"all-the-presidents-men"

Career advice can come from any quarter. Sometimes it’s the guy who sells you the newspaper. Other times it’s a chance encounter with a titan of industry. But there is no guidance likely to make a deeper impression than that given by our proxies on the screen.

I’ll admit it: I’m old enough to remember when the late Walter Cronkite delivered America its news every night at 7PM (if you were on the East Coast). I always loved him, and more important, I always believed him.

I’ll never forget the segment on “60 Minutes” a couple of years ago, when Morley Safer interviewed our most famous living historian, David McCullough.

Watching Matthew Miele’s “Alan J. Pakula: Going For Truth” (2019), more a heartfelt memorial tribute than a standard doc, waves of nostalgia swept over me, not just for Alan J. Pakula’s best films from half a century ago, but for the bygone days when artists like him could thrive; when good, meaty scripts were still prized and Hollywood invested in them.

Looking back half a century (can it really be half a century?), I’m reminded that 1971 was a very good year for movies.

With my awareness of passages heightened by a turbulent year, I was moved to compile a list of all the amazing players who have left us over the past twelve months. Some were big movie stars and household names, others skilled and reliable featured players who spent most of their careers on the stage or television. 

Given today’s chaotic, divisive political environment, it’s hard to imagine that events on the presidential stage could be any more sensational, yet looking back, many memorable films have mined the drama inherent in this exalted office. 

Ben Bradlee’s death on Tuesday at age 93 truly feels like the passing of an era. Thus it seems only fitting to revisit the movie that immortalizes him, the times he lived in, and the heroic stand he took: Alan J. Pakula’s “All The President’s Men” (1976).  This riveting, true-life story centers on the history-making reporting by Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) and Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) back in 1972, as they track a tiny, throwaway story about a bungled burglary at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington’s Watergate building. That story eventually leads all the way up to the office of the President, and topples Richard Nixon. Guiding the process with a steady hand throughout is Bradlee (played by Jason Robards, who won an Oscar for this). It was inspired casting, but the gifted Robards fully earns his statuette. “All the President’s Men” milks all the inherent suspense around the unfolding mystery of the Watergate scandal, and the parlor game of guessing the real-life identity of key intel informant “Deep Throat” (Hal Holbrook). Stars Hoffman and Redford also work off each other beautifully. But for anyone interested in the machinery of free speech in this country, watch the movie again for those memorable scenes between Robards’s Bradlee and his editorial staff. 

With the 91st Academy Awards upon us, the time feels right to recognize the crucial role that movies have played in our lives, particularly in troubled times.