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Theron 2021-12-08 08:01:45

Everyone knows about the Watergate incident and that the investigation by two reporters from the Washington Post led to President Nixon's stepping down. "Presidential Team" is a description of what these people know. It is not easy to arouse the audience's interest, because the result is already known. But the film was very clever. Although there was no love, no gimmicks, no thrills, no fights in the long 138 minutes, the characters were almost always on the phone (the two protagonists made more than 20 calls), or wrote with a typewriter, or found this person. Most of the conversation scenes are just newspaper offices, but the audience will not find it lengthy. The investigation by the two reporters is like a scalp, deepening layer by layer, approaching the core step by step. Who could have imagined that what was thought to be just a piece of ordinary social news about burglary would lead to a huge political conspiracy, exposing serious corruption and power struggles! The Watergate incident is not a major event, but corruption is a major event that affects the rise and fall of a country. The film attracted audiences with its anti-abuse of power and anti-corruption as its main line. It became the top-grossing film in 1976 and one of the 20 most-grossing feature films in the history of the United States as of 1980.

The screenwriter cannot but attribute political scandals to film noir. The screenwriter William Goldman won the Oscar for the best adapted screenplay of the year. "Presidential Team" does not use visual images to depict corruption and power struggles, it only reveals the relationship between power and corruption in an abstract and diagrammatic manner. The five high-level officials around Nixon have the right to control the tens of millions of dollars donated by society to the president's reelection campaign. They can withdraw a huge sum of money from the safe deposit box of the election committee and pay someone without even writing a receipt. Part of the money is used to buy various people to carry out activities against dissidents. In "Presidential Team", the investigation of two reporters finally focused on Holman, Nixon's second man. The film does not clearly state whether Nixon himself knew all of this. (In 1995, Oliver Stone's "Nixon" had this description: Nixon ordered his men to give Howard Hunter a sum of money to keep Hunter silent on the Watergate incident.) But Nixon stepped down due to the Watergate incident. This fact proves that he is indeed responsible for this incident.

"Presidential Team" is not simply a message. Information is produced by the interweaving of several levels. The main line is the investigation by the two reporters, and the background is the struggle between the Republicans and the Democrats—the film describes the sabotage activities of the Republicans against the Democrats—and the disagreement within the newspaper on the reports of the two reporters. From investigating the ins and outs of money until exposing the shady of power.

The reporter initially suspected the illegal infiltration case of Watergate Hall when he discovered that someone had hired a lawyer to defend the illegal intruder. Subsequently, the words "White House" and "Howard Hunt" in the criminal's notebook made the reporter feel that the case was extraordinary. The clue from Hunter went to Charles Carson, Nixon's special counsel. This is the first clue. Then it was found in the bank account of the trespasser Bagh that a check written by Kenneth Dolberg, chairman of the Midwest Consortium, was written to Steinth, the treasurer of the president’s re-election campaign committee, who was also Nixon’s. Financial Controller. This is the second clue. Stans’ chief cashier, Na Sloan, suddenly resigned because there was a million in cash in the Election Committee’s safe. As long as the chairman of the Election Committee, John Michele, a call, the incoming person can withdraw the cash without any documents. Sloan was afraid that he would be unclear in the future. Michelle was the attorney general and led the FBI. This is the third clue. Finally, through the election committee lawyer Segritty, the general coordinator of the destruction of the Democratic Party, it was discovered that the activities of sabotaging the Democratic Party’s elections had not existed for a day, and the Watergate incident was just one of them. And Segritty was snatched by Nixon's second-ranked Holman's men to do these things. In this way, the four clues finally gathered to the top of the White House.

The opposite of the two reporters in the film is the constant mention of "them". "They" may be the White House, the presidential re-election campaign committee, or the sum total of the secret service organization. In short, "they" is a powerful force that can make subordinates mute because of fear or lie because of cowardice. Woodward asked "Deep Throat", why did the FBI and the Department of Justice ignore it? The reason is that "they" are people who will not be suspected, or simply the heads of the FBI and the Department of Justice. As described in the 1970 film "Investigation of an Unsuspected Citizen" by the Italian director Erio Petri, the head of the police station's reconnaissance department killed a person. Suspected. Once suspected, the police station will make him deny it for its own reputation. Therefore, it may be that the "deep throat" of one of the "them" cannot bring them to justice, and can only support the reporter behind the scenes to make their actions public.

When Alan Pakula was filming "The President's Team," everyone was worried that the audience had already known the outcome of the Watergate incident and would be thankless. Pakula believes that what the audience will be interested in is watching the film how to bring the ending out. It turns out that Pakula was right. The impressive box office performance of "Presidential Team" shows the audience's recognition of it. But this is not based on grandstanding. If you start from the fun, it can be made into a reasoning film or a thriller. But Pakula made a black political film. The black color mainly comes from the character "Deep Throat" and the underground parking lot that accompanies him at night. "Deep Throat" hid behind the pillar forever, never clearly showing his face. Night, shadow, mystery, tension, panic-these are all elements of film noir. However, even with the "deep throat" of the only dramatic character in the film, Pakula did not try his best to render it. He handled it with a sense of measure and stopped at the point, so that he would not destroy the simple documentary style of the film.

"The President's Team" was shot very tightly without any extra touches, but the visual processing is often very distinctive. One of Pakula's great success is to create a newspaper atmosphere. There are densely packed desks in the large open-plan office, and people shuttle among them, and typewriters keep clicking. Here, the bright lights at night and daylight contrast sharply with the emptiness and darkness of the underground parking lot. When the two reporters went to the Library of Congress to look through Hunter's library card, the camera lens slowly moved up, and the figures of the two became smaller and smaller, and they were completely swallowed up in the huge circular building. Looking down, the multi-level rotunda is like a spider web, and the two reporters are like bugs hanging on the web. This seems to tell the audience how heavy the task is for two small people to fight against a huge establishment.

If you say, in order to clarify the intertwined relationship in the film, you may need to watch it a second time. So, there is another reason to watch the second time, that is, to watch the performance exclusively. The performances of a large number of well-known and unknown actors in "The President's Team" are very simple, clean and neat, and there is no weak link in the whole film. Bernstein and Woodward are two characters that are not easy to please, and the scope of their performance is very limited. The characters' movements are to make phone calls back and forth, talking to people, even close-up shots, they are mostly listening. There are no emotional ups and downs, no special psychological changes. They are not heroes, because their motive is only to obtain exclusive news; they are also not idealists, because they have never heard them talk about noble topics such as patriotism and the maintenance of justice. They just kept rushing between task after task. However, the two outstanding actors Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford made the two reporters flesh-and-blood and made the whole drama very interesting.

Hoffman and Redford are the same age, and both were 39 years old at the time of filming. They gave the two reporters completely different personalities. Bernstein is an experienced journalist. His profession has taught him to be old-fashioned and take advantage of loopholes, sometimes doing everything to achieve his goals. Woodward has been a reporter not long ago, and he is relatively simple and abiding by the rules. When Bernstein persuaded Sally to get a selection committee list from her lover, Woodward couldn't bear it, and he was unwilling to use other people's feelings as a means to an end. Sometimes, however, explosive news can only be unearthed by doing everything. The most typical example is the scene of an interview with Sloan's female assistant. Sloan is a key figure, and his female assistant is an insider. At first the female assistant asked Bernstein to drive away. Bernstein pitifully begged him to smoke only one cigarette. After obtaining the acquiescence to sit down, he began to ask non-trivial questions. At this time, the owner could no longer make an order to evict the guests, so he had to pour coffee to him. By the time the sixth cup of coffee is reached, he has got the information he needs. Ask the other person to shake or nod his head when he reads a letter. Do not hang up the phone for dozens of times to indicate acquiescence... These are all Bernstein's ideas. He sometimes tentatively used lies to make the other party confess the truth. He is happy to lie for exclusive news, thinking: as long as it is aimed at bad guys, it's okay to cheat. In contrast, Woodward is much more honest, and he works hard more often. Redford makes so many calls in "The President's Team", and I am afraid it is rare in the history of movies.

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Extended Reading
  • Orin 2022-04-20 09:01:41

    Apology & promotion of the idealistic vision of journalism & media, fighting in all independance against corrupt political power. A proper Hollywoodian theme, in its naiveness and of its binary vision of Good vs Evil. The problem though is the complexity of the subject, which makes the intrigue hard to follow, a symptom of it being the frequent name-dropping of characters that never appear. Too many details and not enough reflection.

  • Maxine 2021-12-08 08:01:45

    After all, it's because of the First Amendment to the Constitution, so young people don't fight with blood...Pakura's Paranoid Triolgy has been completed so far, and I feel that Gordon Willis has made the most of it.

All the President's Men quotes

  • Harry Rosenfeld: I'm not interested in what you think is obvious. I'm interested in what you know. What we don't know is why they wanted to bug Democratic Headquarters.

  • Howard Simons: Harry this isn't a local police story anymore. This is national. We need a top political writer on it.

    Harry Rosenfeld: They don't want it. They're all over the God damn map covering the primaries. Besides this guy has busted his ass!

    Howard Simons: He's been on this paper for only nine months. What's the matter with you?

    Harry Rosenfeld: He's a humper!