The Parallax View

 Year:  1974

Director:  Alan J. Pakula

Screenplay:  David Giler and Lorenzo Semple Jr., based on the novel The Parallax View by Loren Singer

Starring:  Warren Beatty, Hume Cronyn, William Daniels, Paula Prentiss

Running Time:  102 minutes

Genre:  Thriller

Three years after a politician is murdered at the Seattle Space Needle, the witnesses seem to be dying of apparent accidents or natural causes.  Television journalist Lee Carter (Prentiss) who witnessed the murder is convinced that the witnesses are being deliberately killed, and that she is next on the list.  She contacts her ex-boyfriend, hard-bitten newspaper reporter Joe Frady (Beatty) for help.  Joe doesn't believe her at first, until Lee dies of an apparent drug overdose.  Joe starts to investigate and finds himself drawn into a complex and dangerous conspiracy, centred around the sinister Parallax Corporation.

 As American as apple pie

Based on the 1970 novel by Loren Singer, with an intelligent and sometimes darkly funny screenplay by David Giles and Lorenzo Semple Jr., The Parallax View is a surprisingly bleak work, with a genuinely shocking conclusion, but it still has all the ingredient of an exciting thriller: fights, chases (including an impressive car chase), and a desperate race against time.  Warren Beatty gives an impressive performance as the tough, but surprisingly vulnerable reporter, whose silver tongue and quick fists do little to top him quickly getting out of his depth.  Director Alan J. Pakula, who had previously made Klute (1971) and would go on to make All the President's Men (1976) creates an atmosphere of chilly menace.  Throughout the film there is this constant sense of a vast conspiracy, even the way the film is photographed, with many scenes being viewed from a distance, or from overhead, putting the viewer in the place of a spy observing the proceedings.  The film's most impressive set-piece is the striking assassin training sequence where a series of fragmented still images and words are flashed in quick sensation.  Following the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, not to mention Watergate and Richard Nixon, the 1970s were an era of bleak political thrillers, but the theme of paranoia, alienation and conspiracy still feels very much of the moment.  

The Parallax View
  

All the President's Men

Year of Release:  1976
Director:  Alan J. Pakula
Screenplay:  William Goldman, based on the book All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
Starring:  Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook, Jason Robards
Running Time:  138 minutes
Genre:  Political thriller, drama

This film tells the story of the investigation into the infamous Watergate scandal, in which five men burgled the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex in Washington DC, and the subsequent cover-up by then President Richard Nixon.  The film focuses on the investigation into the scandal by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward (Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Hoffman), and is based on the non-fiction book they subsequently wrote.

The film is one of the classic films about journalism.  The film contrasts the brightly lit, open plan offices of the Washington Post where characters are constantly in motion, followed by a constantly roving camera, with shadowy with shadowy, dimly lit homes, offices, and the underground garages where Woodward meets his mysterious informant (Holbrook).  This is about the day to day business of journalism, days spent on the phone and knocking on doors, desperately searching for anyone who will talk to them, pouring over reams of documents for scraps of information or verification.  This all could seem quite dry, and confusing, but as scripted by William Goldman, and directed by Alan Pakula, who made several political thrillers during the 1970s, it is quite gripping and fairly easy to follow, even if you are not particularly familiar with the case.  The story keeps moving along, with committed performances from the cast and a wealth of background detail.  In the scenes in the Post offices, both the foreground and the background are kept in focus. 
The film was released just a couple of years after the Watergate scandal concluded and so most of the original audience would probably have been aware of the case, but now it is kind of a historical case, even though it was one of the major American political scandals and one of the key events of the 1970s, although by today's standards it all seems rather quaint.

Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford in All the President's Men