The Parallax View (USA, 1974) 102 min color DIR-PROD: Alan J. Pakula. SCR: David Giler, Lorenzo Semple Jr., Robert Towne, based on the novel by Loren Singer. MUSIC: Michael Small. DOP: Gordon Willis. CAST: Warren Beatty, Hume Cronyn, William Daniels, Paula Prentiss, Jim Davis, Kenneth Mars, Bill McKinney. (Paramount Pictures)
With this film, All The President’s Men, and to a lesser extent, Klute, Alan Pakula proved that he could make terrific suspense movies that largely comprised of people talking. Despite its fantastic premise, The Parallax View works because it seems all the more plausible in the same low-key, matter-of-fact approach that distinguishes the other films.
Today, thrillers tend to be overwritten, with overly complex plots offering one twist after another. This film on the other hand is heavily fragmented: while not incomprehensible, it operates on the barest minimum of plot. This makes sense, as the film is largely seen through the eyes of reporter Joseph Frady (Warren Beatty), whose investigation into a political assassination reveals that reporters on that scene are dying mysteriously. These acts are being orchestrated by a corporation named Parallax, and in his efforts to expose them, he unwittingly becomes another of their pawns.
Parallax sounds like the name of an insurance firm or a pain medication. One of the film’s most benign moments is also one of its most memorable, and frightening. When Frady joins the Parallax corporation, he is shown a film which explains their worldview, but the film’s repetition of suggestive images are meant to convert the soul who watches it. It is an effect not dissimilar to the fate of Winston Smith in 1984. The mini-movie that Beatty is shown, is also shown to us in full screen without cutaways, therefore the viewer is equally seduced by Parallax’s manipulative images.
The movie is helped immeasurably by the chocolate, underexposed photography of Gordon Willis, which conveys the perfect amount of mystery, and makes even the quietest moments appear frightening. Most memorable is the scene where Frady goes into his boss’ office to see the man (Hume Cronyn) seated behind the desk with a cup of coffee in his hand. But we know that something is wrong, as Willis’ high-angle lighting turns Cronyn’s eye sockets into black pools, and reveals the skull pattern of the actor’s head. The climax, in which Beatty is stuck in his own web trying to expose the organization by revealing an assassination in which he is also implicated, is also terrifying. The Parallax View is a disturbing parable of how corporate media can seduce people to the most dangerous of degrees. In today’s world, that message rings even more true.
Originally presented in Vol. #1, Issue #14, (“Back to the 70s”), as part of the article, “The Paranoia Machine”.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.