3.91/365: A-Z Challenge — A

In case you missed the announcement yesterday, I’m participating in the A-Z Blog Challenge. You can find the big list of participants by Googling. Each blog has a different theme. I’m doing a favorite movie of mine that starts with the days letter each day, but taking off on Sundays with a regular Kerry nonsense post.

All the President’s Men is in my top ten list of movies. It’s a masterpiece from 1976 and features Redford and Hoffman as journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein reporting on the Watergate break-in and cover-up by Richard Nixon and his “plumbers.”

The rights to the story were purchased by Robert Redford before the book even came out. Bedford had followed the reporting in The Washington Post from the beginning. That is wild. The film mostly stays true to the story. The biggest addition to the film is the phrase “follow the money,” which has become huge in the lexicon of law and business. But it was true — Woodward and Bernstein found much of what they uncovered by tracing payments to different people.

What I love about All the President’s Men (and there are tons of things) is the dedication by the filmmakers. The set is practically an exact replica of The Washington Post newsroom, down to the glass bricks, working phones, and fax machines. It’s the best use of office noise in all of film. The typewriters sound like bullets, intentionally. There is such a realness of the office and the film captures the earnestness of the reporters. Bedford and Hoffman actually shadowed Woodward and Bernstein at the paper, which is why their performances are so convincing. They became the reporters.

Redford and Hoffman bring it. They’re amazing. You believe every minute of their investigation. You also believe the other characters. Jason Robards IS Ben Bradlee.

One of my favorite quotes in the film sum it up perfectly — how the investigation started and what the newspaper was facing:

In a meeting, an editor mentions that he’d been asked, “If [Watergate is] so goddamn important, who in the hell are Woodward and Bernstein?” Another editor played by John McMartin explains to Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards) that Watergate is a dangerous story, especially if Woodward and Bernstein get it wrong. He points out that there are 2000 reporters in their town, and only 5 of them are covering Watergate. “Where did the Washington Post suddenly get the monopoly on wisdom? Why would the Republicans do it? I don’t believe the story. It doesn’t make sense,” he insists.

At the end if the film, Woodward and Bernstein are still typing away as Nixon’s second inauguration is playing on tv behind them. Dedicated journalists at work. Of course, in real life, their work caused Congress to investigate the break-in of the DNC. The final words on the screen in the movie are from the teletype machine that Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford would become president.

So that was A. Come back tomorrow for B.