The Parallax View (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

The films that director Alan J. Pakula (Dog Day Afternoon) made with cinematographer Gordon Willis (best known for his work on The Godfather I and II and Woody Allen's Annie Hall and Manhattan) - particularly Klute, The Parallax View, and All the President’s Men—defined the formal language of modern American conspiracy thrillers. These films leave us with a strange paradox, for simultaneously glamourizing and banalizing the search for evil. The glamour comes from their fashionably disheveled stars, eerie corridors, painterly shadows, and from compositions of vast, clinically malevolent symmetry. And the banality exists in what lies underneath these shadows, or at the margins of those dwarfing cityscapes: dull, powerful bureaucrats committing crimes for relatively straightforward reasons such as money, lust, and embitterment. The cover-ups driving these films are more interesting than the crimes being obscured, an irony that cuts to the heart of our addiction to conspiracy theories. They’re comforting after all, suggesting that existence operates according to plan rather than by the whims of chaos.The Parallax View is about a company of mercenaries who are knocking off the witnesses to a senator and presidential candidate’s very public murder atop the Seattle Space Needle. This ghastly scenario shrewdly intertwines various rumors associated with the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, and it always seems as if reporter Joseph Frady (Warren Beatty) is on the verge of discovering a more grandiose truth that never arises. The architects of the Parallax Corporation are not über-villains out of a comic book movie, but business-suited cogs in a machine reminiscent of John le Carré’s spies. The motivations of whoever hired Parallax to kill the senator are never even revealed because Pakula implicitly sees them as distressingly, self-evidently ordinary: that the politician got in someone’s way.The Parallax View is especially disturbing and relevant in our age of weaponized conspiracy theories. Like a paranoiac’s dream, the film feels as if it’s making itself up as it goes along, as it reportedly was. Frady chases clues, essentially entering various film genres as he proceeds—two of the most unexpected set pieces here could’ve come out of a Smokey and the Bandit movie—only to have his idealism coopted by Parallax, which utilizes him as a scapegoat for the murder of another senator. Parallax is an embodiment of the worst of capitalism, commoditizing rebellion while keeping consumers distracted from the true machinations of society. The name alludes to this idea, as “parallax” refers to an object’s seeming change in position depending on where someone stands. Depending on your vantage point, a senator’s murder is a sign of subterranean evil, business as usual, or all the above.The mystery of a senator’s murder is of less concern to The Parallax View than the insidious corporatization of America. Murder is committed here for hire, rented out and divorced of the personality and neuroses that drove, say, many a killer from a Hitchcock film, while modernist buildings are utilized to signify alienation in the key of Antonioni and Godard. The opening image—of a totem pole that obscures the Space Needle from a certain point view—initially seems like a joke but signifies the film’s ongoing obsessions with erasure and co-option.Frady’s trip to a small woodsy town initially feels like a warm refuge from the chilly office corridors that haunt so many Pakula films, until Parallax is revealed to be capable of influencing people even here. Tellingly, evil is revealed again via a large ominous structure—a dam with an alarm that sounds like a dinosaur’s death rattle. And the film’s scariest sequence, scarier than A Clockwork Orange’s corresponding set piece, finds Frady watching a Parallax recruiting video, which shows how easily images of American harmony can be flipped—or seen from a different vantage point—to emphasize the decay and exploitation lingering underneath. And in this moment we’re left with a lingering ambiguity: Is the video playing up to the psychosis of potential Parallax freelancers or revealing the truth of society?Pakula and Willis frequently suggest that violence is latent everywhere, from the Space Needle to a small town to a newspaper office to a cozy apartment. Their compositions have a neutral, un-emphatic quality that runs counter to the pummeling instincts of most thriller filmmakers. When Frady enters a room, we’re allowed to feel as if we’re discovering for ourselves the propped-up feet that casually reveal an interloper (while providing the image with a through line). Or when cops grapple with a killer on the needle, they’re filmed from an almost aloof distance, as if this sort of thing happens all the time, a gesture that underscores the ludicrousness of the event, the strenuous work of the fighting, and the casual perversion of a death match set on a tourist trap. In The Parallax View, Pakula deflates the agency of conspiracy theories, even as he springs one, by showing how redundant they are: No need to look for the secret heart of America when its craziness is out in plain sight.Image/Sound:One of The Parallax View’s visual signatures is the stark contrast it offers between people and landscapes. As Gordon Willis says himself in an archive interview included with this disc, he was interested in figures and space, and both are well-represented in the film. Crucially, the image on this disc, which has been sourced from a new 4K transfer, abounds in a wealth of visual textures. The foregrounds and backgrounds of landscapes are eerily pristine, suggesting a kind of open-air menace, while indoor scenes are often warmer, fuzzier, more intimate. Colors are intense, especially those of the American flag in the climactic sequence at a convention center, yet there’s also an attractive element of grain. The English LPCM 1.0 sound mix is also highly varied and balanced, placing particular emphasis on small diegetic sounds.Extras:A video introduction by filmmaker Alex Cox (Repo Man, Sid and Nancy) contextualizes The Parallax View in terms of the many assassinations that occurred in America in the late 1960s, especially the killings of John F. Kenney and Robert Kennedy. Cox’s observations are complemented by the archive interviews with Alan J. Pakula, from 1974 and 1995 respectively, in which he speaks of the film’s themes and symbols. The best of the archive supplements, however, is the interview with Willis conducted with the American Society of Cinematographers in 2004, where he elaborates on the reasoning behind his iconic compositions, such as his interest in figures in space and disdain for coverage that indicates a lack of decisiveness. In a new interview shot for the Criterion Collection in 2020, Jon Boorstin speaks of helping to develop the psychology test featured in the film, though the best new supplement is the essay by critic Nathan Heller that’s featured in the booklet. Describing The Parallax View as a “noir of urban modernity,” Heller renders the film’s doomy and vastly influential style with peerless precision.Final thoughts (and one quibble).I wish the screenwriter, Lorenzo Semple Jr was acknowledged. Quite a career: He wrote 1973's Papillon, the 60s Batman series, Flash Gordon and many others. A master scribe who deserves his due.Alan J. Pakula’s seminal, nearly free-associational conspiracy thriller has been outfitted by Criterion with a beautiful transfer that underscores all its eerie nooks and crannies, from its lurid colors to its malevolent use of negative space.

Alan J. Pakula’s classic conspiracy thriller was essential viewing in the 70’s and 80’s. It’s a powerful thriller that set the standard for the genre. I am disappointed that Criterion hasn’t dabbled in 4K yet and this 4K restoration would be ideal. As it is, we will have to be satisfied with the Blu-Ray; make no mistake it’s a great looking Blu-Ray and well worth picking up.Warren Beatty plays a reporter who, after witnessing the assassination of a political candidate, begins to suspect there’s an organization that seeks out misfits turning them into the perfect killers. His investigation puts everyone around him in danger especially when he tries to penetrate the organization.Pakula crafts a slow burn of a thriller full of mystery and menace; Beatty isn’t give a lot of credit as an actor but he perfectly captures both the politically ‘worldly’ (but really naive) reporter who has discovered the most compelling story of the century. As people he knows are threatened, disappear or die, it only pushes his resolve. Beatty perfectly captures all,of this (n his performance. In an archive interview the late Pakula noted that, working with actors of different abilities, means that the film itself will also end up a little different. I have no doubt that with a different actor in the lead role, we would have ended up with a very different feel to certain elements in the film. He cites, for an example, (in the booklet included) that if he had worked with Steve McQueen (who,was evidently interested at one point), the more effusive performance that we see with Beatty would have been muted and Pakula as director would have had to use different tools to achieve the same result.I would argue that, “Reds” aside, thst this is Beatty’s best performance as an actor. There are actors that being elements of themselves to their roles rather than immerse themselves in the role and Beatty beings his strong personality to the role like a lot,of leading men would there,is, however, a fine line between letting the leading man overwhelm the role and Pakula helps keep Beatty in check.The film looks very nice-the 4K restoration/transfer has been downsampled to traditional Blu-Ray; the film isn’t going to wow anyone compared to today’s films because it’s a 1970’s film but the colors are strong for the films with natural skin tones. Detail is very nice here and Willis’ ‘look’ is faithfully represented here. The uncompressed mono has been freed of any ticks and pops. Subtitles are in English and this is region A locked for those looking to purchase this overseas.The special features do not include a commentary track but there are a pair an archival discussions (one from 1974 and the other 1995) with the director. I realize that Beatty is up there in years but a I would have loved to hear a moderator work with him in discussing the film or, at the very least, a film historian discussing the making of the project given how pivotal it is in the conspiracy thriller genre.The booklet does provide an interesting essay especially given the post-Watergate world and its relation to the film when dark, shadowy figures like Deep Throat who could provide reporters with breadcrumbs arrived in the wake of a true conspiracy in Washington D.C.We also get a new program on cinematographer Gordon Willis that features a 2004 interview with him. Pakula’s assistant Jon Boorstin also appears in a segment discussing the film. Film director Alex Cox also shot a new introduction (he’s been pretty active lately with his appearances on this and the Kino Clint Eastwood reissues) for the film.While some of its impact in the post Qanon world may have been blunted, “The Parallax View” still works because of taunt (but not overly stylized or frenzied) direction, the sharp script by David Giler (one of the producers and uncredited screenwriters on “Alien” among many other films) and Lorenzo Semple Jr. (“Three Days of the Condor”). I’m really surprised the source novel and the screenplay haven’t been tackled again; this would seem a perfect project for Chris Evans or Robert Downey Jr.

I won't say this early 70s conspiracy drama is "timeless", but its darn close. Somehow, I missed this one, heard much about it over time and just watched it for the first time almost 50 years after it was made.The Criterion bluray is the version to watch--the movie likely looks as good as it did upon initial release--but the booklet essay, director interview and the supplements add new meaning to the movie and puts it into the context of the time--and other movies!Some scenes are just riveting. Cinematographer Gordon Willis has his favourite (the opening assassination) but two others stand out in my mind: the harrowing dam scene in which that huge man-made edifice dwarfs the human players (the growing menace underscored by its spine-tingling warning horn!) and the final assassination scene set inside the LA convention centre--both scenes work on multiple levels.All this makes for a wonderfully satisfying film. A testimony to screenwriting-on-the-fly (by lead Warren Beatty and director Pakula, who distributed new script pages every morning), Willis's wonderful camera work, and terrific performances under an able and visionary director

Unlike other films on 4K Blu Ray, this film was released in a decade of the Vietnam War and Peace Loving Liberties. It is an illusion: Nixon was right, War Money is Corrupt, Lyndon Johnson Laos Vietnam Wars, and Gerald Ford was referred as a Hero. This film is literally to confuse the American dream of Red, White and Blue. Change the perspective of one, change thousands.

Warren Beatty ( Joe Frady ) Investigates The Murder Of A Senator. And Finds Out Their Is A Conspiracy. Far MoreSinister Than He Could Have Imagined.

Arrived on time and in great shape. Fun movie from the 70s.