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Out of Their Depth: Corruption, Scandal and Lies in the New Hollywood Season at Riverside...
Following the cultural upheaval and racial tensions of the 1960s, the early 70s saw America increasingly in social and political turmoil as opposition to the Vietnam war grew more violent following revelations of the brutality of American forces whilst at home the full scale of the Watergate scandal was beginning to be revealed. The certainties of modern American values were not only tarnished they were found to be mired in corruption, scandal and lies. We are delighted that season curator Andy Willis will once again provide another insightful recorded introduction to this film, and all films in this season.
Conspiracy and creeping paranoia seeps through every frame of Alan J Pakula’s The Parallax View, even the architecture and the soundtrack communicate dissonance and unease. Made two years before Pakula’s definitive Watergate film All the President’s Men, here Warren Beatty is a reporter who becomes caught up in the fall out from seeing a Presidential candidate assassination - a shockingly dramatic opening sequence. Unlike the fearlessly heroic journalists Woodward and Bernstein as played by Redford and Hoffman, Beatty’s reporter is drawn deeper into the corporate and political conspiracy enveloping him leading to an ending that does not result in exposure but rather echoes Chinatown’s devastating conclusion.
Cinematographer Gordon Willis’ coolly stylized compositions give visual expression to a mood of the pervasive sense of dread and mistrust that defined the 1970s.