It’s been
a hot minute since we tackled one of the movies on my list, so we recently decided to have
All the President’s Men – for, you know, no relevant reasons – which tells the story of The Washington
Post’s Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman,)
the reporters responsible for breaking the story about the Watergate scandal.
It’s
actually kind of surprising how quickly the movie was made. Nixon resigned in
1974, and the movie was released in 1976, which means they had to be
working on it from pretty much the moment Nixon left office.
Unfortunately,
the speed with which the film was made can be felt by viewers.
All the
President’s Men takes
off, right from the first moment, and doesn’t… waste? any time on
character
development. Personally, I think the movie could have used that
character development. It’s got the facts (I don’t know enough about Watergate
to know how accurate they are,) but not much else.
I
mentioned that I don’t know much about the Watergate scandal and that’s a shame
because the film assumes you know everything that happened because… well, gosh,
it just happened, right? It presents events in the barest, simplest way
without embellishment, which makes the film a little dull. I’m sure everything
was very relevant for viewers when it first came out – but, looking back, it has
little relevance and, frankly, little to interest to modern viewers.
Because of
the time it was made, the movie looks as dull as it feels. The 19070s
were a very beige time, weren’t they? The film quality was lower back then as well, so it’s all very grainy in tones of brown and grey and…
blah. But, for historical accuracy, you can’t beat being made as it happened. I
guess.
The movie
immerses you completely in the busy newsroom atmosphere of The Post
where everyone smokes, reporters still care about the truth, and the sexism is
all kinds of casual. With the piles of paper strewn across desk, the tangle of
telephone wires, cigarette smoke hanging heavily in the air, and people shouting across each other, it makes you wonder how
any news ever got out.
Worse, it makes you wonder how there seems to be
so much less actual news coming out these days, when all it takes to drop a big
story is a few taps on a screen.
Not that
I’m cynical and distrust mainstream media or anything…
(In a
healthy, right-wingers shouldn’t be allowed to own all the news sources kinda
way, not a weird-ass “fake news” MAGA-cult kinda way.)
I have to
admit that, although the sheer chaos of The Post’s newsroom would have
sent me into an Autistic bout of overstimulated rage, I love the constant
chorus of clacking typewriters! It’s a sound that screams creative occupation
and intellectual pursuit and I think if I could just have that noise, the sound
of dozens of typewriters flowing, in the background, it would inspire me to pen
the next Pulitzer-winning piece.
(Okay, that’s
an exaggeration. Real life interests me far less than imaginary ones
filled with monsters that have pointy teeth instead of trust funds.)
And…
that’s about the only thing I really enjoyed about All the President’s Men. I
think I was expecting it to delve more into the lives of Woodward and Bernstein,
maybe give us an idea of what drove them. What made them tick. Sadly, it
didn’t. The movie doesn’t leave you with any idea who they – or anyone else
involved – really were.
You could,
I suppose, at least make comparisons between the two.
Woodward was new, while Bernstein
was on the verge of being fired and they didn’t particularly like each other
when they started working together. One had all the talent, while the other all
the fire. One just wanted the facts, while the other read too much into
everything. None of that really tells you who either of them were as people,
though.
If we’re talking comparisons, the movie does a much better job of letting modern
viewers draw their own when it comes to reporting from the 70s versus reporting today. That
makes All the President’s Men worth watching. Professor Google can give
you thousands of answers to any question these days but, back then, Bernstein
and Woodward had to hit the library for research. Had to make endless telephone
calls and home visits. It must have been exhausting to be a reporter at
that time!
All the
President’s Men is
an interesting watch for the inside peek into 1970s journalism but lacks any real entertainment value. It doesn’t even really succeed as an educational piece
because I honestly don’t know any more about Watergate after watching All
the President’s Men than I did before, which is both embarrassing and makes the movie feel like a waste of time.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ (3/5 Stars)