A Film Review : “All The President’s Men (1976)”

All The President’s Men is a 1976 film directed by Alan J. Pakula and stars Robert Redford & Dustin Hoffman

Fremdschamen : the feeling of shame on someone else’s behalf, otherwise known as second hand embarrassment, is a layman’s term for feeling embarrassed for someone else, such as being embarrassed yourself when a character in the media gets rejected in a cruel way after asking a girl out, or when watching Peter Pan Live or Sean Spicer’s Press Briefings. Unfortunately, there is not a term for second hand feelings of any other kind, with a notable example for second hand feelings for another in media being Laurie Strode in Halloween just barely escaping the hands of her brother, the serial killer Michael Myers, many times in the film. But if I were to tell you what I think the best example of a need for a word to describe second hand feelings in media, it would be the many examples of frustration, disappointment, paranoia, doubt, and relief in “All The President’s Men”. The best word to describe this movie is frustrating, but thankfully, in the best way. We feel all of the aforementioned on behalf on our main characters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, portrayed excellently and amazingly realistically by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. Now, I hear some of you saying “Of Course you feel for them, this is what movies are for”, to that I say, no, this is not the same as the normal way you feel for characters. This is one of the very few movies that have ever made the audience fit inside their complex characters. I’ve asked myself what that title entails and what actually separates the way you feel for these characters from other characters. Being excellently made and based on a true story certainly helps. But I think the reason is that there is not more than one scene that doesn’t feature either Woodward or Bernstein. Why is that important? Because we only know what they know and we only know what they are thinking. So, if they think their original report on Watergate is serviceable and will deserve front page, we’re as flabbergasted and frustrated and angry as they are in the moment that they are rejected. We don’t feel like outsiders looking in and knowing their report is bad. We feel exactly what they feel every time they get a breakthrough in the case, they will have 7 million more steps backwards before their next. We get frustrated when they feel frustrated, hopeful when the feel hopeful, begging when they feel begging, relieved when the feel relieved, paranoid when paranoid, self doubting when they’re self doubting, and so on. That is the genius of this film, and I can think of Only 4 other films that do this. Even some of the most well regarded character pieces in film history, such as Citizen Kane, All About Eve, and Gone With The Wind, didn’t have the right characters to fit. This film is heavily focused on it’s characters, which is admittedly odd as the story is one of the most rich, mysterious, and complex plots of all time, even for Based On True events standards. All The President’s Men is one of the most unique films of all time in my opinion (Which is saying something, seeing as People like Stanley Kubrick Exist), which is why it rightly deserves, in my opinion, 5/5 Stars