

But all of this says nothing of the masterful direction that brings this material to life. Pakula embodies much of what I love about directors working during the seventies, which as I noted above simply didn’t feel as beholden to cinematic cliche and handholding as modern films do. Take for instance one of the earliest scenes: when Carroll’s assassination flees to the roof of the Space Needle and attempts to fight off a squad of policemen trying to apprehend him, all we can hear of the entire encounter is the howling of the wind. Come to think of it, the whole scene is presented wide and flat as well, suggesting a security camera recording moreso than a Hollywood action film. Pakula says that such angles were used a lot during this film to make it feel as though everything and everyone in the film is under constant surveillance. In a modern film, you’d have to have quick cuts, shaky cam, and tense music. Hell, this film has some truly incredible music from composer Michael Small they could have used to punch up the scene a bit but didn’t. Instead, everything plays out in a much more immersive way, and one that is unique enough to make for a memorable sequence. Just imagine: if you were fighting on the Space Needle, you probably wouldn’t be able to hear anything but the wind either. 

Pakula’s direction is tight and authoritative yet light as a feather. Viewers spoiled by recent films will certainly decry how slow the film moves and how little dialogue there is in the third act, but those are precisely the reasons that cinephiles will love it. You have to pay attention and actually watch what’s happening; then and only then can the film really do its thing. The sense of dread that mounts as Frady’s deadly game of cat and mouse plays out is palpable, and it all concludes with a brutal, nihilistic ending that is as satisfying as it is disturbing.

And so there it is: The Parallax View is a film that could launch a thousand obsessions. It’s a reminder that the films of the ‘70s are uniquely appealing to cynics like me and those who generally view life as one extended horror film, but it’s also a reminder that great craft doesn't age and that many story ideas from fifty years ago actually seem more plausible now than they did originally. Fast-paced shlock that feels the need to explain every plot detail, usually with exposition rather than visual storytelling, is the result of bad filmmaking, no matter the decade, and The Parallax View - with its slow and very immersive doomed march to a bleak conclusion - is very much the antithesis of this. Plus, it might just give you pause the next time a “lone nut” goes off the reservation, which should be any second now.