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Essay on Watergate Movie: All the President's Men
All the President's Men, based on the best-selling book about the Watergate investigation by Woodward and Bernstein and directed by Alan J. Pakula, was released in 1976 the nation's bicentennial and depicted events whose ramifications were (and are) still being felt in American society. The film chronicles the efforts of the Washington Post to unravel a presidential conspiracy that surfaced with a bungled burglary attempt of the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel and Office complex.
The plot of the film (whose title alludes to both the nursery rhyme and the classic political novel All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren) is as old as yarns about journalism: Two young, untested reporters uncover the story of their lives and then must fight both the power of the state and skeptics at their own newspaper to bring the facts to light.
Dogged reporting and a never-say-die attitude carry them over every obstacle in their path, and, in the end, despite some dark moments, they get their man and the Republic is saved. Their tale, however, is rooted in the real-life events of America's most notorious political scandal (so far).
Film is, of course, an intimate medium and All the President's Men compresses the Washington Post's courageous and complicated exposure of Watergate into the personas of two extremely telegenic reporters portrayed by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.
Although it is based on the real events of the Watergate scandal, in cinematic terms All the President's Men is a buddy movie, much like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a western about two charming outlaws that propelled Redford to stardom a few years earlier. Only this time Butch and Sundance wear the white hats and lead the posse that relentlessly chases the Constitution-rustling bad guys to the....
