Conspiracy and creeping paranoia seeps through every frame of Alan J Pakula’s The Parallax View even the architecture and the soundtrack communicate dissonance and unease. Made two years before Pakula’s definitive Watergate film All the President’s Men, here Warren Beatty is a reporter who becomes caught up in the fall out from seeing a Presidential candidate assassination - a shockingly dramatic opening sequence. Unlike the fearlessly heroic journalists Woodward and Bernstein as played by Redford and Hoffman, Beatty’s reporter is drawn deeper into the corporate and political conspiracy enveloping him leading to an ending that does not result in exposure but rather echoes Chinatown’s devastating conclusion. Cinematographer Gordon Willis’ coolly stylized compositions give visual expression to a mood of the pervasive sense of dread and mistrust that defined the 1970s.

With thanks to Cinema Rediscovered.

Double Bill

Book for both The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor for £10. Call Ticket Sales, 01463 234234, to book.

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