All the President's Men (1976)

Alright, you guys know the drill: I’ve found another very specific thread of storytelling that I’ve become obsessed with: this time paranoid political thrillers, especially those from the seventies. I’ve been working hard to catalog as many as I can. This, of course, means I’m no stranger to the work of one Alan J. Pakula, director of the excellent paranoid character study Klute and the incredibly spooky The Parallax View, still most likely the best film inspired by the JFK assassination there’s ever been. Those two films happen to belong to something fans of Pakula have taken to calling his “paranoia trilogy,” the last film of which is what we’ll be taking a look at today. After dealing with surveillance and political assassinations in his previous two works of fiction, All The President’s Men sees Pakula showing off a different side of the conspiracy narrative, primarily because this one happens to be completely true.

Yes, this film is based on the book of the same name written by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein after their breaking of Nixon’s infamous Watergate scandal, an example of a genuine government conspiracy and quite a mundane one at that. Watergate served as vindication for many loonies who had long suspected shady shit going on behind the scenes, though it worked just as well as an argument against their wild claims: if the president couldn’t hide bugging the Democratic National Committee, how exactly does Oliver Stone expect me to believe that Lyndon B. Johnson made a deal to have his own running mate assassinated so that he could become president and force the US into Vietnam and yet no one ever found out? 

They don't make 'em like they used to

I've always enjoyed Watergate as a story, simply because there’s a certain satisfaction in watching the cards fall. What begins as the story of a simple, though bizarre, break-in at the Watergate Hotel slowly begins to unravel a much larger conspiracy implicating not just top aides but even the president himself. And afterward, Nixon was essentially forced to resign. This means All the President's Men winds up playing as the perfect companion to the nihilistic The Parallax View given that it has a happy enough ending: people on both sides of the president roundly condemned his actions, and democracy survived. One can’t help but wonder if in this current day and time, which we’re told is so more enlightened than times past, something like the Watergate story would even make any kind of appreciable impact. Nowadays, if a politician denies that blue is the color of the sky, his supporters will cheer and put it on a bumper sticker whether it makes good sense or not, so strong is their ability to deny reality. 

But on the subject of modernity, how about the way Alan J. Pakula directs this vintage pseudo-documentary, huh? This is a far cry from something like (I know, I’ve got to stop bringing this up) JFK, which has to outright tell you everything, show you everything, put all the pieces together for you, and generally be as unsubtle and un-immersive as possible to get you where it wants you. And that’s not saying anything of simply distorting the truth. Take for instance All the President’s Men’s incredible opening sequence, which depicts the Watergate break-in itself. There is no soundtrack here, and precious little dialogue that isn’t absolutely necessary. It really captures the atmosphere of that infamous night, when the rest of the world was sleeping and history was being made. And it’s not just that: we get to see these guys working through problems like a real journalist would, taking ample notes, making phone calls, searching massive piles of paperwork for clues, and tightening up messy copy, all while smoking plenty of cigarettes and drinking endless amounts of coffee. We get to feel like we're working right alongside these brilliant, driven men as they make headway into the case, and because the film trusts you to follow along without handholding, you actually become invested in things as the movie unfolds.

But to the layperson, the most obvious aspect of the film that’s meant to evoke reality is the film’s naturalistic dialogue, written by William Goldman based on conversations from the book, and performed in a unique fashion by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman to give the impression of it all being taken from life or even improvised. We regularly witness our leads stumbling over their words and talking over one another, even occasionally coming across as very awkward when confronted with the size of the beast they'd stumbled onto. It feels human, and thus, feels real. All these things come together to create something that isn’t quite a normal thriller and certainly isn’t a documentary, but is nonetheless the definitive take on Watergate. You can trust it, and you can get lost in it.

How far up does this thing go?

Some people would surely argue differently. I imagine one of the biggest potential complaints about the film someone might have is that it essentially stops just before the second half of the story kicks in, where Nixon himself entered into a battle with everyone in Washington over executive privilege and the release of incriminating tapes in his possession, a battle that would eventually lead to his hasty resignation before he could be impeached. It sounds odd, sure, but it means that as a movie, and as a story especially, the whole experience is much stronger overall. Had the movie’s scope been much larger, there’s no doubt many of the subtle things I love about the characterization of our heroes and their methodical investigation would have had to be cut for time. Plus, the rest of the story is nothing but a victory lap for our Woodward and Bernstein who, by the time the film ends, have gone from young whiz kid journalists working for one of the biggest publications in the country to the two biggest names in journalism. Needless to say, any potential additions could only have diluted the film’s razor-sharp focus.

Ultimately, this is one of the best historical films I’ve ever seen, one which manages to successfully balance journalistic integrity to the subject with artful filmmaking made for adults who are expected to pay close attention from beginning to end. Its reputation as the best-ever film about journalism is one I concur with, ditto its reputation as one of the greatest thrillers of all time. Sure, you know the heroes won’t die, and you know the whole thing will get found out, but since the story doesn’t deal in broad strokes and keeps its feet so firmly on the ground throughout, it’s still very easy to become absorbed in the minutia of the investigation and the sequence of events that led to the greatest political scandal of modern times despite this. It may be a bit hard to follow if you have no background in the subject whatsoever, but this potential comes as a result of the film playing things subtly enough that you can watch the film over and over again and discover new things each time.