Be True: All The President's Men, Revisited
Subtextual Healing Film Club #4
*Updated schedule for Subtextual Healing Film Club:
Punch Drunk Love review will appear on August 26
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest review will be on September 2nd
All The President’s Men (1976)
(Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein)
In years past I taught a film studies elective for high school students. It was a mixed-grade course with age ranges anywhere from fifteen to nineteen, which meant that their exposure to cinema varied too. For every introductory class, I would go around the room and ask students their favorite movie. This practice was not only a good ice-breaker and introduction to my students, but it helped me figure out the pathway for them to have a deeper knowledge of film. I remember one particular student proudly exclaiming that his all-time favorite movie was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. He wasn’t saying this ironically, it was a full-fledged endorsement of the Michael Bay experience. Though obviously a young and misguided soul, I immediately knew I had my work cut out for me to procure his salvation. I picked up my jaw from the classroom floor and went to work.
Great teachers beg, borrow, and steal to aid their instruction and as I taught film studies to a rotating group of uncivilized goons, I leaned more and more upon the 1976 motion picture, All The President’s Men. A few reasons, listed:
The first iteration of my film class was called American History Through Film and I tried to find as many “based on a true story” movies that I could find that would be both interesting and thought-provoking. It’s surprisingly difficult to find historical films that are more accurate than not, but All The President’s Men fit the bill.
All The President’s Men was rerated to PG after initially being rated R, due to its historical and cultural significance which would then release to a wider audience. There are many utterances of the word “fuck” and “ratfucking” and discussions of the pornographic film Deep Throat, which meant that the kids felt like they were getting away with something by watching it. Sometimes you have to figure out ways to get students engaged and this was mine! I’m not sorry.
Let me be honest in saying that my first showing of the film was like throwing cooked spaghetti on the wall. I had no idea if it would actually stick or not and in fact I suspected it wouldn’t. To my surprise, my students loved the film which meant that it was kept in the rotation for future offerings.
All The President’s Men tells the story of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s investigation of the Watergate break-in and the subsequent discovery of the White House’s involvement in the crime, which led all the way to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Based off Woodward and Bernstein’s 1974 book of the same name, and benefitting from their involvement in the movie (mostly, apparently Bernstein was not an easy collaborator), the film deftly captures the lengthy and laborious pursuit of sources, names, dates and corruptions. It is a story bereft of much music or action but full of people talking in offices, living rooms, patios, and parking garages. That may sound somewhat tedious on its surface, but what develops is an intriguing collection of scenes that crescendo into a gripping musical finale of typewriter clicks, spelling out the events that lead to Nixon’s fall.
(Pictured above, the real Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward)
The film’s plot is less focused on the major players and more on the young, then-unknown reporters tracking the story. It’s an investigation into investigations, really, and in many ways the audience acts as a third reporter in the film. We join along with “Woodstein” as they chase down leads and struggle with eyewitnesses who are being intimidated to not cooperate with the reporting. It’s a celebration of investigation too. “Follow the money” was a term coined by William Goldman for the screenplay and it has become common parlance since, but it has also created a mythos for how we think about and encourage journalism today. As we are all too familiar, what drives and sustains power is often tied directly to how power is funded.
But how and why does a movie like this stick with viewers? I think that what works for this film, oddly, is how deeply it digs into the minutiae of reporting. There are awkward phone calls, false and failed leads, miscommunications and confusions, all mixed with moments of relief and jubilation. Roger Ebert thought that All The President’s Men worked less as a movie and more as a study of journalism in itself. I don’t completely agree but I can see his point. Journalism is a process that the majority of us are unfamiliar with, due to the simple fact that most of our exposure is on the backend when the reporting is in print and more finalized. What we are given in All The President’s Men is a peak behind the curtain, it feels like we’re sitting amongst magicians sharing how they do their illusions and that’s an intriguing prospect.
Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffmann carry this film with brilliant acting and their embodiment of real life figures. We don’t learn much about either of the men other than the fact that Woodward is a Republican and that Bernstein hasn’t met a room where he can’t smoke. Even though they have differing journalistic styles, what they share in common is a dogged pursuit of the truth and a love for the chase itself. I think a worthy addition to this film could have included more backstory on the reporters and how this journey impacted them personally. It’s vital to know how reporting develops, but what does it do to those involved in the process?
(Jason Robards as Ben Bradlee, Washington Post Executive Editor)
What also works in the film is how Gordon Willis (cinematographer) and Alan J. Pakula (director) stage their interviews. The conversations feel real, stunted at times and flowing in others, all the while shot in mixtures of shadow and light. Not only are the intentions of interviewees murky but their surroundings literally cast shades of doubt on their retellings. What also fascinates me about this movie is the portrait of how a newsroom operates and of the employees who populate these spaces. Jack Warden and Martin Balsam are wonderful character actors cast in the editorial board (both of them also appeared around another table in the fantastic 12 Angry Men) and Jason Robards brilliantly portrays executive editor Ben Bradlee, who pushes the two lead reporters to craft a responsible story that readers could follow and trust. He also gets the single best line of dialogue:
“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... 15 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.”
So, after all these years, does All The President’s Men matter? I would have to say a resounding yes and many of my former students would echo that sentiment. It’s perhaps trite to claim that there is more than enough corruption at the highest levels of power to sustain a wide variety of newspapers and news organizations, but we do need to emphasize and encourage a citizenry of readers armed a healthy dose of criticism. In the end, journalism doesn’t matter if there’s not an audience to wrestle with the reporting. We should also trust audiences to decipher the truth and approach it with wisdom, not just in terms of how they receive news but also our approach to entertainment in general, movies included. All The President’s Men trusts its audience to keep pace even if it requires some homework.
The lesson I have learned as a teacher is that students don’t always need constant excitement or a barrage of lights and sounds. What they need and crave is authenticity, support, and reliability. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be true. We often err when we conflate the two.
What did you think of All The President’s Men? Share below!