Alan J. Pakula
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The Post (2017)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced by All the President's Men (1976), The Parallax View (1974)
Themes
Lo que consigue es un filme que muy bien podría proyectarse en una doble tanda con All the President’s Men, en el que rinde tributo a uno de sus héroes cinematográficos, el gran Sidney Lumet, al tiempo que produce uno de los mejores largometrajes de este periodo actual de su filmografía, predominado por historias basadas en hechos verídicos.
You could see The Post (and the filmmakers clearly do) as a kind of prequel to All the President’s Men.
Movie fans will enjoy seeing Hanks as Bradlee, the iconic news figure who was previously immortalized by Jason Robards in 1976’s “All the President’s Men,” and Streep’s performance is meant to underscore a theme of female empowerment (Graham was also the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company).
This film precedes Watergate – and all of the events in Alan J. Pakula’s masterpiece “All the President’s Men” – and explores how the publication established itself as one of the country’s (and consequently the world’s) most fearless and trusted publications.
The elephant in the room is Alan J. Pakula’s classic 1977 Watergate film All the President’s Men, which infamously reduced Graham’s integral role at the Post to an off-color joke.
The great newspaper films in history (“All The President’s Men,” “Zodiac,” “ Spotlight ”) all have one crucial thing in common: they’re not really about newspapers.
Spotlight (2015)
Directed by Tom McCarthy
influenced by All the President's Men (1976), The Parallax View (1974)
Visuals Themes Plot
Spotlight harks back to paranoid ’70s thrillers in its attempt to tell the story, with wintry visuals straight out of Alan J. ( All the President’s Men ) Pakula’s playbook and the kind of spare and beautifully loaded dialogue—courtesy of Josh Singer and director Tom McCarthy—that Robert Towne used to specialize in.
Spotlight, whose workplace rhythms and quiet intensity recalls another real-life news procedural, Alan J. Pakula's 1976 Watergate classic All the President's Men, asks in a very real way the question that superhero movies make mythic: will I use the power given to me for good or evil?
Those efforts now play out in this terrific film that will likely remind many a viewer -- if old enough or a big film fan -- of "All the President's Men" from back in 1976 regarding the Washington Post's investigation of Watergate.
“Spotlight” will inevitably be compared with the 1976 Hollywood landmark “All the President’s Men,” so let’s get the comparisons out of the way in order to appreciate this film on its own terms.
The obvious precedent for Spotlight —both as a movie and as a culturally relevant Oscar contender—is All the President's Men , but while McCarthy falls short of that standard in dread-soaked atmosphere, he proves to be an ace reporter in his own right.
The Globe staff is unenthused, particularly deputy managing editor Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery) - son of the legendary editor of the Washington Post, whose presence is just one of many echoes of that other stellar newspaper movie, "All the President's Men."
Zodiac (2007)
Directed by David Fincher
influenced by All the President's Men (1976)
Themes Visuals Plot
It’s tempting to compare the film to Pakula’s All the President’s Men, and that film is without question a touchstone for this one in many ways.
Tonally, the movie owes more to movies like “All the President’s Men” than “Serpico,” though one can find modern-day touchstones in films like Robert De Niro’s “The Good Shepherd” or Steven Spielberg’s “Munich,” without dragging or trying to shoehorn superfluous scenes into the story.
Fincher evokes the suspense and dramatic build-up of "All the President's Men" (1976) as his three protagonists uncover more and more information.
While it’s understandable that he wants to branch out and try something new, such as making a chatty thriller in the vein of All The President’s Men, it doesn’t click and fails to be gripping throughout its hefty running time.
It's inspired partly by films such as The Conversation and All the President's Men, the taut political thrillers of the 1970s.
The tone echoes that of many vérité thrillers of the era, such as The French Connection or All the President's Men.
He also matches the historical era with its corresponding cinematic style, favoring a more traditional, gritty look that evokes classic ’70s touchstones like All the President’s Men (1976).
Sporting a love for movies on his sleeve, Affleck's film gives nods to the smart, entertaining and engaging thrillers from the '70s -- "All the President's Men," "Three Days of the Condor," et al. -- and playfully with B-movie science-fiction pictures of the era without ever trying to lean too hard into any specific homage.
It is his cleanest, most engrossing work to date and not only duplicates the look of the late 1970s but also recalls the movies from that era - such as Alan J. Pakula's All the President's Men and Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor - with its grainy aesthetic and official subterfuge.
Affleck does, however, give himself a couple of hero shots, one of which recalls Robert Redford from Argo’s antecedent All the President’s Men.
Making clear its intentions from the start, with a 70s-style title card and an opening credits sequence full of faux print damage, Affleck’s follow-up to The Town is a love letter to the classy, serious political thrillers of yesteryear: films like All The President’s Men that strived to entertain and inform in PRECISELY EQUAL measure.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Directed by Joe Russo
influenced by The Parallax View (1974), All the President's Men (1976)
Themes Plot Visuals
Too quickly to generate proper suspense (yet causing plenty of giddy disbelief), The Winter Soldier nods to ’70s classics Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View.
If the first “Cap” was a throwback to classic World War II films, “Winter Soldier” is a nod to the great espionage films of the 1970s, movies like “3 Days of the Condor” and “The Parallax View,” even going so far to bridge the two by casting “Condor” star Robert Redford as shady politician Alexander Pierce.
It’s a rote “trust-no-one” shtick that’s as old as “The Parallax View” and “Three Days of the Condor,” the latter a film that the directing brothers Anthony and Joe Russo (TV’s “Community”) delusively think they are paying homage to.
Instead of the pulp-inspired 1940s aesthetic of the first movie, The Winter Soldier takes its inspiration from the paranoia-fueled conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s, movies like Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View , with a modern-day focus on ubiquitous government surveillance and drone warfare.
Subtitled The Winter Soldier, a nod to the Captain’s mysterious new cold-blooded nemesis, the movie comes wrapped not only in the Stars and Stripes but also Watergate-meets-9/11 paranoia from influences like The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor, the latter especially so thanks to the forceful and nuanced presence of Robert Redford.
That notion — of powerful or violent forces conspiring against civilians — also primed some of the decade’s finest, most haunting movies: The Parallax View, starring Warren Beatty, and All the President’s Men and Three Days of the Condor, both with Robert Redford as a cocky crusader against government corruption.
Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
influenced by All the President's Men (1976)
Plot
But don’t expect a fast-paced historic reenactment akin to All the President’s Men .
The also torn-from-the-headlines "All the President's Men" did something similar, but a difference is that "Zero Dark Thirty" is punctuated at seemingly regular intervals with outbursts of violence, to remind the viewer what's at stake; also interrupting the satellite-enhanced ratiocination are a few intricate suspense set pieces.
But that’s what’s so remarkable about Zero Dark Thirty, recalling another film where our knowledge of its outcome rendered the narrative no less compelling: All the President’s Men, where the process becomes the story.
In that sense, her film resembles Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men (1976) with the key difference being that, in the latter, the characters all feel like fully rounded, lived-in human characters rather than connect-the-dots archetypes.
The film boasts a storytelling efficiency formerly reserved for classics like All the President’s Men and Chinatown .
With Chastain’s single-minded obsession as the through-line, Zero Dark Thirty takes the reliable form of procedurals like All The President’s Men and Zodiac , staying doggedly on the investigative path while keeping the political and cultural aspects of the case at arm’s length.
Think of "The Parallax View," "Three Days of the Condor," "JFK," "The Day of the Jackal," "North By Northwest," and "The Fugitive"; this film shamelessly borrows from the best, and while it isn't as good as any of these I mentioned, it does move along at a commendable pace and with at least a modicum of excitement, thanks to its director, Antoine Fuqua ("Training Day," "Tears of the Sun"), and its star.
The sense of free-floating menace (even a billowing American flag seems faintly ominous) and the framing of a good guy by dark political forces seem derived from the 1974 assassination classic, "The Parallax View."
Despite its obvious aspirations to be the kind of paranoid political thriller that "The Parallax View" and "Three Days of the Condor" were in the mid-'70s, "Shooter" is at its best - which is very good indeed - when it's a rootin' tootin' shootin' party.
Adapting Washington Post film critic Stephen Hunter’s novel “Point of Impact,” the first entry in a trilogy featuring military sniper Bob Lee Swagger, scenarist Jonathan Lemkin stirs in recognizable ingredients from “The Parallax View,” “The Day of the Jackal,” “Seven Days in May” and “Three Days of the Condor,” feeding on and encouraging suspicion of nefarious deeds and dastardly motives among men in high places.
The screenwriter, Jonathan Lemkin, has acknowledged a debt not only to Hunter but to “Three Days of the Condor” and “The Parallax View,” seventies thrillers that drew on fears of shadowy government conspiracies.
Michael Clayton (2007)
Directed by Tony Gilroy
influenced by Klute (1971), All the President's Men (1976), The Parallax View (1974)
Themes
In the tradition of such classics as "All the President's Men," "Klute" and "Three Days of the Condor," it's a film that dares not to patronize or pander to its audience, but rather to assume viewers possess the intelligence to connect its twisty trail of dots.
In the tradition of such classics as "All the President's Men," "Klute" and "Three Days of the Condor," it's a film that dares not to patronize or pander to its audience, but rather to assume viewers possess the intelligence to connect its twisty trail of dots.
In fact, its proper place would seem to be with the paranoia thrillers of the 1970s, a sweaty sub-genre that houses such classics as All the President's Men, The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor.
These movies stand as on par with Redford’s The Candidate, Three Days Of The Condor and All The President’s Men in their absolute belief that something is rotten in the state of the union.
"Michael Clayton" is styled as a throwback to such socially conscious 1970s morality plays as "The China Syndrome" and "The Parallax View."
The list of Academy Award-nominated names set a cultivated tone for a scathing corporate thriller that emanates from the same narrative petri dish that spawned films like "The Parallax View" and "The China Syndrome."
This iteration draws on films like Se7en and Klute , as well as famed Batman tales like Year Two and The Long Halloween .
Muy lejos de la fábrica de chorizos del hijo de puta de Kevin Feige de la factoría Marvel, responsable de dos décadas de bodrios que califican de productos excrementicios y/ o insufribles, aunque asimismo manteniendo una buena distancia para con los desastres pomposos, sensibleros y seudo importantes de Zack Snyder y los demás autómatas o mercenarios de DC Cómics que empezaron la catarata de exploitations de aquellas tres maravillas de Nolan con Christian Bale, Reeves nos ofrece un neo noir hecho y derecho con toques de horror, cine de acción y thriller testimonial que está inspirado en simultáneo en Barrio Chino ( Chinatown , 1974), de Roman Polanski, por las constantes alusiones al entramado de corrupción que atraviesa a toda Ciudad Gótica, ahora con el narcotráfico reemplazando a la especulación inmobiliaria y los chanchullos basados en el sistema de irrigación, y en Klute (1971), de Alan J. Pakula, especialmente en lo que atañe a esa premisa centrada en el devenir de un detective, el John…
McGregor recalls a young Donald Sutherland here, his understated panic not unlike Sutherland’s in Klute and Don’t Look Now.
The Insider (1999)
Directed by Michael Mann
influenced by All the President's Men (1976), The Parallax View (1974)
Plot Themes
Though the movie deals with the machinations of reporters and is being touted as the best journalism movie since "All the President's Men," it actually has far more in common with 1979's "The China Syndrome" (an executive at a nuclear facility publicizes dangerous practices with the help of a sympathetic TV journalist).
As revelatory investigations go, this is no All the President's Men.
Where a movie like All the President's Men -- to which The Insider has been compared -- wants to get us riled up and angry for society as a whole, The Insider can't really work on that level, even if that was the intention of director Michael Mann and writer Eric Roth.
It's the best movie about the complexities, challenges and moral conflicts of news reporting since All the President's Men, 23 years ago.
How about in "All the President's Men." Now, there are at least two with "The Insider."
But he isn't just stepping up onto a celluloid soapbox -- this wily, engrossing film is not only the best movie about journalism since "All the President's Men," it's also one of the most visually dynamic movies of the year.
(The referenced images include a few scenes from All the President's Men, which is, after all, one of the prime Watergate myths.)
The Girlfriend Experience (2009)
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
influenced by Klute (1971)
Characters
This isn't Breakfast at Tiffany's; this isn't even Klute.
There’s an unforgettable moment in “Klute” where Jane Fonda’s hooker character peeks at her watch while pretending to be in the throes of orgasm; Chelsea seems to operate entirely in watch-peeking mode.
However, now they’re taking on personas evoking characters from titles like Anatomy of a Murder or All the President’s Men.
All the President’s Men, de Alan J. Pakula (en especial con ese homenaje directo a Garganta Profunda)…
The Ghost Writer (2010)
Directed by Roman Polanski
influenced by All the President's Men (1976), The Parallax View (1974)
Visuals Themes
Indeed, there are hauntings aplenty in this sleek, masterful thriller that recalls such classics as "All the President's Men" and the more recent "Michael Clayton" in its pared-down, paranoid style.
This may not be on quite on the level of that political intrigue benchmark All The President's Men, but it has a certain charm and style to it that shows Polanski's film-making skills can't even be contained by house arrest.
But that's merely the jumping off point for Harris, and the story here is really just a good, old-fashioned, whip-smart paranoid political thriller in the mold of The Manchurian Candidate or The Parallax View, blended with classic detective noir.
In America, an influx of migration (predominantly from Europe, both pre- and post-war) has inspired countless films such as America, America (1963), The Godfather Part II (1974), Hester Street (1975), Sophie’s Choice (1982), Golden Door (2006), and the appropriately-titled The Immigrant (2013) with Marion Cotillard.
Clooney plays an updated role of the CIA agents and investigators that Robert Redford and Warren Beatty had played in the conspiracy films of the 1970s, such as “Three Days of the Condor” and “The Parallax View.”
And as Douglas races from humiliation to humiliation, Fincher includes visual references to such paranoia fests as "The Parallax View" and "The Conversation."
It is great that this story got told, and told well, but in the pantheon of artistic explorations on the subject, it’s more akin to Sophie’s Choice as a harrowing individual narrative about the toll surviving a social atrocity takes on even its heroes.
No one wants to see themselves as the bad guy, which is why it wasn’t the Germans who made “Schindler’s List,” “The Pianist” or “Sophie’s Choice.”
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Directed by David Fincher
influenced by All the President's Men (1976)
Visuals
It also, not unlike Zodiac , owes a bit of debt to Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men in the way the poring over of codes, files, parchment, photographs, digital photogaphs, scribblings, notebooks, and dates is made positively thrilling, able even to match the scenes of methodical torture, anal rape, car chases, visceral intimidations, fistfights, explosions, and gallows humor not necessarily found in Pakula’s film.