All the President's Men
With the revelation that Mark Felt was 'Deep Throat,' various retellings of the Watergate scandal are hitting the news. I highly recommend the 1976 Alan J. Pakula film 'All the President's Men' based on the book of the same title by Woodward and Bernstein. I watched it again recently and was glad to find confirmation of my fond memories of it from when I had first seen it long ago.
The film is chock-full of good actors, from the leads (Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman), to the supporting cast (Jason Robards and Jack Warden), to minor parts (including Ned Beatty, F. Murray Abraham, and Jane Alexander). And the actor playing 'Deep Throat,' Hal Holbrook, even looks something like Mark Felt. The direction is quite good as well, wringing a lot of suspense from a movie where most of the 'action' takes place in scenes of people talking on the phone and typing. I particularly liked the choice to show Nixon and other government figures only through television sets and newspaper headlines. It creates a sense of their distance and power that feels real, and that emphasizes the improbability of the two local-beat reporters the film brings you so close to playing a key role in bringing down a president. Most of the exterior shots are at night, and show a city of monumental buildings but empty streets, implying a place of immense isolation and arrogance.
I also appreciated the movie's lack of condescension. Perhaps because the story was already so well known in 1976, the script doesn't waste time pedanticly explaining everything in simple-minded ways. It makes the film seem more authentic, as if you're another reporter in the newsroom, eavesdropping on the excitement, cringing as the exalted editor Ben Bradlee angrily bellows from his office, 'Woodstein!'
Alas, the ending of the movie comes too quickly, and will probably leave you wondering if they ran out of money or were planning a sequel. It probably reflects the real-life movement of the Watergate story into the mainstream of American political attention, further away from the city desk of a minor Washington newspaper. Other newspapers and reporters, Congressional committees and Supreme Court hearings played increasing parts once the scandal started heating up. That transition could have been handled better, but saying that a movie isn't long enough is hardly a damning criticism.
Any other Watergate movies out there? I can think of only two:
'Dick' (1999)--a charmingly funny account of the heretofore unknown story of how two ditzy adolescent girls helped bring down Nixon. (Will Ferrell as Bob Woodward? I didn't remember that... Have to see this movie again.)
I've not seen Nixon (1995), and I have a certain amount of emnity toward the director, Oliver Stone, but it might be interesting to see Anthony Hopkins as Nixon going crazy in his last days in the White House.
Searches on IMDB turned up a movie I'd never heard of: Robert Altman's Secret Honor (1984). Altman films seem to alternate between being good and being highly annoying. I'm not sure what point in the cycle Altman was at when this came out. The format seems tailor-made for annoyance, but with Phillip Baker Hall (I'll always remember him as the library cop from that Seinfeld episode) as Nixon, it could be interesting.
The more recent The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004) looks like a good movie, but seemingly has little to do with Watergate.
The film is chock-full of good actors, from the leads (Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman), to the supporting cast (Jason Robards and Jack Warden), to minor parts (including Ned Beatty, F. Murray Abraham, and Jane Alexander). And the actor playing 'Deep Throat,' Hal Holbrook, even looks something like Mark Felt. The direction is quite good as well, wringing a lot of suspense from a movie where most of the 'action' takes place in scenes of people talking on the phone and typing. I particularly liked the choice to show Nixon and other government figures only through television sets and newspaper headlines. It creates a sense of their distance and power that feels real, and that emphasizes the improbability of the two local-beat reporters the film brings you so close to playing a key role in bringing down a president. Most of the exterior shots are at night, and show a city of monumental buildings but empty streets, implying a place of immense isolation and arrogance.
I also appreciated the movie's lack of condescension. Perhaps because the story was already so well known in 1976, the script doesn't waste time pedanticly explaining everything in simple-minded ways. It makes the film seem more authentic, as if you're another reporter in the newsroom, eavesdropping on the excitement, cringing as the exalted editor Ben Bradlee angrily bellows from his office, 'Woodstein!'
Alas, the ending of the movie comes too quickly, and will probably leave you wondering if they ran out of money or were planning a sequel. It probably reflects the real-life movement of the Watergate story into the mainstream of American political attention, further away from the city desk of a minor Washington newspaper. Other newspapers and reporters, Congressional committees and Supreme Court hearings played increasing parts once the scandal started heating up. That transition could have been handled better, but saying that a movie isn't long enough is hardly a damning criticism.
Any other Watergate movies out there? I can think of only two:
'Dick' (1999)--a charmingly funny account of the heretofore unknown story of how two ditzy adolescent girls helped bring down Nixon. (Will Ferrell as Bob Woodward? I didn't remember that... Have to see this movie again.)
I've not seen Nixon (1995), and I have a certain amount of emnity toward the director, Oliver Stone, but it might be interesting to see Anthony Hopkins as Nixon going crazy in his last days in the White House.
Searches on IMDB turned up a movie I'd never heard of: Robert Altman's Secret Honor (1984). Altman films seem to alternate between being good and being highly annoying. I'm not sure what point in the cycle Altman was at when this came out. The format seems tailor-made for annoyance, but with Phillip Baker Hall (I'll always remember him as the library cop from that Seinfeld episode) as Nixon, it could be interesting.
The more recent The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004) looks like a good movie, but seemingly has little to do with Watergate.
posted by Ambivalent_Maybe at 5:20 AM
2 Comments:
May I add that Woodward and Bernstein's book was also a good read. I vaguely remember reading it when it first came out in 1974. I was taking a 'communications' class at the UW, and my professor loaned me his copy. I actually remember students who thought it was a media conspiracy and that Nixon was a 'great' president. Whereas the movie (if my recollection is correct) seemed to focus on the investigative aspects of the story, the book, though it also took this tack, also went into greater depth about what they were finding out. Reality is that the real details came out via the congressional hearings, which were being broadcast daily on national tv. The congressional hearings made a star out of Sam Ervin and were truly fascinating. I don't know if there are any documentaries out there on the hearings, but if not, there should be.
I also recommend the Woodstein book 'The Final Days' for a gripping account of the Watergate fallout, more from an inside-the-White-House perspective. In fact, this book once saved my life. Probably. I was bicycling home from the library with the book stuffed under the front of my shirt; I lost control of the bike in a sand patch at the bottom of a very steep hill and went flying over the handlebars. I landed chest-first and skidded forward, the book under my shirt acting as armor against the rocks & roots along the side of the road. My bike was totally wrecked--the wheels so bent I could barely push it--and my hands, arms & knees were all cut up. But my vital internal organs were unharmed, protected by The Final Days. True story.
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