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.

Monday Minute
No. 192 | November 8, 2010

Out of Print

Another film today about a serial killer, but no, not a leftover from our Halloween week theme.  This week we feature films set in the world of one of our great institutions—the newspaper business.  You may have read the news that newspapers may not be around much longer.  I’d say that obituary is a bit premature, but even if rumors of the death of the newspaper have been exaggerated, the challenges to the business are nonetheless real.

I grew up reading the paper every day—the dead-tree edition (though we never called it that then).  I still do.  It’s hardly the only (or even primary) source of news anymore, but I like to think I’ll always be able to get my fingers dirty with news ink while I sip my morning coffee.  I prefer print, and not just because it’s a habit or for sentimental reasons.  There’s value in reading the paper that you miss on a computer screen.  I hope readers continue to have the choice (though that may not be in the cards).

Whatever the future may hold, newspapers have a storied past, and the movie business has taken some of those stories and made them into memorable films.  We’ll look at five of those movies this week.  Even if newspapers’ days do turn out to be numbered, we’ll always have the movies to remember them by.

Our theme this week
Films about the newspaper biz

Zodiac (2007)

Is David Fincher the best film director working today?  The quick answer to that question is no, but there may be other ways to look at it.  Of course, some masters of an earlier generation (Scorsese, Coppola père, Polanski, Lumet, Allen, Eastwood, et al.) are still here, still making movies, and some first-rate movies at that.  They may have a few surprises left, but I’d say most likely their best work is behind them.  You can add a few names from world cinema and let them battle it out for title of greatest living director.  Among the younger generation, English-language wing, those directors who seem to get the most ink include Tarantino, the Coens, and in certain circles, Nolan.  Distinctive talents, with great energy and ambition, and very good at what they do—yet for my taste they still have some growing up to do.

Which brings me to Fincher.  He’s got all the talent in the world to show off, and he certainly does at times, but when he gets down to telling his story he is a voice you can trust.  That for me is more key than anything else in an auteur’s box of tricks, and more exciting.  If there’s one director whose new work I most look forward to seeing right now, it’s probably Fincher.  That may not necessarily make him the “best,” but it’s something.

Fincher made his name with a couple of violent and stylish films during the ’90s, Se7en and Fight Club.  I like them but don’t admire them quite as some others do.  I’m more a fan of his recent work.  We’ll get to his newest, The Social Network, later this month, but let’s talk about Zodiac, his film about the famous serial killer that terrorized the Bay Area a few decades ago.

Zodiac was one of the best films of 2007.  It’s a crime drama that unfolds very much in police procedural fashion, though the more prominent investigation is conducted by an enterprising newspaper cartoonist who adopts the case as his pet hobby.  The cartoonist is Robert Graysmith, whose nonfiction book was the basis for the film, and the story follows Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) from the summer of 1969 through the early years of the 1970s, and finally into the ’80s and ’90s as he attempts to track down the killer.  Graysmith is an unlikely sleuth, but his fascination with puzzles turns into an obsession, and his interest in the case outlasts that of his colleague at the San Francisco Chronicle, crime reporter Paul Avery (a terrific Robert Downey Jr.), and even of lead S.F.P.D. detective Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo).  During the film’s two and a half hours, we witness a few of the Zodiac murders, the accumulation of evidence that leads in one direction or another, but more than anything, the toll that the case takes on the men who are determined to solve the case.  Avery, once the smart, cynical reporter, ends up an out-of-work drunk.  Toschi is frustrated by the case, never catching his man.  Graysmith, the onetime eagle scout, straight as an arrow, eventually loses his wife and kids.

The case is never officially solved.  If Graysmith is to be believed, the killer was a man named Arthur Leigh Allen.  But conflicting evidence pointed towards his innocence.  So what kind of a murder mystery is this?

Fincher is interested in the mystery not as a puzzle to be solved, but as an obsession for his characters.  This isn’t a whodunit.  This is a what-happens-when-you-can’t-get-who-done-it.  It’s not a typical story, but a real one—and a superior film.

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Zodiac (2007)
David Fincher, director
Robert Graysmith (book), James Vanderbilt (screenplay), writers
Harris Savides, cinematographer
Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo
Trailer

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Quote of note
Graysmith:  So?
Toschi:  The prints, the handwriting—?
Graysmith:  I’m not asking you as a cop.
Toschi:  But I am a cop.  I can’t prove this.
Graysmith:  Just because you can’t prove it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Toschi:  Easy, Dirty Harry.  Finish your book.
—Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), Inspector David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo), Zodiac (2007)

…58…59…60.

MAD Movie Minutes
November 1–5, 2010

 

I’ll be taking some time this week to attend to other business, to refuel, and if all goes according to plan, to see a few movies too.  Your regularly scheduled program will resume next week.  I look forward to seeing you then.

While you’re here visiting the site, I invite you to browse around.  Among the features you may find of interest:

MADness—the Blog
The blog is the site’s semi-daily (or semi-weekly) place for other posts about movies and various items of interest—i.e., whatever may be on my mind.  I do expect to have a few new items up on the blog, though the front page will be idle.

The Vault of Minutes Past
The Vault is the archive of all past posts from the MAD About Movies front page, easy to view on a single page.

MAD Crossword Puzzles
The MAD Puzzles page will be updated on Monday, the 1st, with a new pair of Gram Crackers.  As always, an archive of all puzzles from the past year is available too.

Other suggestions to make good use of your time:

The Local Cineplex
There are some good movies at theaters right now.  Go see them.  Here are three in particular I highly recommend:

• The Social Network
• Never Let Me Go
• Conviction

The Local Ballot Box
Election Day is this week.  You know what to do.  (Remember, Republicans vote Wednesday this year!)