Christopher McQuarrie called it a great detective movie with no real detectives in it, but I label All the President's Men (1976) a great filmmaker's movie with no real filmmaking in it.
Whatever do I mean?
All the President's Men has long been criticised for being a realistic depiction of journalism rather than an exemplar of narrative filmmaking. There are no hints to the personal lives of its protagonists; the star-power is dulled, polished down to raw and authentic play; and rarely is there an experimental shot or framing technique as the camera is primarily there to observe. But to me, it works damn well. Paluka has demonstrated an ability to juxtapose the mundane against a sense of impending paranoia, his "trilogy" reaching an apotheotic conclusion in this text.
The first point I want to stress is that I adore the name of this film. 'All the President's Men' is an amalgam of clever concepts*. There's the mockery of Richard Nixon in alluding to Humpty Dumpty who, much like the 37th President, had a great fall and could not be put back together again. But the title is also a haunting description of the men and women silenced in an attempt to protect the felons that employ them; it's expansive and vague, punctured with the very ambiguity that plagued the Watergate crisis. Or, is the title a matter of irony? Are the supposed 'president's men' the very journalists that fought for the truth, abandoning patriotic loyalties as American citizens for social responsibility?
I assumed that my viewing of All the President's Men was to be skewed, and there were four reasons why:
Watergate was (and still is) a mystery to me
I didn't like Robert Redford
Dustin Hoffman looks like my Uncle Mario
It's one of my dad's favourite movies - and Papa Ciconte has a very, let's say, eclectic* taste.
Believe me, these little prejudices took their toll, but not enough for me to dislike this film. Suck it, prejudices!
I'm not one to be (purposefully) pretentious, but I honestly think a big problem with the way this film is received is that most look at it like a movie. If you're watching a political drama from the 70s (or even a performance by Robert Redford in the 70s) for the pure purpose of entertainment, then that's great and I bet you're fun to talk to. But I urge you to consider the contemporaneous events that surround this collection of films. As much as voices were silenced, it was a time of psychological revolt. Where Paluka's The Parallax View (1974) dealt with assassination conspiracies, All the President's Men affirmed the importance of the press in unearthing the truth, perhaps suggesting that prioritising that 'social responsibility' is what it means to be American.
So, what does it mean now?
All the President's Men is a love-letter to pure journalism, its name a writer's way of consecrating the Watergate conspiracy within modern folklore. But one thing that was overwhelming to me during this film is the apparent similarity to the Pizzagate conspiracy. Firmly silenced parties, absurd reasoning for seemingly inexplicable events, an almost infectious fear of the truth, yet a compelling desire to know it. It's really not my place to speak on Pizzagate, besides They (with a capital 'T') will probably remove this innocent lil' film review if I did. However, it does make you think who the heroes of journalism are today if any.
After that haunting digression, I should affirm that wee Aussie' lasses like me will never truly understand the scandalous relevance of films like All the President's Men in the mid-70s because I wasn't there. But to analyse these films for their camerawork and lighting is almost an offence; it's very much a game of performance and screenplay. Much like Woodward and Bernstein, the director's duty was to make this extraordinary story of deceit palpable and digestible, to make the unbelievable believable.
Ebert (1976, para.10) claimed that the elements of this text 'don't quite add up to a satisfying movie experience', but I would argue it does just that. A satisfying experience; nothing more, but certainly nothing less. Unless you're like me and still don't know much about Watergate.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
FUN FILM FACT
The security guard who discovered the Watergate break-in was Frank Wills. You may already know that he played himself in this film, but you may not know that because he was fired a few days after the scandal, this acting role was his only payed job in three years. Old mate never had a full-time job again.
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*far more clever than the pun of my former favourite: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
*Today, his favourite film is 50 First Dates (2004), which is respectable, but past prize-choices went to unique specimens such as The Great Wall (2016) and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
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REFERENCES
Ebert, R 1976, 'All the President's Men', RogerEbert.com, 1 January, viewed 15 September 2020, <https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/all-the-presidents-men-1976>