Speaker 1: What kind of a show you guys putting.
Speaker 2: On here today?
Speaker 1: You're not interested in art?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 4: No, look, we're going to do this thing.
Speaker 1: We're going to have a conversation.
Speaker 5: Out of Robert Redford on our minds, of course, with
Speaker 5: his recent passing and the top five Robert Redford movies
Speaker 5: lists that we're both working on for our upcoming show.
Speaker 5: Fair to say, All the President's Men is a lock
Speaker 5: for that list. It's definitely not one we have to
Speaker 5: do homework on because we recently talked about it on
Speaker 5: the show. Just a couple of years ago. We did
Speaker 5: in All the President's Men review as part of our
Speaker 5: seven from seventy six Best Year Ever series.
Speaker 2: And it happens to be one of those movies that
Speaker 2: even for that review, I may not have needed to
Speaker 2: rewatch it because I probably have seen it about one
Speaker 2: hundred times, or certainly scenes from it. I love the
Speaker 2: movie that much. But I do remember rewatching it for
Speaker 2: that conversation, because of course I would, and like all
Speaker 2: of those sacred cow conversations, any kind of revisit, you
Speaker 2: see new things every time, and I remember digging into
Speaker 2: some scenes in particular. It was a very rewarding rewatch
Speaker 2: hopefully it was a rewarding listen then and will be now.
Speaker 2: That seven from seventy six series was a good one.
Speaker 2: We talked about Taxi Driver Network, Rocky. We saw a
Speaker 2: movie that I think we both watched for the first time,
Speaker 2: car Wash Barbara Coppoles Harlan County, USA, was one that
Speaker 2: I had seen many times before, or at least multiple times,
Speaker 2: but we had to include it in another new one.
Speaker 2: Shantel Ackerman's News from Home. So a great series, and
Speaker 2: All the President's Men was a cornerstone of it. We
Speaker 2: hope you enjoy this conversation, and we remind you that
Speaker 2: the Film Spotting Archive access to it is just one
Speaker 2: of the benefits you get as a member of the
Speaker 2: film Spotting Family. You can learn more about that at
Speaker 2: film Spotting family dot com. From February twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: here is That's seven from seventy sixth review of All
Speaker 2: the President's.
Speaker 6: Men, Hi, Adam and Josh. This is Amy from Germantown
Speaker 6: with a few rambling thoughts about All the President's Men.
Speaker 6: When Merk Peltz died in two thousand and eight, and
Speaker 6: everyone said deep Throat died, but for me, the death
Speaker 6: of Deep throat was just last month with the passing
Speaker 6: of Hal Holbrook. I'm always thinking of him. In that
Speaker 6: dimly led cigarette, Smokey look tensely trying to keep Robert
Speaker 6: Redford focus.
Speaker 3: Si Gritty said, don concentrate on sigrette. You'll miss the overall.
Speaker 3: The letter, the letter that destroyed the muskie candidates, the
Speaker 3: conneclar Did that come from inside the work? You're missing
Speaker 3: the overall?
Speaker 4: What overall?
Speaker 3: They were riding a musket Look who got destroyed.
Speaker 6: It's such a great performance in a film that's jam
Speaker 6: packed with them. Can't asked how much do I have
Speaker 6: to know about Watergate? And I said none, because it's
Speaker 6: not a movie about water Date. It's a movie about
Speaker 6: journalism and grit and the grind and oh oh boy
Speaker 6: to Woodward and Bernstein, grind, I mean the newsroom is
Speaker 6: noisy and conversations are convoluted and truth is elusive. And
Speaker 6: I am mesmerized by Hoffmann and Medford. I mean we
Speaker 6: sort of accidentally trip into their story and they trip
Speaker 6: into their partnership, and we root for them. We want
Speaker 6: them to find something, We want them to find anything,
Speaker 6: and we empathize as they drive and make phone calls
Speaker 6: and call and drive. I mean they feel like they
Speaker 6: really relive in those cluttered desks and that they're really
Speaker 6: irritated by the noise. From that first bang of the
Speaker 6: typewriter keys to the final drone of the teletype, you
Speaker 6: just know you're watching something special. Thanks for letting your
Speaker 6: ramble in.
Speaker 2: Bye, Thank you, Amy. Josh My prompt to you about
Speaker 2: the sixth highest Growl film with seventy six, which also
Speaker 2: earned eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, winning four of them,
Speaker 2: and did for journalism school what Top Gun would do
Speaker 2: ten years later for naval recruits. My prompt to you
Speaker 2: was going to be simply to challenge you to spot
Speaker 2: the lie. Give me one part of Amy's litany of
Speaker 2: praise that you take issue with. But I do have
Speaker 2: one other thing on my mind. Eight months ago, we
Speaker 2: discussed a classic movie on this show that came out
Speaker 2: ten months prior to Alan Pocula's All the President's Men
Speaker 2: and also garnered a Best Picture nomination, Steven Spielberg's Jaws.
Speaker 2: The review was due to Jaws celebrating its forty fifth anniversary,
Speaker 2: but we had no idea going in just how relevant
Speaker 2: the killer shark movie featuring a dangerous huckster mayor and
Speaker 2: citizens who almost literally on Fourth of July weekend, choose
Speaker 2: liberty over the warnings of experts, would turn out to
Speaker 2: be in June twenty twenty, in contrast, we decided to
Speaker 2: start this seven from seventy six series with All the
Speaker 2: President's Men precisely because of its timeliness. A movie about
Speaker 2: the investmentgation and cover up that led to a president
Speaker 2: resigning in disgrace seemed all too perfect to consider the
Speaker 2: same week the Senate is about to take up an
Speaker 2: impeachment trial. Sadly, we're also talking about All the Presidents Men.
Speaker 2: The same week we learned of the passing of How Hulbrook,
Speaker 2: who plays Bob Woodwards, connected contact known as Deep Throat Jaws,
Speaker 2: one of the most well made thrillers ever, didn't seem timely,
Speaker 2: and terrifyingly was All the President's Men couldn't be more timely? Yet,
Speaker 2: I don't have a single comment or reflection in my
Speaker 2: notes that could be construed as political, only comments about
Speaker 2: the craft. What about you?
Speaker 5: Oh well, let me fill in the gap at him. Okay, No,
Speaker 5: I mean I'm not going to make this as political
Speaker 5: as Jaws. Wow, was that a cathartic review that was
Speaker 5: so much fun? I think it's because, yeah, as watching it,
Speaker 5: All the President's Men largely takes place in a different
Speaker 5: timeframe from where we're at right now. You know, all
Speaker 5: the stuff we're about to get into in real life
Speaker 5: in the next week or so comes after the movie,
Speaker 5: after the credits roll. This is kind of the lead
Speaker 5: up to it is what we're seeing here. And also
Speaker 5: they're very different scandals. You know, they're very different atrocities,
Speaker 5: let's say, committed against democracy. So I don't think there
Speaker 5: are quite as many one to one comparisons. At the
Speaker 5: same time, watching it, you know, you do realize in
Speaker 5: both cases the levels of obfuscation that are at play
Speaker 5: in something like this where you recognize that the malfeasance
Speaker 5: starts at the very top and is directed from the
Speaker 5: very top, but how many layers of protection there are
Speaker 5: put in place? Maybe more so in the time of
Speaker 5: All the President's Men. That's what they have to kind
Speaker 5: of investigate their way through, right, is to get to
Speaker 5: the top and maybe the you know, the maddening thing
Speaker 5: about our current situation is that it's so clearly coming
Speaker 5: from the top down. I mean, there is video recorded.
Speaker 5: Anytime you say to an insurrectionist, we love you, I
Speaker 5: think you've got your evidence. So there's a distinction there
Speaker 5: as well. So yeah, I think this isn't quite as
Speaker 5: one to one politically. Maybe the phrase the scene that
Speaker 5: we started out with also has some resonance not very
Speaker 5: bright guys at the top of the show. I mean,
Speaker 5: anytime Adam, the remaining member of your cabinet is the
Speaker 5: my pillow guy, I think we can also say, yeah,
Speaker 5: not very bright guys. But sure, here's another point of
Speaker 5: comparison between the two eras. There are very bright enablers,
Speaker 5: and that is what is scarier than you know, clearly
Speaker 5: scarier than my pillow. Goofball, and you see that this
Speaker 5: is something else that Woodward and Bernstein have to investigate
Speaker 5: their way through, implicate and prove the participation of are
Speaker 5: the enablers, and that we've seen has also a factor
Speaker 5: of our current situation. So yeah, I think there are
Speaker 5: some parallels, inevitably, maybe not as strong as we thought,
Speaker 5: probably not as strong as Jaws. It's not what I
Speaker 5: came away from this movie with, for sure. The first
Speaker 5: thing I came away from this revisit was just a high,
Speaker 5: as you said, Adam, about journalism, just like a giddy
Speaker 5: high about the craft that is that work, the work
Speaker 5: of journalism, and the craft of all the President's men
Speaker 5: to depict and capture it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I had that same giddy high, though less about journalism
Speaker 2: and more about filmmaking. This is just one of those movies.
Speaker 2: No matter how many times I see it, I recognize
Speaker 2: how much I love deep in my bones. And it
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with nostalgia. This isn't about when
Speaker 2: I saw this movie or how I saw it. It's
Speaker 2: not about my relationship really even to the subject matter.
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about an almost famous type situation here.
Speaker 2: For me, I am just so pleased with the storytelling,
Speaker 2: which in this case is synonymous with the filmmaking, to
Speaker 2: the point where I almost literally can't keep a smile
Speaker 2: off my face, and I feel a charge because of
Speaker 2: every choice that is being made. And I'll give one
Speaker 2: other example real quick. You know this, I've tweeted about
Speaker 2: it before. It just seems that once a year I'll
Speaker 2: end up putting the Departed on a movie I really
Speaker 2: loved and I think I had as the second best
Speaker 2: movie of that year. But it wasn't necessarily a movie
Speaker 2: I saw at the time and said, oh, this is,
Speaker 2: you know, Pantheon level Scorsese. But there it is on Netflix,
Speaker 2: and Josh, whenever I just kind of need a movie
Speaker 2: on in the background, I just kind of want something
Speaker 2: to distract me maybe occasionally, to take my mind off
Speaker 2: whatever I'm working on. And inevitably with that movie, I
Speaker 2: do get lost in it. And I had that moment
Speaker 2: with The Departed just this past Saturday, and every time
Speaker 2: it happens, annually Sarah will walk in the room and
Speaker 2: she'll shake her because I look like an idiot sitting
Speaker 2: there with a goofy grin plastered on my face and
Speaker 2: a quick sidebar. Anybody who bemoans that movie winning Best
Speaker 2: Picture like it was a lifetime achievement for Scorsese. Sorry,
Speaker 2: couldn't disagree more. Nevertheless, All the President's Men, despite being
Speaker 2: the antithesis of The Departed in so many ways, except
Speaker 2: it is, Josh, if you think about it, a movie
Speaker 2: as well that's about organized crime and corruption. It's obviously
Speaker 2: the way less ostentatious and in your face, it's way more.
Speaker 2: All the Resident Men is deliberately paced. There's no use
Speaker 2: of music or similar use of music on the soundtrack,
Speaker 2: but it's the exact same experience for me. I love
Speaker 2: every single moment of the writing, of the performances, and
Speaker 2: of the direction. And of course this is where the
Speaker 2: filmmaking then crosses over into journalism. This is the ultimate
Speaker 2: procedural procedural in the truest sense. This is a movie
Speaker 2: that is just about the work, and there are so
Speaker 2: many examples we could list. But even going back to
Speaker 2: your political comparison, we don't really get to ever know
Speaker 2: or really even see Richard Nixon as a character in
Speaker 2: this movie. Right except for that very beginning, which I
Speaker 2: had actually somehow forgotten about. I could have sworn all
Speaker 2: the presidents meant, which I just saw in the past year.
Speaker 2: Actually with my kids, I could have sworn it open
Speaker 2: just with the heist, you know, the lights going on,
Speaker 2: the cop finding the door. But we do get that
Speaker 2: little prelude with Nixon giving the State of the Union address,
Speaker 2: But otherwise we only get Nixon information as it relates
Speaker 2: to the post, as it relates to this story these
Speaker 2: journalists are following. There's no real wider philosophical conversations about
Speaker 2: politics or the media, and if there are any conversations
Speaker 2: that skew close to it. It's always in the context
Speaker 2: of what the post is doing and how it affects
Speaker 2: them and the choices they're making, and even that opening
Speaker 2: proper the burglars just going about their work methodically. It's
Speaker 2: all rendered very pragmatically, right. I Pakula doesn't lean into
Speaker 2: the suspense or kind of the coolness of the heightst
Speaker 2: like so many movies do. Here again, there's no music
Speaker 2: underneath it to live in it up even the way
Speaker 2: it's foiled. That security guard just doing his job just
Speaker 2: happens to walk in the door, notices a door is unlocked,
Speaker 2: finds it suspicious that there's some tape over it. And
Speaker 2: I like even that the cops who ultimately arrest the
Speaker 2: burglars don't want to do it, like they're off going
Speaker 2: on some other job and they're playing closed detectives, but
Speaker 2: they're closer to the Watergate and they end up doing it.
Speaker 2: This is obvious to say, but just think about how
Speaker 2: much of the running time of all the Presidents Men
Speaker 2: is about doing the work of journalism, chasing leads, chasing threads,
Speaker 2: sitting at desks, making phone call after phone call after
Speaker 2: phone call, being in the car knocking on doors, just
Speaker 2: relentlessly pursuing any bit of information they can and having
Speaker 2: to secure a certain number of confirmations right before they
Speaker 2: can run a story. There's just this process to it all,
Speaker 2: and we'll get more into the actual craft of it
Speaker 2: and Gordon Willis's cinematography later, I think. But the sheer
Speaker 2: number of shots sitting at desks in the newsroom that
Speaker 2: showcase the entire newsroom, all the buzzing in the background,
Speaker 2: the chatter amongst reporters and editors, the phone calls, the typing,
Speaker 2: it all reinforces it and finally, Josh, to get back
Speaker 2: to what you were saying. In terms of the enablers,
Speaker 2: there is obvious brilliance in William Goldman's screenplay, and somehow
Speaker 2: it really wasn't until this time that I recognized just
Speaker 2: how simple it is. And Sophie, my daughter, rewatched this
Speaker 2: movie with me. She loves the movie now too, And
Speaker 2: of course she doesn't have as much of a historical
Speaker 2: relationship to Nixon or Watergate or this film. She doesn't
Speaker 2: know who Haldeman is or Erlickman is, and all the
Speaker 2: names and the different threads these reporters are chasing kind
Speaker 2: of lose her a little bit, and I get it,
Speaker 2: But when you really break it down, this whole movie
Speaker 2: is just about them trying to determine the five names
Speaker 2: who controlled the slush fund, because if they can do that,
Speaker 2: and if one of those five names happens to work
Speaker 2: in the White House, happen to report right to the president,
Speaker 2: then that's it. That's that's everything. That's what breaks this
Speaker 2: whole thing wide open, And if you really do follow
Speaker 2: it from start to finish, that's all they're ever doing.
Speaker 2: It's not like they're off on a bunch of different
Speaker 2: tangents trying to take down President Nixon and all of
Speaker 2: his corruption. They're just trying to determine how checks from
Speaker 2: the committee to re elect the president got in the
Speaker 2: hands of Watergate burglars, and it just so happens it
Speaker 2: goes all the way up to the president.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I don't think it's the movie's goal to be
Speaker 5: able to help you trace the line all the way directly.
Speaker 5: This is not a newspaper report. It's a dramatization of
Speaker 5: the report, which seems obvious to say, but I think
Speaker 5: you need to make that distinction because you could come
Speaker 5: away from all the President's men disappointed if you didn't
Speaker 5: have a full understanding of Watergate. I don't think it
Speaker 5: necessarily gives you that. It gives you, as you're saying,
Speaker 5: the broad strokes, the goals of Woodward and Bernstein, and
Speaker 5: crucially how they went about doing their job. I mean
Speaker 5: you could say that Goldman's screenplay kind of you know,
Speaker 5: that last meeting with deep Throat just kind of unravels
Speaker 5: everything for them in a way we don't really see
Speaker 5: right that comes out in all in the montage of
Speaker 5: the ensuing newspaper articles, so we don't see the final
Speaker 5: threads being drawn together. Again, that's not the purpose of
Speaker 5: the movie. So thinking of you smiling while watching this,
Speaker 5: my exact same experience, just sitting there, started smiling very
Speaker 5: soon into it, chuckling at moments. Here's a moment and
Speaker 5: this goes back to how it was sort of a
Speaker 5: journalism high for me. When Woodward is on the phone
Speaker 5: and to my last point, I don't remember exactly who
Speaker 5: this was, but he hears the guy say, I know
Speaker 5: I shouldn't be telling you this.
Speaker 2: That's it, and it's just like it's one of the
Speaker 2: greatest moments. I love movie.
Speaker 5: His face but also just I let out a yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, and that is let me be clear about this, Adam.
Speaker 5: I was never an investigative journalist, okay, but I did
Speaker 5: do my share of real reporting at the beginning of
Speaker 5: my career. Kind of the deal with the devil I
Speaker 5: had to make when I went to my local town
Speaker 5: newspaper said I want to write movie reviews. You don't
Speaker 5: have movie reviews, don't you desperately need movie reviews? And
Speaker 5: the editor was like, yeah, sure, kid, but you know what,
Speaker 5: You're gonna have to go cover the local school board
Speaker 5: for me first, then I'll let you write a movie review.
Speaker 5: So one school board meeting, one movie review. That guy
Speaker 5: his name was rich Parmonar. He's no longer with us,
Speaker 5: but he was like basically the Ben Bradley of weekly
Speaker 5: suburban newspapers. I mean he was so over school, so intense.
Speaker 5: To him, A story about like water rates was Watergate,
Speaker 5: I mean it was it was high stakes in his mind.
Speaker 5: So anyway, that's kind of where I spent a year
Speaker 5: or two doing that stuff, making the phone calls, getting
Speaker 5: hung up on, knocking on enough doors to you know,
Speaker 5: get exactly what you needed. And it was never in
Speaker 5: my block, like I knew how to do that, and
Speaker 5: I could do it. I wasn't as passionate about it
Speaker 5: as I was about movies, obviously, but just remembering those
Speaker 5: experiences and going on to work in larger newsrooms where
Speaker 5: there were real reporters two deaths over and I could
Speaker 5: hear them making those calls to bigger politicians and knowing
Speaker 5: what was going on. It was such a thrill to
Speaker 5: be re immersed in that. And I think a part
Speaker 5: of it is just the fact that and here we
Speaker 5: can move to the craft. It's so tactile, it's so
Speaker 5: carefully observed, it's so knowing, and it's so analog. I mean,
Speaker 5: I think it is crucial that this movie came out
Speaker 5: and is capturing a time that was pre digital for
Speaker 5: the most part, because it really just emphasized not that
Speaker 5: it's necessarily quote unquote easier to do this kind of
Speaker 5: work now, but you've got a lot more tools and
Speaker 5: there are a lot more resources then having to go
Speaker 5: into the you know, here's another thing that I just
Speaker 5: chuckled that when Wood where it has to go down
Speaker 5: to the library and pull out the phone books, the
Speaker 5: actual phone books.
Speaker 2: And I actually said to Sophie, have you ever actually
Speaker 2: even used a phone book exactly?
Speaker 5: And that was part of the work, that was part
Speaker 5: of the job. So yeah, this is just such a
Speaker 5: joy to watch. And speaking of the newsroom, here's where
Speaker 5: you're right in how you describe all the President's men
Speaker 5: as being restrained in terms of filmmaking and not flashy.
Speaker 5: But this is a movie that uses multiple split diopter shots.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we're going to get there, and most of.
Speaker 5: Them are of Woodward just working on the phone. I
Speaker 5: think there's one of him in a phone booth as well,
Speaker 5: a payphone booth outside, but most of them are at
Speaker 5: his desk, and then he's in focus in the foreground,
Speaker 5: and then in the background is that newsroom in focus,
Speaker 5: the people, the other phones, the piles of paper on
Speaker 5: the desks. And for me, that not only provided this
Speaker 5: tactile context I'm talking about, but it also captured the
Speaker 5: laser focus you got to have if you're on deadline,
Speaker 5: just absolute laser focus. There might be a bigger story
Speaker 5: going on behind you. And I think there is a
Speaker 5: split diapter shot where I don't remember exactly what it is,
Speaker 5: but everyone else in the newsroom is gathered around a television.
Speaker 5: That story at that point was probably bigger than the
Speaker 5: one Wouldward was working on. But for him, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 5: Your story, the one that's due in twenty minutes is
Speaker 5: the biggest story of your life. And the split diapter
Speaker 5: shot captures that intensity in just an amazing way that
Speaker 5: is not flashy but so crucial.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I know there are people out there listening right
Speaker 2: now who probably work in newsrooms and are journalists, and
Speaker 2: maybe they will completely contradict me on this, but it
Speaker 2: occurs to me, Josh, that as you talk about the
Speaker 2: analog world of all the President's men, I wonder how
Speaker 2: different the Washington Post newsroom in nineteen seventy two and
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four was compared to the Washington Post newsroom now,
Speaker 2: a world in which we're all texting all the time,
Speaker 2: in which we're communicating even in the office when we're
Speaker 2: a few feet from each other via Slack some other platform.
Speaker 2: So that all ties back to me to another aspect
Speaker 2: of the craft here, which is how sensory it is
Speaker 2: and the use of sound. And let's go ahead and
Speaker 2: give credit. I didn't know this until I looked it
Speaker 2: up today. It won the Oscar for Best Sound Mixing
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy seven. Arthur planted do Se Dick. Alexander
Speaker 2: less fresholts, what a remarkable job with this movie, because
Speaker 2: all it does is just kind of hum in the background,
Speaker 2: sometimes more noticeable than others, but it's always there, just
Speaker 2: adding tension. You're leaning in to hear it. Those sounds
Speaker 2: evoke the anxiety the characters are feeling. I'm thinking even
Speaker 2: of like the sounds in the courtroom when Woodward goes
Speaker 2: and he's bugging the guy, the lawyer, who says, it
Speaker 2: just got really there. It's so great.
Speaker 6: Excuse me, what is your name?
Speaker 2: I'm Bob Woodward in the Washington Post.
Speaker 4: Mark them, Markham, mark them. Are you hearing connection with
Speaker 4: the Water Bay burglary?
Speaker 6: I'm not here?
Speaker 4: Okay, well, clearly I am here.
Speaker 3: It only as an individual, were not as the attorney
Speaker 3: of record.
Speaker 7: Who is.
Speaker 4: Mister Starkey?
Speaker 7: Do you have any whatever you.
Speaker 4: Want you don't have to get from him. I have
Speaker 4: nothing more to say.
Speaker 2: The way they shoot the moments when the judge is
Speaker 2: talking and when the burglars come before him is from
Speaker 2: their point of view, so we can't really hear what's
Speaker 2: being said. It's not like a traditional kind of courtroom
Speaker 2: movie shot. So again we just kind of hear the
Speaker 2: process play out. We hear those courtroom sounds, the sounds
Speaker 2: of the burglars going about their work. Like I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 2: the slips of paper at the Library of Congress. As
Speaker 2: the camera you know, elevates and we see them overhead
Speaker 2: and we see how kind of diminished they are by
Speaker 2: the scope of this and the work. But you hear
Speaker 2: very prominently in the soundtrack every slip of paper that
Speaker 2: they are going through, even in the parking garage. Not
Speaker 2: only are you so attuned, of course to any sounds,
Speaker 2: because you become as paranoid as deep throat and Woodward are.
Speaker 2: There's also a great moment coming out of that Library
Speaker 2: of Congress scene, and we could just spend the whole
Speaker 2: review talking about moments like this, but there is as
Speaker 2: that camera elevates up this kind of droning sound, it
Speaker 2: starts to feel like the pressure is mounting a little bit.
Speaker 2: It's kind of ominous. And then we see them emerge
Speaker 2: from the door, I mean, they pull the cars. The
Speaker 2: music stops, it cuts immediately, and it just makes you
Speaker 2: feel instantly like they've emerged from some kind of hibernation, right,
Speaker 2: or they've been lost to the world searching down this
Speaker 2: lead and they couldn't find it, and in that moment
Speaker 2: they erupt from the door. But it's it's just subtle
Speaker 2: moments like that with the sound design to make this
Speaker 2: movie so special.
Speaker 5: That first example you gave of the courtroom, which comes
Speaker 5: fairly early on Woodward, seeing the defendants line up and
Speaker 5: not being able to hear them. That's a great journalistic
Speaker 5: detail too, because he grabs his notepad, he knows he
Speaker 5: needs this, he desperately needs this. He turns his head
Speaker 5: to hear it, he can't. And that was another thing
Speaker 5: that was like just such a flashback whenever you were
Speaker 5: there and someone was speaking and that was your one
Speaker 5: shot to get the information you needed, and it captures
Speaker 5: that desperation so well. The sound of the movie, though, Adam,
Speaker 5: the defining sound of all the President's men, the typewriters,
Speaker 5: of course, and that is, you know, just that is
Speaker 5: a suspense thing too. You almost don't need a soundtrack
Speaker 5: of music soundtrack in this film because when people are typing,
Speaker 5: the speed with which they're typing captures all the suspense
Speaker 5: and the momentum that you need, and we get that
Speaker 5: so many times here, and that's a marker of the
Speaker 5: eras when you were talking about what does the Post
Speaker 5: newsroom look like now compared to that, I mean, that's
Speaker 5: a key turning point is when the typewriters left the
Speaker 5: room and the weekly I worked at had them. When
Speaker 5: I went to a bigger paper just a year or
Speaker 5: two later didn't have them. And it was a bigger newsroom,
Speaker 5: but it was a quieter one. So that goes back
Speaker 5: to the idea of sound design. And that's just so
Speaker 5: defining when I think of All the President's Men? Is
Speaker 5: that clacking in the background.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned one of these already. I think there
Speaker 2: are two, at least two just magical scenes and All
Speaker 2: the President's Men. One that I'm sure has been and
Speaker 2: will continue to be studied in film school and one
Speaker 2: that probably has been overlooked, but to me is almost
Speaker 2: as brilliant, and I'll start with that one. They actually
Speaker 2: follow each other in the movie. The one that is
Speaker 2: less obvious is the editors meeting. There's two of them,
Speaker 2: where Bradley and the other section editors are going through
Speaker 2: the rundown of what articles they've got. They're deciding how
Speaker 2: they're going to lay out the paper, what the top
Speaker 2: stories are going to be. And the first one is
Speaker 2: an extended one. And there is something about it, Josh,
Speaker 2: in terms of the cross talk, you know, the overlapping
Speaker 2: dialogue there, the camaraderie that they have, the ease that
Speaker 2: the actors that the men in that scene have with
Speaker 2: each other.
Speaker 1: I was having launch at the San Suit Si this
Speaker 1: White House guy, a good one. A pro came up
Speaker 1: and asked, what is this Watergate compulsion with you?
Speaker 5: Gompulsion?
Speaker 4: And I'm sorry this.
Speaker 1: Is I said, well, we think it's important. And he said,
Speaker 1: if it's so goddamn important, now they're Woodward and Burnstack.
Speaker 1: Now what do you expect you to say from the
Speaker 1: White House? You're doing a great job. Why do you
Speaker 1: ask what he's really state?
Speaker 2: I truly think it's a masterclass of performance and film directing,
Speaker 2: because watching it, I feel as if they did somehow
Speaker 2: without trying to ape a documentary style. There's nothing about
Speaker 2: it that is suggesting it's a documentary, and yet it
Speaker 2: feels to me like what it almost surely could have
Speaker 2: been like if they had dropped a camera back into
Speaker 2: that newsroom and I don't know how you get that.
Speaker 2: I don't know how you can suggest that sense of
Speaker 2: a shared experience among those people without probably at minimum
Speaker 2: a lot of rehearsal. Right, But even with all that rehearsal,
Speaker 2: you still got to pull it off. And it blows
Speaker 2: me away every time I watch it.
Speaker 5: Honestly, It's got to be one of the two opposite directions, right,
Speaker 5: it's got to be just extreme rehearsal to the point
Speaker 5: of them being able to do it in their sleep
Speaker 5: and then just going out and doing it, or it's
Speaker 5: got to be like, here's what we want you guys
Speaker 5: to talk about where we need to get to in
Speaker 5: this scene. Have at it and it's completely improvised. Now,
Speaker 5: I think it's probably closer to the former than the latter,
Speaker 5: given what we know about the film. But still, yeah,
Speaker 5: it's just an astonishing example of realism. And every performance
Speaker 5: is like that, you know. I mean you could say
Speaker 5: that maybe the one perform that stands out a little
Speaker 5: bit to this regard is Hoffman's as Bernstein, But it's
Speaker 5: hard to say that because Bernstein is supposed to be
Speaker 5: kind of a jumpy guy, right, He's it's part of
Speaker 5: his character that makes him seem a little less quote
Speaker 5: unquote realistic. But Redford is so naturalistic here, just so
Speaker 5: at ease in this every guy reporters skin that you
Speaker 5: forget how good looking he is because he kind of
Speaker 5: he manages to to like play that down without you know,
Speaker 5: playing a part where he needs like makeup or to
Speaker 5: look slovenly or anything. He just comes across as this
Speaker 5: guy who wants to do his job. Part of it
Speaker 5: is maybe the impatience he shows as Woodward too, that
Speaker 5: I think is like he's not trying to be a
Speaker 5: dream about he has no time for chit chat when
Speaker 5: he's on the phone, you know where where's Bernstein's more
Speaker 5: of a cajoler. That's kind of his style is let's
Speaker 5: be friends. I'm going to get this information out of you.
Speaker 5: And Woodward is like, I'm going to be persistent. I'm
Speaker 5: just going to keep at it, go at until I
Speaker 5: get that tidbit that I need. But it is just
Speaker 5: such a naturalistic performance by Redford that I think is
Speaker 5: a hallmark really of almost every other performance in the film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the other magic scene I was going to
Speaker 2: talk about here is probably Redford's best showcase in the
Speaker 2: entire film. You already mention the key moment in terms
Speaker 2: of him just praying to himself that the guy on
Speaker 2: the other end of the line will actually finish the
Speaker 2: sentence after saying I probably shouldn't say this. But it's
Speaker 2: also that split diopter scene, the most noticeable one that
Speaker 2: you were referencing, and you said, Josh that there's stuff
Speaker 2: happening in the background that is probably more important. But
Speaker 2: there's a reason why Pakula and Gordon willis give this
Speaker 2: scene and that moment the attention it deserves because this
Speaker 2: is where it does all converge and the story that
Speaker 2: justifies the whole movie finally take shape. So for people
Speaker 2: who know and this is another case where you can
Speaker 2: kind of connect Jaws to all the President's men, right
Speaker 2: in terms of a famous use of a split diopter,
Speaker 2: not that there aren't other many examples in cinema history,
Speaker 2: but a diapter shot simply kind of gives you the
Speaker 2: best of both worlds in terms of shallow focus and
Speaker 2: deep focus. Instead of lighting it in a way and
Speaker 2: shooting it so that you see everything that's happening in
Speaker 2: the newsroom, it forces you as a viewer to still
Speaker 2: stay focused on what's in the foreground. So in this case,
Speaker 2: on the right side of the frame, even though it's
Speaker 2: kind of at a slant, you're just looking at Redford
Speaker 2: pretty much in medium close up. Everything behind him is
Speaker 2: out of focus, but everything that's to the left of
Speaker 2: the frame behind Redford is in sharp focus just like
Speaker 2: he is. That's because of the diopter, and people do
Speaker 2: all kind of surround this TV. At one point, it's
Speaker 2: the press conference announcing that Eagleton is bowing out of
Speaker 2: the VP race. So this is the big news and
Speaker 2: all of the real commotion occurs at the very moment.
Speaker 2: Kenneth Dalberg answers the phone.
Speaker 1: Could I please mister Dalberg. Kenneth Dalberg, Yes, this is
Speaker 1: Bob Woodward of the Washington Post.
Speaker 2: And in terms of filmmaking, it's such a great trick
Speaker 2: because it simultaneously as a viewer, distracts you, which then
Speaker 2: forces you to pay further attention to what Woodward is
Speaker 2: doing to experience.
Speaker 5: Focus your experience in his distraction.
Speaker 2: That's it. So you have to keep your focus on him.
Speaker 2: You have to keep your focus on Dalberg just like
Speaker 2: Woodward does. And in some ways I think it's kind
Speaker 2: of a little bit of a joke on the audience,
Speaker 2: because politics, of course, in America, the real issue is
Speaker 2: that we're always distracted. The media is always distracted by
Speaker 2: the horse race, the gas, the personal failings, and not
Speaker 2: the corruption that might be actually occurring right in front
Speaker 2: of your face. This whole scene actually vividly portrays that, right,
Speaker 2: because everybody in the newsroom is going crazy about Eagleton
Speaker 2: having to bow out this kind of scandal surrounding him,
Speaker 2: but the undoing of the presidency is happening in the
Speaker 2: moment Kenneth Dalberg says those words, and then the masterstroke
Speaker 2: of just so subtly reducing that depth of the shot,
Speaker 2: focusing inch by inch even more on Woodward until we
Speaker 2: are finally on him and close up. It's a six
Speaker 2: minute scene. It plays out over the course of six minutes,
Speaker 2: one long take. As you suggested, Redford is so brilliant,
Speaker 2: and if the writing is brilliant, it catches you so
Speaker 2: off guard, even the Dalberg line where he says, I've
Speaker 2: just been through a terrible ordeal.
Speaker 4: My neighbor's wife has been kidnapped.
Speaker 1: Well, how do you think your check got into Barker's accounts?
Speaker 2: He just keeps up keeps his eye on the prize.
Speaker 2: He's not going to be distracted there. And then when
Speaker 2: Dalberg hangs up and he calls Clark McGregor for a quote,
Speaker 2: You've got that other great Goldman bent, which maybe came
Speaker 2: from the book, where MacGregor says, I if you print that,
Speaker 2: our relationship will be over, and Woodward says, sir, we
Speaker 2: have no relationship. There's just these lines like that that
Speaker 2: really keep you on your toes and keep you laughing,
Speaker 2: and you mention Redford's kind of impatience. There's an urgency
Speaker 2: to it. He just keeps saying, well, what do you
Speaker 2: think it could be? He's trying to keep Dalberg on
Speaker 2: the line, him talking, and it eventually does pay off.
Speaker 2: And that moment when he says it, I know I
Speaker 2: shouldn't be telling you this. Redford's muttering to himself and
Speaker 2: closing his eyes. Just the ultimate please God moment really
Speaker 2: is remarkable. And there are other subtle acting moments too.
Speaker 2: When Dalberg says, stands, that's the moment that it now
Speaker 2: connects to the president, and at that very moment, Redford
Speaker 2: just kind of subtly looks up, you know, maybe just
Speaker 2: for a second, he looked down at his notes, and
Speaker 2: now when he says stands, he looks up and it's
Speaker 2: almost as if the camera had done a slow tilt
Speaker 2: in that moment. Only Redford does it for us where
Speaker 2: we go, okay, we now recognize fully the magnitude of
Speaker 2: this situation. And again that's why I think this moment
Speaker 2: gets this treatment in the movie, because up to this
Speaker 2: point they've come from the Library of Congress, they made
Speaker 2: all these phone calls, they're hitting every dead end, they
Speaker 2: don't seem to have a story. And it's only when
Speaker 2: Dalberg says that that then everything comes together. So, of course,
Speaker 2: from a filmmaking point of view, Pekola heightens the intensity
Speaker 2: of it and the focus of it for us as
Speaker 2: viewers as well. Like I said, it's six minutes long,
Speaker 2: but it's got to be one of the most effective,
Speaker 2: but at the same time modest long takes in cinema,
Speaker 2: because it barely even registers as a long take because
Speaker 2: of all that activity in the foreground and the background,
Speaker 2: the bouncing between calls, the way it draws you to
Speaker 2: what is being said and the consequences of those revelations
Speaker 2: is what keeps it from being about the Breva cinema
Speaker 2: that it actually is.
Speaker 5: There's another moment that works similarly without that level of breva,
Speaker 5: even different techniques, but it works similarly. It involves Hoffmann. Interestingly,
Speaker 5: it's a red herring as opposed to this, you know
Speaker 5: gold moment, and that is when Bernstein is on the
Speaker 5: phone trying to get one of those confirmations. You know
Speaker 5: that Bradley keeps telling them they need multiple confirmations. Bernstein
Speaker 5: bristles at this, but he's doing the work. He's calling
Speaker 5: this guy on deadline needs a confirmation. The guy won't
Speaker 5: name the name, but so Bernstein lets out this this game.
Speaker 4: Look, I'm gonna count to ten. All right, if there's
Speaker 4: any reason we should hold on the story, hang up
Speaker 4: the phone before I get to ten. If the story's
Speaker 4: all right, you'll just be on the phone after I
Speaker 4: get to ten, all right, hang up right, that's right,
Speaker 4: you got it straight, all right, I'm gonna start counting, okay,
Speaker 4: well all right, yeah, okay, I'm counting one.
Speaker 5: You know you're confused. That's the point. What are you
Speaker 5: trying to do here? But we think, okay, the other
Speaker 5: guy understands. We're gonna find out now if this gets
Speaker 5: confirmed and Bernstein starts counting to ten, and what what
Speaker 5: do we do here? No fancy camera work, no editing,
Speaker 5: stay right on Hoffman's face as he counts from one
Speaker 5: to ten. Now, you could, you know, cut away to
Speaker 5: create suspense. You could cut away to something else going
Speaker 5: on the newsroom and knowing that we as an audience,
Speaker 5: we just want to get back to that countdown, Come
Speaker 5: on and elongate it, you know, between the counts of
Speaker 5: two and three, give us a couple of seconds of
Speaker 5: some other business so that we're impatient. And when we
Speaker 5: get back, we're still on three, and we're like, come on, no,
Speaker 5: that's not the choice. Nothing fancier than setting on this
Speaker 5: medium shot again of Bernstein's face as he's counting, waiting
Speaker 5: till we get to ten. And that's just an example
Speaker 5: of the restraint that all the presidents men also knows
Speaker 5: how to employ when necessary. Kind of gear shifting here,
Speaker 5: give us different, you know, ways of feeling that tension,
Speaker 5: feeling that suspense so it doesn't become overbearing or wear
Speaker 5: us out, keep us on our toes. And in this moment,
Speaker 5: it's by just being very simple and straightforward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and maybe it's because i'd seen the movie enough
Speaker 2: times I did grasp. As confusing as it is the
Speaker 2: way Bernstein explains it, I was aware that if he
Speaker 2: got to ten and the guy was still on the line,
Speaker 2: then that's good news for Bernstein. Sure what happens then.
Speaker 2: What happens then is as he's counting slowly but with
Speaker 2: some pace, you know, you're realizing the stakes.
Speaker 4: Well, all right, yep, okay, I'm counting one, two, three, four.
Speaker 2: Every time he counts, he's getting closer to what he wants,
Speaker 2: right to what he wants. Yeah, right, So then that
Speaker 2: urgency builds in you as well as a viewer. I
Speaker 2: was hyper aware of that this time. And we've talked
Speaker 2: a little bit about how good Redford is here. I
Speaker 2: think Hoffman is equally good. You're right, in a very
Speaker 2: different kind of performance. There are so many good ones here.
Speaker 2: But we've got to say something about Jason Robarts. Is
Speaker 2: Ben Bradley?
Speaker 3: All right? Hey, what do you guys want?
Speaker 4: The GAO reports do out the morning and Nixon's renomination, Hey, shitouts,
Speaker 4: Now that's two weeks from now. It's just the early
Speaker 4: responsible to Congress. There is no way a White House
Speaker 4: can control the investigation. There's a source of a general
Speaker 4: accounting that tells us that there's a whole rat snut
Speaker 4: civility going on over creek, like what like a slush phone,
Speaker 4: hundreds of thousands of dollars of unaccounted for care, hundreds
Speaker 4: of thousands of dollars Any comment from creep, Yeah, unavailable
Speaker 4: for comment. They're not talking. But what else beside the money?
Speaker 4: Where's the goddamn story?
Speaker 5: Probably my favorite performance, I mean really, I mean the
Speaker 5: most enjoyable, the most enjoyable.
Speaker 2: The most enjoyable. And and how about the way he introduced.
Speaker 5: Jay ratio to line to gold Lined Robards has it
Speaker 5: by a mile?
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's it's one to one exactly. That's why
Speaker 2: there's there is no ratio. That's how good this performance is,
Speaker 2: and how good the writing is. How about the way
Speaker 2: he's even introduced just kind of classical Hollywood filmmaking, where
Speaker 2: we only hear about Ben Bradley, we only see him
Speaker 2: in his office talking to other reporters. This is where
Speaker 2: the sound comes into play, where we can't hear what
Speaker 2: they're saying, which builds a little bit of suspense around him,
Speaker 2: a little bit of mystery. And then when he finally
Speaker 2: does come out and converse with our heroes as he
Speaker 2: takes the red pen to their story. I think that's
Speaker 2: the moment where we see him walk over, and it's
Speaker 2: one of those great tracking shots through the newsroom. The
Speaker 2: camera is kind of just at a slight low angle,
Speaker 2: which gives him a little bit more even gravitas than
Speaker 2: he already has. And then that moment where he says
Speaker 2: to bury it inside, and Hoffman gets so mad and
Speaker 2: Robarts just turns his head and gives him a stern look. Oh,
Speaker 2: and you see, you see Hoffman like a seven year
Speaker 2: old boy just realize what he's done and get instantly quiet.
Speaker 5: Well, it's beyond one to one ratio because each look
Speaker 5: he gives in this movie is gold as well. He
Speaker 5: doesn't even a dialogue, and now he gives a couple
Speaker 5: of those stairs, those hard stairs, which is basically like,
Speaker 5: this conversation has been over before you even started talking.
Speaker 5: This is what he's telling about.
Speaker 2: Well, and the way the movie takes note and the
Speaker 2: way we then take note as viewers of his mood
Speaker 2: and his reaction in response to things. When he says
Speaker 2: something like where's the goddamn story? You see that that's
Speaker 2: the first time we've actually seen Bradley get Matt. It's
Speaker 2: been building to that because he's been in a lot
Speaker 2: of conversations that we've been part of, like those editors
Speaker 2: meetings where we know that he's starting to finally feel
Speaker 2: some heat. Woodward and Bernstein don't fully understand that, but
Speaker 2: he's starting to feel it, and it comes out just
Speaker 2: an expression of anger like that, the tone of his voice.
Speaker 2: You know, he's not messing around. And in those moments
Speaker 2: they cut to Woodward and Bernstein's faces and it's where
Speaker 2: they recognize that he's not messing around. Something has changed.
Speaker 2: The tenor of this has completely changed the scene at
Speaker 2: the end, the whole thing about get in the bath
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes, you screw up again, I'm going to get angry.
Speaker 2: I mean, what's better writing than that? And better delivery
Speaker 2: of lines in all of movies? And I'll give you
Speaker 2: another one, even though there's probably ten more. The ken
Speaker 2: Clawsen phone call when ken Clawson realizes what he's done
Speaker 2: and realizes the hole he's in and calls Ben Bradley
Speaker 2: to try to straighten it out. Yeah, and Robards plays
Speaker 2: it like he knows exactly what ken Clawson is up to.
Speaker 2: He knows he's got him, he knows he can use
Speaker 2: this against him to get the information that he wants.
Speaker 2: And the smile when he says ken as he picks
Speaker 2: up the phone is just like he can't wait to
Speaker 2: give Clawson a little dig and manipulate him. It is
Speaker 2: truly one of my favorite performances ever, and thankfully it
Speaker 2: didn't win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Speaker 1: God damn.
Speaker 4: And what is somebody gonna go on the record in
Speaker 4: his story?
Speaker 3: You guys are about to write a story that says
Speaker 3: the former Attorney General, the highest ranking law enforcement officer
Speaker 3: in this country, is a crook.
Speaker 4: Just be sure you're right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's a thrill. We should also probably say a
Speaker 5: few words about Holbrook with his passing and you know,
Speaker 5: one of the things that jumped out at me. I
Speaker 5: mentioned this to you already, but why is he younger
Speaker 5: than I remembered? You know, I think of Holbrook as
Speaker 5: this you know, older actor with the white hair and
Speaker 5: his even his face here is just so young. That
Speaker 5: jumped out at me. But also the key to this
Speaker 5: performance as deep throat is all for me in that
Speaker 5: final conversation, because what he's doing in the in the
Speaker 5: previous ones very effective, you know, in terms of leading
Speaker 5: us on and tantalizing, not giving us too much, just
Speaker 5: as he's not giving Woodword too much and playing that
Speaker 5: cool but also mysterious. But it's that last conversation where
Speaker 5: he goes from this mesmerizing mystery man to a guy
Speaker 5: who's scared.
Speaker 3: Specific how high him. You're a fine enough for yourself.
Speaker 3: I don't like newspapers, I don't care for innings, attitute
Speaker 3: and shoutow on us. It creeps slush fun that financed
Speaker 3: the red We've just about got that nailed down. I
Speaker 3: don't know how to change cabs.
Speaker 5: That's when, you know, we start to realize, as Woodward does,
Speaker 5: the level of what is at stake here, not just
Speaker 5: for this story, but for the nation, for the for
Speaker 5: democracy really. And it's that little shift that Holbrook gives
Speaker 5: in the performance for the final scene that is building
Speaker 5: on everything he did in the previous scenes, but also
Speaker 5: doing something just slightly but crucially different.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Another great supporting performance in this movie that offers similarly
Speaker 2: wonderful moments. Jane Alexander, the former secretary to Hugh Sloan,
Speaker 2: who they finally do cajole into talking to them and
Speaker 2: giving them a lot of good information. The look she
Speaker 2: gives when her sister offers and Stein coffee, that's great, Like,
Speaker 2: what are you doing? I'm so trying to avoid every
Speaker 2: part of this, and you just asked him to stay
Speaker 2: and basically guaranteed he's gonna be here five to ten minutes.
Speaker 2: And she's just so vulnerable and so scared. But she's
Speaker 2: also clearly indignant.
Speaker 7: I thought it was all legal. I mean, I guess
Speaker 7: I did until after the break in, when I remember Gordon.
Speaker 3: Got so much of it.
Speaker 7: This is mister Liddy. It's also rotten. It's getting worse.
Speaker 7: And the only one I care about is Hugh Sloan.
Speaker 7: His wife was going to leave him if he didn't
Speaker 7: stand up and do what was right, so he quit.
Speaker 4: I'm wondering if Hugh Sloan was being set up now
Speaker 4: as a fall guy for John Mitchell, what do you think.
Speaker 7: If you guys could get John Mitchell, that would be
Speaker 7: you see the backbone?
Speaker 2: You see the backbone, see that immediately and so again.
Speaker 2: To balance that complexity as an actress, it is really
Speaker 2: pretty amazing. But I think this whole discussion has been
Speaker 2: straight out of Wichita Kansas. So we're going to wrap
Speaker 2: it up the first film in our seven from seventy
Speaker 2: six series. I don't know if we've decided what the
Speaker 2: next film is, but as we are talking about movies
Speaker 2: from nineteen seventy six, you can guarantee it will be
Speaker 2: a good one. All the President's Men is available to
Speaker 2: rent on demand on most platforms. If you agree or
Speaker 2: disagree with our takes, you can email us feedback at
Speaker 2: filmspotting dot net. Josh, a Pantheon movie has now been discussed,
Speaker 2: not many of them, but has been discussed in full
Speaker 2: here on film spot I.
Speaker 5: Don't know, maybe we should do more Pantheon discussions.
Speaker 2: That seven from seventy six series, plus eight for eighty four,
Speaker 2: Josh nine from ninety nine. We talked about six from
Speaker 2: sixty seven, didn't get to it. We may have to
Speaker 2: revive this series. Maybe we could go the other way.
Speaker 2: We don't have to keep going back in time. But
Speaker 2: all of those are available in the Film Spotting Archive.
Speaker 2: You get access to that as a Film Spotting Family member.
Speaker 2: We think all of our members and if you would
Speaker 2: like to join, you can learn more about doing that
Speaker 2: at Filmspotting Family dot com. Thanks for listening.
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