A blank sheet of paper. Silence. Suddenly, the typewriter explodes into life, the sound reverberating like gunshots, stamping out the information: “June 1, 1972.”
The opening moments of director Alan J. Pakula’s political thriller All The President’s Men, which turns 45 this April, immediately set out the terms of the film. The bullets used here will be written facts. Despite relentless tension and intrigue, there are no chases or fistfights. The closest thing to an action scene is the low-key recreation of the hotel break-in following the opening credits.
The film adapts the true story of Washington Post journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward (Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford), as they pursue the tangled web of the Watergate scandal, which eventually brought down President Richard Nixon in August 1974. The complex plot, based on the two journalists’ non-fiction book of the same name, was wrangled into a tight, gripping screenplay by acclaimed scriptwriter William Goldman, with disputed additional input from Pakula and Redford.
In some ways, it picks up from the ending of the previous year’s fictional thriller Three Days Of The Condor (Sydney Pollack, 1975). That film (which coincidentally also stars Redford) concludes with the press poised to expose government corruption. It also forms the third part of Pakula’s seminal 1970s ‘Paranoia Trilogy,’ three films loosely related by their themes of investigation and conspiracy, the previous entries being Klute (1971) and The Parallax View (1974).
All The President’s Men deliberately foregrounds processes and protocols, from the unsuspecting non-uniform police waylaid to capture the bungling burglars, to the workings of a newspaper office, to the dark arts of politics and electioneering, and eventually to the power structure of the conspiracy itself. The influence of this approach is keenly felt in later thrillers, such as David Fincher’s 2007 Zodiac.
The subtle, almost documentary style of much of the film is exemplified in the scene in which Woodward makes the crucial phone call to Kenneth H. Dahlberg, which served to establish a firm financial link between the Watergate burglars and the Nixon campaign. The scene, shot in one long take, starts with a wide shot of the Washington Post offices, with Woodward in the foreground to the right of the frame, while his colleagues on the left watch TV in the background. Moving almost imperceptibly slowly, the camera closes in on Woodward, as his initial call evolves from the following of a vague lead into a series of revelations. The simplicity of the ever-tightening framing irresistibly draws the audience into the sequence’s dauntingly complex plotting and dialogue, which includes Woodward himself confusing the name of his caller at one point (whether this was scripted, a happy accident, or a brilliant improvisation on Redford’s part, it helps to keep the scene convincingly authentic).
The commitment to verisimilitude is further emphasised by the genuine contemporary television news reports scattered throughout the film. Whether the footage is in the background or taking centre stage, it is almost always accompanied by the sound of the Post’s relentless typewriters, as they fight to establish the truths and the falsehoods of Nixon’s presidency.
It also portrays the sheer hard work Woodward and Bernstein undertake to uncover their story. They are stonewalled by witnesses, doors are slammed in their faces, and they wade through swathes of enquiries and physical documentation, a strong reminder of pre-internet times. Even their editors doubt their story at times (led by Jason Robards, in an OSCAR-winning performance as newspaper executive Ben Bradlee).
The mammoth task Woodward and Bernstein face is encapsulated beautifully by the ascending camerawork in the Library Of Congress scene. It starts in close-up on one batch of request cards, gradually rising and rising until we look down onto the entire main reading room. The circular layout becomes a maze in this final ‘God’s eye-view,’ trapping the tiny figures of the journalists in a visual puzzle.
This is neatly followed by an external shot of the doors to the building. The Capitol Dome is reflected in the glass for a moment before it is swept aside by the journalists exiting the Library – a brief visual metaphor for the powers ranged against them, and their refusal to back down.
While the film unashamedly champions investigative journalism, it does not shy away from the less heroic aspects of the profession. The protagonists are ruthless, inveigling their ways into homes and offices, refusing to take no for an answer, and relentlessly pursuing the few willing to talk. Hoffman’s Bernstein in particular is pushy and antagonistic, first meeting Woodward when he surreptitiously invites himself to ‘correct’ the other’s writing. Once they begin to work together, Redford’s Woodward is almost the Good Cop to Bernstein’s Bad, arguably just as driven, but with a more cunning grasp of people’s limits.
Despite Nixon’s eventual downfall being common knowledge, the film is a masterclass in atmosphere and tension. Its procedural style means that we uncover the facts as the characters do, assisted by the wise decision to concentrate almost entirely on their early struggle to establish conspiracy, rather than repeating the well-known conclusion. David Shire’s sparse score enriches key moments, methodically building from minimal, claustrophobic motifs to muted fanfares, echoing Michael Small’s eerie score for The Parallax View.
Gordon Willis’ outstanding cinematography emphasises the dark world the journalists are drawn into, deliberately contrasted with the bright, open layout of their Washington Post office. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the celebrated scenes with the mysterious Deep Throat (the late Hal Holbrook). He is barely visible in the shadows of the garage, the only light coming from the glow of his cigarette, cementing the screen archetype of the ambiguous informant, utilised in everything from The X-Files to The Simpsons. His character is also the origin of the much-quoted advice to “follow the money” when uncovering political corruption. Although the phrase is unique to the film’s script, and does not appear in the book, the real Bernstein did use it in 2017 to encourage journalists to investigate illegal campaign payments by the Trump Foundation.
With its tale of corruption, perversion of the truth, and an impeached but ultimately unpunished president, the film remains incisively topical today, and not just in the US. In these days of social media manipulation, struggling newspapers of dubious ownership, and governmental evasions of scrutiny, the value of objective truth is indisputable. A gripping, intelligent masterpiece, made by a cast and crew at the peak of their cinematic powers, All The President’s Men could not be more relevant and essential.
