PIC of the Week – The Parallax View
Article Series by Ray Schillaci
SOME SPOILERS PRECEDED IN BOLD – jump to the next paragraph to avoid
The Criterion Collection has a big surprise in store for cinephiles and those fascinated with intelligent and well thought out conspiracies, Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View. Writer/director/producer Pakula made his mark in the ’70s with three outstanding films of that period: Klute, The Parallax View and All the President’s Men. He helmed all three, produced the first two, and was not the scribe on any of them. But, he did write the screenplays for both William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice and John Grisham’s The Pelican Brief. Out of the three political paranoia films, I consider The Parallax View Pakula’s most intriguing piece.
The story was taken from a 1970 novel by Loren Singer and turned into a taut nail-biting conspiracy thriller by David Giler and Lorenzo Semple, Jr. with an uncredited rewrite by Oscar winning writer Robert Towne (Chinatown, Mission Impossible, Shampoo). Giler was best known for the hillbilly action/thriller Southern Comfort and writing the story for Aliens. Semple, Jr. delivered the thriller 3 Days of the Condor and the cult favorite Flash Gordon.
Pakula’s film plays on doubts about the single bullet theory and the job of the Warren Commission regarding the assissination of JFK. The screenwriters know exactly how to make us question everything. The truly frightening part about it all is that the film feels logical as we follow a Seattle, Washington television journalist, Lee Carter, played with fear and apprehension by Paula Prentiss, who witnesses the assassination of a presidential candidate. Compared to other political conspiracy thrillers like Oliver Stone’s JFK or Executive Action, Pakula’s movie still proves to be far more powerful.
Charles Carroll, a promising presidential candidate, is killed atop the Seattle Space Needle by a waiter with a revolver. The killer “accidentally falls to his death” while there’s an attempt to apprehend him. Meanwhile, no one spots another armed waiter leaving the scene of the crime. Pakula’s filming of the assassination, the mass hysteria, the near capture of the suspect, the shot of the Space Needle set against the backdrop of a blood red dawn and the commission’s announcement of zero conspiracy along with Michael Small’s haunting score is chilling. And this is before the opening credits role.
Three years later, Carter visits her old boyfriend, a disheveled alcoholic newspaper reporter, Joe Frady, played effectively by Warren Beatty. She claims that someone is out to kill her and brings up the fact that since the assassination six witnesses have died of questionable causes. Already, there are striking parallels with the JFK death. Fifteen witnesses died questionable deaths between ’63 to February 1967. The odds of that are astronomical. Even more disconcerting, author Jim Marrs in his book, Crossfire, has a list of 103 who he claimed died of mysterious circumstances.
Frady dismisses her girlfriend’s claims ***SPOILER*** …until she ends up dead from a drug overdose. Now, Frady becomes obsessed with the conspiracy and will go to any lengths to rip the curtain off the Parallax Corporation to unveil truth. Joe Frady’s journey is a harrowing one with a shocking ending.
Criterion’s Blu is a massive achievement over the 1999 Paramount DVD. Not sure why it’s taken this long, but it’s proved to be well worth the wait. Sourced from a new 4K restoration, this 1080p picture has an exceptional attention to detail. Yes, the film does have the pallet of a ’70s movie, but it proved to be exceptional with Gordon Willis’ (The Godfather movies, All the President’s Men, Manhattan) cinematography. The picture is sharp and with no noticeable imperfections.
The soundtrack is 1.0 LPCM and it may not have all the bells and whistles of todays action films, but it does contain an ominous quality that sets us on edge. Dialogue is crisp which is welcomed with a film of this sort. Where the sound really comes through is in a barroom brawl, a chase, and at a dam as the alarm sets off. All around, this is an outstanding improvement over the original Paramount release.
Now for the bad news, whether or not Criterion had access to everything, this release is a disappointment in the extras. We get about an hour and twenty minutes worth. At least there are some new supplements. Details of bonuses as follows…
• Introduction by filmmaker Alex Cox
• Interview with John Boorstin assistant to Pakula
• Program on Gordon Willis
• Archival interview Alan J. Pakula, 1974 (Audio Only)
• Archival interview Alan J. Pakula, 1995
The Parallax View is an intelligent, well thought out thriller. It should not be confused with some of today’s crackpot conspiracies. This is not about truthers, conspiracy theorists or QAnon. Pakula’s film is about “what if.” The parallels of this film and the Kennedy assassination are intentional and it may even have you research that part of the past all over again. Pakula’s film remains one of the best of the ’70s thrillers and is well worth adding to your library.
Lowest Price – $27.99 – Best Buy
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