Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

All The President's Men

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    All The President's Men

    Having recently watched Frost/Nixon, I was prompted into my once-decadely re-watching of All The President's Men.

    This time, I really noticed how influential it's been on two television series in particular:

    1. The X-Files.
    Obviously, the whole Deep Throat thing, meeting in a deserted underground car park, never getting anything more than a cryptic hint here or a nudge in the right direction there, then a screech of tyres, you look round, and he's gone.... but also, when Woodward and Bernstein are reading through a list of CREEP names, they pause on the surname 'Scully' and say it twice...

    2. The Wire
    The look and feel of the newspaper office, for a start (Washington Post = Baltimore Sun), plus the whole very dry, methodical, unglamorous, follow-the-money type of detective work ('Woodstein' = Lester Freamon), and also the way it's so fucking difficult to follow. In fact, it's even drier than The Wire in that respect. In The Wire, we at least get the occasional shot of a photograph being pinned to the cork board (literally putting names to faces). In ATPM, it's just a bewildering sequence of names: some hapless local money-launderer who flips up to some CREEP member, and so on, until you get inside The White House. For example, unless I'm mistaken, we never actually see Haldeman (the big prize at the end of the chain) depicted.

    Criticisms: well, that, for a start. I'm not an idiot, I don't need everything spelt out, but - as I said halfway into Series 1 of The Wire, for god's sake throw us a bone.

    Secondly, the last five minutes felt like Pakula had run out of film. One minute, Woodward and bernstein's Watergate story looks like crumbling, and the Washington Post is embattled and discredited. The next, we see that electronic typewriter hammering out bulletins that such-and-such has been found guilty, and someone else, and someone else, until Nixon resigns. Would have been good to see how that house of cards actually toppled, after we've invested so much time in watching the slow build-up.

    Still, one of my all-time favourite films. I love watching most Seventies cinema in general, whether good or bad, purely because of the grey, grainy look of the lighting and the film stock, the shabby charisma of America itself at that time, and the whole atmosphere of the era. But this is definitely one of the greats.

    You know who's the star, for me? Jason Robards as Ben Bradlee, exuding calm authority as he pulls the reins on 'Woodstein' only to make sure their story is watertight (i.e. actually doing them a favour), enabling rather than hindering. A subtle and restrained performance.

    #2
    All The President's Men

    By an odd coincidence, I watched Frost/Nixon last Saturday night. And I would seem to return to All the President's Men at intervals similar to yours.

    Comment


      #3
      All The President's Men

      And this.

      Comment


        #4
        All The President's Men

        Oh yeah, The Parallax View is great.

        I always thought Alan J Pakula should have directed Bram Stoker's Dracula, starring Scott Bakula.

        Comment


          #5
          All The President's Men

          Spearmint Rhino wrote:
          Secondly, the last five minutes felt like Pakula had run out of film. One minute, Woodward and bernstein's Watergate story looks like crumbling, and the Washington Post is embattled and discredited. The next, we see that electronic typewriter hammering out bulletins that such-and-such has been found guilty, and someone else, and someone else, until Nixon resigns. Would have been good to see how that house of cards actually toppled, after we've invested so much time in watching the slow build-up.
          Agreed, to a certain extent--certainly agree with you on the complexity of the list of names, etc. But I think the thing is that the movie came out so soon after the events took place, so it was just kind of assumed that Americans seeing it would be familiar with the major players. And even if they weren't, the movie is more about the investigative work behind uncovering Watergate (and romanticizing Woodward and Bernstein) and less about Watergate itself. And again, once the story broke, that's when the people watching the movie would have been aware of what was happening as the house of cards was falling down.

          I was actually just thinking about this movie two days ago, when I had to use my old typewriter at work--made me think of the typewriters spitting out the wire stories at the very end, which always gives me goosebumps when I watch it. ATPM is one of those movies that if I come across it on TV, I'll watch to the end, no matter how far along it is. One of my favorites for sure.

          Comment


            #6
            All The President's Men

            Inca's dead on. We knew all those names intimately. The hearings were on all day every day for what seemed like months (was it? I can't remember.) In a three network TV universe there was no escape and, in any case, no one wanted to, they were absolutely riveting.

            Comment


              #7
              All The President's Men

              Another factor which fed into me re-watching ATPM was that BBC documentary on Hunter S Thompson, specifically the section about his early 70s political reporting (Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail, etc). When Robards mentioned Muskie's implosion, I thought of HST's ankle-grabbing reptiles and cackled.

              Comment


                #8
                All The President's Men

                Spearmint Rhino wrote:
                The look and feel of the newspaper office, for a start
                But isn't that how all newspaper offices look anyway? Every one I've ever been in does. Why do you think it's this movie that was so influential?

                Secondly, the last five minutes felt like Pakula had run out of film. One minute, Woodward and bernstein's Watergate story looks like crumbling, and the Washington Post is embattled and discredited. The next, we see that electronic typewriter hammering out bulletins that such-and-such has been found guilty, and someone else, and someone else, until Nixon resigns. Would have been good to see how that house of cards actually toppled, after we've invested so much time in watching the slow build-up.
                But that's a function of the way the original book was written - it ended very shortly after the '72 election. The period from March 1973 onwards was covered in a second book the pair co-wrote, The Final Days.

                Still, one of my all-time favourite films. I love watching most Seventies cinema in general, whether good or bad, purely because of the grey, grainy look of the lighting and the film stock, the shabby charisma of America itself at that time, and the whole atmosphere of the era. But this is definitely one of the greats.
                Completely agree. If I ever come across this on TV, I have to watch it through to the end. Come to think fof it, I'm not sure I've ever seen the beginning. What's the opening scene, again?

                Comment


                  #9
                  All The President's Men

                  Reading mention of The Parallax View made me think of this...

                  Comment


                    #10
                    All The President's Men

                    The Parallax View is on the BBC tonight.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      All The President's Men

                      This is how the newpaper set was designed (by George Jenkins, who won his only Academy Award for it.) From wikipedia.

                      The Post denied the production permission to shoot in its newsroom and so set designers took measurements of the newspaper's offices, photographed everything, and boxes of trash were gathered and transported to sets recreating the newsroom on two soundstages in Hollywood's Burbank Studios at a cost of $200,000. The filmmakers went to great lengths for accuracy and authenticity, including making replicas of phone books that were no longer in existence.[1] Nearly 200 desks at $500 apiece were purchased from the same firm that sold desks to the Post in 1971. The desks were also colored the same precise shade of paint. The production was supplied with a brick from the main lobby of the Post so that it could be duplicated in fiberglass for the set. Principal photography began on May 12, 1975 in Washington, D.C.[1]

                      Comment


                        #12
                        All The President's Men

                        Incandenza wrote:
                        if I come across it on TV, I'll watch to the end, no matter how far along it is.
                        Antonio Gramsci wrote:
                        If I ever come across this on TV, I have to watch it through to the end.
                        Great minds...

                        Comment


                          #13
                          All The President's Men

                          Umm...yes. though some of us are apparently better than others at reading and absorbing others' posts.

                          Anyways, this thread made me go out and buy the DVD today. Will report back in a day or two once I've seen it again.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            All The President's Men

                            That was about the seventh time I've seen that movie. But I can honestly say that it was the first time I'd seen the first fifteen minutes or so - the break-in, the firs trial - everything up to the point where Redford asks "who's Colson"?

                            Watched it with my son, and I now see SR's point about the need to be very historically literate to watch it new...conspirators' names are continually brought into the story without any background or context. Inca's right - in 1976, everyone would have known who the plotters were, but in this sense it doesn't age well.

                            Surprisingly, this film only won 4 academy awards, of which only one was for acting (Robarts).

                            Comment


                              #15
                              All The President's Men

                              The filmmakers went to great lengths for accuracy and authenticity, including making replicas of phone books that were no longer in existence.[1] Nearly 200 desks at $500 apiece were purchased from the same firm that sold desks to the Post in 1971. The desks were also colored the same precise shade of paint. The production was supplied with a brick from the main lobby of the Post so that it could be duplicated in fiberglass for the set.
                              Am I the only one who thinks this is rather ridiculous? I mean, it's not like Hoffman and Redford are dead-ringers for Woodward and Bernstein.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                All The President's Men

                                All the President's Men is one of my favourite films, for its constant, brooding, underlying sense of the little guys (who you know are the real "heroes" in the end) being on the edge of discovering something so huge they (and them around them) won't be able to cope with the consequences. I think as well as the X-Files, it actually inspired all the recent Dan Brown stuff as well, in its mood if not for all the ridiculous leaps of imagination about secret cults and shit.

                                Only just watched Frost/Nixon on DVD last night, and I have to say, it's brilliant, too. It's a bit of a puff piece for David Frost imho (he was never, in my recollection, "Britain's most flamboyant playboy talkshow host", more "the one who wasn't funny out of 'That Was the Week That Was' who then went on to present 'Through the Keyhole' with Loyd Grossman", but its depiction of Nixon as the brilliant but ultimately bitter and emotional man brought down by his own mistakes and failings (and his railing against how small he felt those 'mistakes' were, and how overblown they became in the eyes of his 'enemies' in his own mind) is actually very moving.

                                Nixon clearly was a man who felt himself to be the "little man", battling through his entire career against what he saw as the "corrupt men with money" (the rich Democrats who had supported the Kennedy clan), which is a fascinating juxtaposition for those like me who more naturally associate the Republicans, not the Democrats, with any old-Europe notion of "aristocracy".

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  All The President's Men

                                  Still, one of my all-time favourite films. I love watching most Seventies cinema in general, whether good or bad, purely because of the grey, grainy look of the lighting and the film stock, the shabby charisma of America itself at that time, and the whole atmosphere of the era. But this is definitely one of the greats.

                                  I think the Seventies is a fascinating decade for American film due to the transformation of such movies from the great, visually grubby and realistic paranoia thrillers of the early years (which brought Chinatown, President's Men, Parallax View - Pakula again - and Three Days of the Condor) into, via Jaws and Star Wars, the glistening, meticulous, sleekly-made and edited-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life blockbusters of the latter years, where enormous, elephantine, bandwagon-jumping special-effectathons would virtually consign the Owen Roizman/Gordon Willis era of realistic, grimy splendour to the past (albeit a glorious one).

                                  You simply can't get that kind of feel today, where photography and content are unbreakably wedded together to evoke something extraordinary. Even the grittier films of the current time look as though they're a few lighting jobs away from a Hugo Boss advert.

                                  Only just watched Frost/Nixon on DVD last night, and I have to say, it's brilliant, too.

                                  I'd say it was impeccably made, but not brilliant, one of my few quandries about it being that for an important moment where Nixon opens up about Watergate, the run-up to it seemed a little rushed and clipped, with little effect of an anticipatory slow-burn build-up towards a moment of impact (which All The President's Men pulls off in its own way). There was chatter, a bit more chatter, a bit of self-doubt from Frost, a bit of drunken ranting from Nixon and then, 'oh by the way, yes I did stitch up the nation'. If anything the film should have been a bit longer so as to make the lead-up to the Moment Of Truth much more emphatic. That said, good stuff, with excellent turns from Sheen and especially Langella.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    All The President's Men

                                    This was a fun take on the Watergate affair:



                                    (Neat pun on the German poster, too).

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      All The President's Men

                                      Was that the title in Germany?

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        All The President's Men

                                        Apparently so, yes - just called Dick in the US.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          All The President's Men

                                          Yes. Even that title was a bit risque for some people. Can't imagine what they would think if they saw a movie called "I Love Dick." There would also probably be lots of complaints from other people that expected...something else.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            All The President's Men

                                            Robards is very good in All the Presidents Men. The first time I noticed this guy was in the film Quick Change, I thought he was great in that too. One of my favourite actors.

                                            As somebody who was born outside of the U.S., 8 years after Watergate, I too had trouble following the story after a while. But the atmosphere of the story was well done nonetheless. You really get the feeling that these guys aren't superheroes or geniuses, but just average reporters taking genuine risks (both career wise and with a genuine life threat too) to delve deep into something.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              All The President's Men

                                              ian.64 wrote:
                                              Still, one of my all-time favourite films. I love watching most Seventies cinema in general, whether good or bad, purely because of the grey, grainy look of the lighting and the film stock, the shabby charisma of America itself at that time, and the whole atmosphere of the era. But this is definitely one of the greats.

                                              I think the Seventies is a fascinating decade for American film due to the transformation of such movies from the great, visually grubby and realistic paranoia thrillers of the early years (which brought Chinatown, President's Men, Parallax View - Pakula again - and Three Days of the Condor) into, via Jaws and Star Wars, the glistening, meticulous, sleekly-made and edited-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life blockbusters of the latter years, where enormous, elephantine, bandwagon-jumping special-effectathons would virtually consign the Owen Roizman/Gordon Willis era of realistic, grimy splendour to the past (albeit a glorious one).

                                              You simply can't get that kind of feel today, where photography and content are unbreakably wedded together to evoke something extraordinary. Even the grittier films of the current time look as though they're a few lighting jobs away from a Hugo Boss advert.
                                              Absolutely true. It's particularly ironic given that equipment is lighter and more manoeverable than ever yet that is rarely taken full advantage of by film-makers. I'm thinking especially of films like Medium Cool or Prologue, fictional films which took advantage of a political event — the 1968 Democratic Convention in both cases — and incorporated it into the story. Today we get films that use the texture of lo-res hand-held filmaking as an artifice — The Blair Witch Project, Cloverdale — but rarely do we get the real thing. I wonder for example, whether anyone was filming the recent US Town Hall Meetings with the intention of integrating them into a story?

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                All The President's Men

                                                I know it's not the same thing as what you're talking about, but I think Michael Mann is someone using handheld digital cameras really well, particularly for some scenes in Ali and Collateral.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  All The President's Men

                                                  Oh yes, there's loads of it about and technically very fine too — The Russian Ark is maybe the most extreme example. But documentary equipment in such a controlled studio context is quite a different creature to its use outside. The fact that, except on TV, that's how it's mainly seen it is, as Ian indicates, suggestive of a contrary attitude towards movie-making to that of forty years ago.

                                                  Comment

                                                  Working...
                                                  X