First Time Watching The Classics: Oscar-Winning “All The President’s Men”

First Time Watching The Classics: Oscar-Winning “All The President’s Men”

What did I think it was? A political drama inside the White House, something that would actually show us… inside. I thought we’d see at least some of the President’s men, buuuuuut we saw a lot more of the President’s men’s female employees. And I’m a little pissed off that this could have been about

What did I think it was?

A political drama inside the White House, something that would actually show us… inside. I thought we’d see at least some of the President’s men, buuuuuut we saw a lot more of the President’s men’s female employees. And I’m a little pissed off that this could have been about how women exposed this story to a bunch of pushy journalists, but alas, I’ll never be satisfied with films made by and for white men.

What was it?

The reason I finally understand Watergate. Also likely the reason SPOTLIGHT ended up winning an Oscar a few years back, I see how this is similar and why voters responded to it. It is a detailed look into what journalists go through to break world-bending stories. Pressaganda is absolutely necessary, as it’s an unofficial branch of the American government, and this is the tentpole to the genre.

Also, I finally grasp the entire reference of Deep Throat, getting one last piece of the puzzle from this film.

“The Washington Post” reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the details of the Watergate scandal that leads to President Richard Nixon’s resignation.

IMDb

Great understated performances from an energetic Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein, calm and collected Robert Redford as Bob Woodward, and the elegant Jason Robards as Ben Bradlee. The effortless style of understated realism made for an extra enjoyable treat. I felt like I had stumbled upon a found footage documentary at times.

If this movie was released today exactly as-is, it would be entirely ignored. But it is a 1976 award-winner because of the content (IP permissions) and the talent. Beautiful tracking shots through a chaotic and exciting newsroom were coupled with extra-long moments of typing and long hallway establishing moments. I’ve seen homages throughout all of cinema that originated here. Yet, not a moment was splashy.

The every-day look into journalism is what I enjoyed the most. I appreciate a good scandal film, but the mystery and stranger-than-fiction quality makes this one stand out to me.

The writer, William Goldman, won an Oscar for this piece. And I couldn’t agree with this win more. From “William Goldman Turned Reporters into Heroes in “All the President’s Men” By Jordan Orlando, from 2018:

“William Goldman, who died a week ago, had already written three Robert Redford movies when the actor contacted him in early winter of 1974 and asked him to write a fourth: an adaptation of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book, a firsthand account of the two young Washington Post reporters’ Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of the Watergate scandal. Redford was the one doing the asking because he was producing the movie under the aegis of his company, Wildwood Enterprises—Redford was among the first wave of post-studio-system, post-auteur-movement movie stars who, in the late nineteen-sixties and early nineteen-seventies, began taking direct control of their careers, forming companies that would choose projects; select co-stars, directors, and writers; and participate in the casting, writing, and promotion of their movies. But Redford’s involvement in “All the President’s Men” was unusually complex and deep, predating not just Goldman’s involvement but also the conception of the book itself. By most accounts, Redford is a big reason why the book—which launched Bob Woodward’s iconic career as the first modern “star” reporter and permanently changed the public’s understanding of journalism—assumed its innovative form, focussing on the reporters and the Post rather than Nixon and the White House. But it was Goldman, in the crowning achievement of his long, successful career as a novelist and screenwriter, who used his screenplay to forge the modern myth of the reporter as hero.

The Watergate investigation was still ongoing, in 1972, when Woodward received a surprise phone call from Redford. “He was interested in the personal story of trying to figure out what happened, and our quest,” Woodward recalled, in a 2006 documentary about the making of the film. Dick Snyder, of Simon & Schuster, had purchased the book rights to the reporters’ story through the agent David Obst. The blockbuster fifty-five-thousand-dollar deal, as Michael Korda, the former editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, wrote in his memoir, “transformed [nonfiction] book publishing into a red-hot part of media.” Redford, according to most accounts, influenced the crucial decision to focus the narrative on the reporters themselves. “When we sat down to write a book, the book that we started to write was not about us; it was about Watergate,” Bernstein said. “Woodward came up to me one day and said he’d gotten a call from Redford, and I said, ‘What the hell about?’ And he said, well, he thinks the story is really us.””

Should you watch it?

I recommend watching, for sure. But, beware, this movie doesn’t have an ending. At some point, it’ll just STOP and you’ll be wondering why. I’ve been spoiled from decades of films learning how to satisfy an audience, this film felt premature in its departure.

Click To Watch HERE On HBO Max

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