Scott, Ian.. American politics in Hollywood film / Ian Scott. [1579583059] Chicago : Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, c2000.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1995.9.P6 S36 2000

 

    Chapter 4 of American politics in Hollywood film looks at Action, Adventure and Conspiracy in Hollywood Political Film.  Ian Scott explores the paranoid movie trend of the 1970’s and the connection between the thriller genre and political subjects. Pakula’s The Parallax View and All the President’s Men are examples of 1970’s films about “political breakdown and subservient democratic discourse being used for elitist, hidden aims.” Scott quotes Pakula stating that his movies are myths, but he uses them to emphasize aspects of reality.
    According to Scott, films of the 1970’s reflected a general cynicism resulting from political events of the first few years of the decade. Society had become paranoid as a result of conspiracy theories that sometimes turned out to be true, and this paranoia was reflected in a Hollywood style of “seedy politicians” and “dark and shadowy urban scenes.” In this sense, Scott states, a very real sense of paranoia could be written off as merely an aspect of trendy movie scenarios.
    While many movies of the decade dealt with conspiracy, All the President’s Men dealt with the process of uncovering a conspiracy. For the sake of entertainment, Woodward and Bernstein were heroized and the meetings with Deep Throat were portrayed as a perfect example of the “dark and shadowy urban scenes” that Scott mentioned as a characteristic of many conspiracy films of the 70’s. However, Scott believes that the film “made documentary political filmmaking respectable,” and that its performance in the box office (the film was one of the two top grossing films of the year with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) reflected a general but short-lived mood of anti-authoritarianism in the United States.