Appreciation: ‘The Parallax View’

I subscribe to Criterion Collection’s streaming service, The Criterion Channel, which has over 1,000 DVD and Blu-ray titles and which greatly appreciates the art of motion pictures. (Website links: Criterion and Criterion Channel.) 

Last week, I streamed the 1974 political thriller The Parallax View. Coincidentally, with the date of this blog topic, it debuted in U.S. movie theaters 48 years ago—on the date Friday, June 14, 1974. I had a previous blog topic recognizing the 50-year anniversary of The Godfather (Link: ‘“The Godfather” Turns 50’). While that anniversary number is more a standout, I could not assume I would have remembered to wait for this motion picture’s 50-year anniversary until June 2024.

Produced and directed by Alan J. Pakula (1928–1998), The Parallax View casts Warren Beatty (who turned 85 on March 30, 2022) as an Oregon reporter who investigates the complex mystery that continues in the short years following the assassination of a United States senator and presidential candidate atop the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington.

Much like the period following the 1963 assassination of 35th United States president John Kennedy, with several connected individuals having met their untimely deaths, a body count grows in The Parallax View. But, there is a striking element discovered by Beatty’s Joe Frady: Behind all this is the California-based Parallax Corporation. It recruits assassins who take out political figures.

The Parallax View costars Paula Prentiss, William Daniels, Walter McGinn (1936–1977), Kenneth Mars (1935–2011), Jim Davis (1915–1981), and Hume Cronyn (1911–2003). (Prentiss is particularly effective as a reporter, also the ex-girlfriend of Joe, who witnesses the senator’s assassination. I also appreciated the subtle and convincing work of McGinn, as a recruiter, who died at age 40 from an auto accident three years after this film’s release.) The Parallax View was adapted to the screen by David Giler (1943–2020) and Lorenzo Semple Jr. (1923–2014) from the 1970 novel by Loren Singer (1923–2009). (Contributing to the screenplay, but not credited, is Robert Towne who won 1974’s Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Chinatown.) Its memorable cinematography is by Gordon Willis (1931–2014), one of the most unique and talented in his profession, who gives this film so much of its menace. (Willis received 1983 and 1990 Oscar nominations for Zelig and The Godfather, Part III. He was the 2009 recipient of an Honorary Oscar for “unsurpassed mastery of light, shadow, color and motion.”) 

Alan J. Pakula started his career, in 1950s Hollywood, in the cartoon department at Warner Brothers. His first marriage was to the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning actress Hope Lange (1933–2003). He became known in the 1970s with a trio of films some described the Paranoia Trilogy; but, their sinister tones were in tune with some evil forms not devoid of reality. Pakula was an important voice in 1970s cinema. His biggest success, and his only Academy Award nomination for Best Director, was for All the President’s Men. That film was about the Watergate scandal—from 50 years ago this week, on Saturday, June 17, 1972!—and which was investigated and reported in Washington Post. That picture was a huge commercial and critical hit—and it was one of the top contenders for 1976. (It lost to Rocky while Pakula lost to its director, the late John G. Avildsen.) Pakula directed three actors to Oscars: Jane Fonda, with her first of two, as 1971’s Best Actress in Klute; the late Jason Robards, with his first of two, as 1976’s Best Supporting Actor in All the President’s Men; and Meryl Streep, with her second of three wins and her first for lead, as 1982’s Best Actress in Sophie’s Choice. (That film garnered Pakula a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.) Five other actors were nominated under Pakula’s direction: Liza Minnelli, the first of her two, as 1969’s Best Actress in The Sterile Cuckoo; Jane Alexander, the second of her four, as 1976’s Best Supporting Actress in All the President’s Men; the late Richard Farnsworth, the first of his two, as 1978’s Best Supporting Actor in Comes a Horseman; and, in the 1979 Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress races, nominations for the late Jill Clayburgh (the second of her two) and Candice Bergen in Starting Over. (The great comedic performance Pakula got out of Bergen must have helped her become cast, in 1988, for her best-known and Emmy-winning role: the title character on CBS’s Murphy Brown.) As a producer, Pakula was nominated for 1962 Best Picture contender To Kill a Mockingbird (which lost to Lawrence of Arabia), adapted to the screen from Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, but leading man Gregory Peck (1916–2003) prevailed for Best Actor. For having directed 16 films, and having been a really good actors’s director, this was a remarkable record.

For any of the Progressives Chat regulars who have not seen The Parallax View…I highly recommend it. It had a lot to say back in 1974…much to which we relate here in 2022. The first video is its trailer. The second video is by Fandango’s Movieclips, which shows an early moment from the film. The third video, which is also available on the DVD and Blu-ray copies by Criterion Collection and for streaming on The Criterion Channel, is with filmmaker Alex Cox. He directed two particularly memorable 1980s films—1984’s Repo Man (starring Emilio Estevez and the late Harry Dean Stanton) and 1986’s Sid and Nancy (starring Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb)—and he more thoroughly explains why The Parallax View had (and still has) such impact. (A warning: Some clips are shown of what happens in the film.)