The Parallax View (1974)

          Starring Warren Beatty as a reckless reporter who stumbles into a nefarious scheme involving political assassinations and governmental cover-ups, The Parallax View is the quintessential ’70s conspiracy thriller. With its heavily metaphorical images of people dwarfed by gigantic structures, its insidious musical score that jangles the nerves at key moments, and its sudden explosions of violence, director Alan J. Pakula’s arresting movie set the template for decades of imitators. More importantly, it set the template for Pakula’s next movie, the exquisite journalism drama All the President’s Men (1976). Working with the same cinematographer (Gordon Willis) and the same composer (Michael Small) he used on Parallax, Pakula sharpened his conspiracy-thriller style to absolute perfection while telling the story of how reporters uncovered the Watergate scandal. In sum, The Parallax View is required viewing for anyone who wants to understand ’70s cinema, even though the picture is far from perfect.

          Based on a novel by Loren Singer and written for the screen by the formidable trio of David Giler, Lorenzo Semple Jr., and Robert Towne, the movie begins with an assassination inside the Seattle Space Needle, then continues with a grim scene of a Warren Commission-type panel issuing a “lone gunman” explanation for the killing—even though we, the viewers, saw more than one person collaborating in the murder. The movie then cuts three years ahead. Seattle-based Joe Frady (Beatty) is an unorthodox reporter with a nose for conspiracies. His friend Lee Carter (Paula Prentiss), who witnessed the Space Needle assassination, is terrified because she believes witnesses are being systematically killed. Joe is skeptical until Lee herself dies under questionable circumstances. Then Joe asks his editor, Bill (Hume Cronyn), for permission to investigate. The doubtful editor says okay, but gives Joe a short leash. Soon, however, Joe uncovers clues leading him to the Parallax Corporation, which appears to be in the business of recruiting assassins. Obsessed with following a hot story, Joe endangers himself and everyone he knows by trying to infiltrate Parallax.

          From start to finish, The Parallax View is exciting and tense. Pakula and Willis shoot the picture masterfully, using creative foreground/background juxtapositions, deep shadows, and long lenses to evoke disturbing themes. The movie also employs an effective trope of portraying villains as even-tempered men in suits, rather than hysterical monsters, and the notion of business-as-usual murder is chilling. The acting is uniformly great, with Cronyn a dryly funny standout among the supporting cast and Beatty putting the self-possessed diffidence of his unique screen persona to good use.

          All that said, the story hits a few speed bumps along the way. An extended sequence in a small town called Salmontail includes scenes one might expect to find in a Burt Reynolds romp, from a bar brawl to a comedic car chase, and some stretches of the movie are so subtle they’re actually difficult to parse. The finale, in particular, is clever but needlessly convoluted and sluggish. Throughout its running time, the movie waffles between taking itself too seriously and not taking itself seriously enough. Yet all is forgiven whenever The Parallax View hits the conspiracy-thriller sweet spot. For instance, consider this exquisite dialogue exchange between Brady and ex-spy Will Turner (Kenneth Mars). Turner: “What do you know?” Brady: “I don’t know what I know.” That’s the stuff.

The Parallax View: GROOVY

Klute (1971)

          A character piece disguised a thriller, Klute has so many extraordinary elements that it’s silly to complain about the movie’s shortcomings. For while Klute is not particularly effective a whodunit, it soars as a probing investigation into the sexual identity of a complicated woman. Kluteis also a great mood piece. The picture earned leading lady Jane Fonda the first of her two Oscars, and it’s the project on which director Alan Pakula and cinematographer Gordon Willis perfected the visual style they later used on two classic conspiracy-themed films, The Parallax View (1974) and All the President’s Men (1976). In fact, Kluteis often cited as the first entry in a trilogy comprising Parallax and President’s, because themes of duplicity, paranoia, and surveillance pervade all three films.

          Set in New York City, Kluteconcerns the search for a missing girl from the Midwest. Laconic heartland cop-turned-PI John Klute (Don Sutherland) travels to the Big Apple to look for the missing girl, and his best source of information is call girl Bree Daniels (Fonda). As John pressures Bree for information, the movie examines her intricate personality. Pakula features several insightful scenes of the call girl speaking with her therapist, and it’s fascinating to watch Bree waffle between justifications (exercising sexual power over men validates her self-image) and recriminations (for her, prostitution is a sort of addiction).

          As carefully sculpted by Fonda and Pakula—who presumably used the script by the otherwise undistinguished writers Andy Lewis and David P. Lewis as a jumping-off point for elaborations and improvisations—Bree Daniels is one of the most textured characters in all of ’70s cinema. Among the unforgettable moments during Fonda’s scorching performance is the bit when Bree seems to experience a massive orgasm with one of her clients—until she “breaks character” by checking her watch. Truth be told, Klutealmost delves too deeply into Bree’s personality, because the unveiling of her soul pushes the actual plot of the movie into the background. Even Sutherland, very much Fonda’s equal as a performer, falls into his costar’s shadow.

          Nonetheless, Pakula occasionally remembers that he’s making a thriller, and the movie features a handful of strong suspense scenes. Especially during these fraught moments, Willis uses deep shadows to convey a sense of ever-present danger; the artful silhouettes he creates during the climax are particularly memorable. Actually, it seems that nearly everybody involved with Klute treated the project like high art, thereby elevating what could have been a pulpy story into something special. For example, supporting players including Charles Cioffi and Roy Scheider give their small roles depth, and composer Michael Small adds to the ominous mood with eerie musical textures.

Klute: GROOVY

The Landlord (1970)

          Following his glorious run as an innovative film editor in the ’60s, hippie artiste Hal Ashby graduated to directing with The Landlord, an overly ambitious but thoroughly admirable comedy-drama about race relations. Beau Bridges, effectively blending innocence and impetuousness, plays Elgar Winthrop Julius Enders, a 29-year-old gentleman of leisure living on his wealthy family’s estate just outside New York City. Half-heartedly deciding to form an identity separate from his blueblood clan, Elgar buys an apartment building in a ghetto neighborhood on the verge of gentrification, imagining he’ll boot out the black tenants and create a groovy bachelor pad. Yet upon discovering the tenants’ vibrant community, Elgar becomes more interested in bonding with his new acquaintances than evicting them.

          So begins a sensitive exploration of a dilettante’s journey through white guilt—after recovering from the shock of seeing how poor African-Americans live, Elgar gets involved with two different black women. Elgar’s mystified by the life experiences of Lanie (Marki Bey), a light-skinned exotic dancer ostracized for not being “black enough,” and he’s bewitched by Franny (Diana Sands), a gorgeous hairdresser married to hot-tempered activist Copee (Louis Gossett Jr.). Even as Elgar juggles these romances, however, there’s underlying tension because everyone recognizes that Elgar can escape the troubles of the inner city any time he wants by returning to the comfort of his family’s estate.

          Written by Bill Gunn from a novel by Kristin Hunter, The Landlord is filled with knowing moments, although the story sprawls in such a way that the main themes become somewhat diffused. For instance, the movie spends a great deal of time developing the character of Elgar’s mother, Joyce (Lee Grant), and the most dynamic scene in the picture is Joyce’s drunken lunch with one of Elgar’s tenants, no-bullshit fortune teller Marge (Pearl Bailey). Clearly, Joyce is meant to represent the out-of-touch Establishment against which Elgar is rebelling, but Joyce’s scenes feel tangential.

          Compensating for The Landlord’s storytelling hiccups are terrific performances and a wonderful sense of atmosphere. Working with master cinematographer Gordon Willis, Ashby creates a loose, naturalistic quality in every scene; Willis ensures that the movie is both aesthetically beautiful and convincingly gritty. As for the actors, Bridges gets blown off the screen by costars at regular intervals, but in a way, that amplifies the movie’s message—the world beyond Elgar’s insular experience is so vibrant that he must grow as a person if he wishes to truly belong. The complex resolution of Elgar’s journey underlines that he still has a long way to go on the road to maturity even as the closing credits roll. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The Landlord: GROOVY

Manhattan (1979)

          Woody Allen’s most impassioned movie—if one accepts the popular notion that the great love of the comedian’s life is New York City, not any of his children or romantic companions—Manhattan is intoxicating from an aesthetic perspective. Allen’s genius notion of pairing George Gershwin’s resplendent music with artful black-and-white images of New York City turns every exterior shot into a cinematic postcard, and the way Allen stages an elaborate dance of interconnected romantic relationships against this magical backdrop accentuates the appealing idea that Manhattan is made for lovers. Yet the film is also challenging and complex, a hyper-literate saga starring Allen as a character for whom it’s difficult to sympathize.

          By the filmmaker’s own admission, Manhattan synthesizes elements from his two immediately preceding pictures, the bittersweet romance Annie Hall (1977) and the bleak family story Interiors (1978). Thus, Manhattan’s blend of farce and pathos arguably represents Allen’s first truly mature work, a human story that neither hides behind crowd-pleasing jokes nor indulges in pretentious psychodrama. Manhattan is not for every taste, to be sure, but it’s a fascinating film made with exceptional intelligence and skill. Plus, even if the characters are painfully neurotic and self-serving, that’s at least partially the point—building on the sharply observed character work in Annie Hall, Allen used Manhattan to further hone his skills for cultural observation and social satire, and none of the film’s characters (including the Allen-esque scribe whom the director portrays) escapes devastating scrutiny.

          The main plot concerns the romantic travails of Isaac Davis (Allen), a comedy writer who is sleeping with a 17-year-old student (Mariel Hemingway). Despite this entanglement, Isaac is also drawn to a woman his own age (Diane Keaton), who is having an adulterous fling with Issac’s (married) best friend (Michael Murphy). Meanwhile, Isaac’s ex-wife (Meryl Streep), who came out as a lesbian after her marriage to Isaac ended, is writing a tell-all book about their relationship. Working once more with Annie Hall cowriter Marshall Brickman, Allen constantly jogs back and forth between comedy and drama, often in the same scene, and the film’s acidic dialogue explores the many ways people impede their own happiness.

          The central love story isn’t as compelling as that in Annie Hall—it’s hard to root for a grown man who’s schtupping a schoolgirl—and the movie sometimes skews a little too downbeat. However, the blazingly intelligent writing, the uniformly wonderful performances, and Gordon Willis’ spectacular cinematography make the film thoroughly rewarding. (Of special note among the actors is Hemingway, who gives the best performance of her career at a very young age; the curiosity, emotion, and naïveté she brings to her character almost makes Isaac’s inappropriate involvement understandable.) Most of all, it’s compelling to watch Allen’s artistry reach an early peak, and to realize that over the course of the ’70s, he rapidly evolved from a lightweight jokester to one of the world’s most important cinematic storytellers. 

Manhattan: RIGHT ON