Tuesday Minute
No. 193 | November 9, 2010

Out of Print

Our theme this week
Films about the newspaper biz

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   Zodiac (2007)

All the President’s Men

All the President’s Men is a film made during the ’70s about events during the ’70s and watching it today you may notice that the times have changed.  Hair was longer, cars were larger, telephones were stationary, but the biggest difference between then and now is in role that journalism played in covering, and shaping, momentous happenings of the day.

Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward are the two young and hungry reporters who crack the story, one of the biggest of the century.  The film starts with a bungled break-in at Washington’s Watergate office complex, and (let’s hope no spoiler notice is needed here) ends with the downfall of Richard Nixon, the only president ever to resign from office.  The focus of the film is the under-the-radar investigation taking place during Nixon’s successful reelection campaign of 1972.  Articles about the burglary and its aftermath are at first buried inside the Washington Post.  Tenuous connections between the burglars and the White House raise suspicions, but it’s far from certain whether Bernstein and Woodward have big news to break.  No one is willing to cooperate.  Except, finally, a source named Deep Throat, a mysterious figure (identified in 2005 as W. Mark Felt, a top official at the FBI) who meets Woodward late at night in dark parking garages.  He steers the reporters cautiously and warns them their lives are in danger.  In the scenes with Deep Throat we get a glimpse of the machinations behind the scenes, the lengths that those in power will go to keep power and to cover up their tracks.  Near the end we see Nixon at his second inauguration, the flickering image of the world’s most powerful man at the height of his power.  The two reporters are at their desks, ignoring the television while they work.  The real story would be coming in the newspaper, which day after day would build and build till soon the world would learn what it did know as it watched live that day.  The film spares us scenes of all the legwork to come.  The growing scandal, the indictments, the convictions, are summed up in a series of headlines that come across the news wire.  It’s a startling and effective close to the story, with the final shot a close-up of a white sheet of paper, and on it written the message:

NIXON RESIGNS
GERALD FORD TO BECOME 38TH PRESIDENT AT NOON TODAY

All the President’s Men is one of the best political thrillers to come out of Hollywood.  It’s a true story and a famous one, and there’s no doubt about what happens in the end.  But the virtue of the film is that so much is at stake.  We get to be a witness to history and see the inside story as it unfolds.

The two stars, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, deserve credit for their portrayals of Woodward and Bernstein, with Jason Robards their boss, editor Ben Bradlee, and Hal Holbrook perfectly cast as the shadowy Deep Throat.  Redford was instrumental in getting the film made, having purchased the rights to the book, and Alan J. Pakula directed from a William Goldman script.  All hit the target with exactly what was needed. 

It is a film of its time, and a reminder of how the news business has changed over the years.  The reporters in All the President’s Men had the benefit of some luck, but also the backing of the paper.  The Washington Post took big risks in breaking the Watergate story.  It’s hard to imagine reporters today having the same institutional support to take on White House.  The news is a corporate-owned, star-driven business now, and those who make news and cover the news are in the same club.  Watergate wasn’t the end of dirty tricks in high places, but the fourth estate is more likely now to look the other way.  (Case in point:  the Plame affair.  I’ll take a look at the new film, Fair Game, later this month.)

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All the President’s Men (1976)
Alan J. Pakula, director
Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward (book), William Goldman (screenplay), writers
Gordon Willis, director of photography
Trailer

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All the President’s Men (1976)
Deep Throat:  “Your lives are in danger”
Robert Redford, Hal Holbrook, Dustin Hoffman

 

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Quote of note
Bradlee:  Did Deep Throat say that people’s lives are in danger?
Woodward:  Yes.
Bradlee:  What else did he say?
Woodward:  He said everyone is involved.
Bradlee:  You know the results of the latest Gallup Poll?  Half the country never even heard of the word Watergate.  Nobody gives a shit.  You guys are probably pretty tired, right?  Well, you should be.  Go on home, get a nice hot bath.  Rest up—fifteen minutes.  Then get your asses back in gear.  We’re under a lot of pressure, you know, and you put us there.  Nothing’s riding on this except the, uh, first amendment to the constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country.  Not that any of that matters, but if you guys fuck up again, I’m going to get mad.  Goodnight.
—Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards), Bob Woodward (Robert Redford), All the President’s Men (1976)

…58…59…60.