The Parallax View (1974) User Reviews

Existentialism with a political twist

[JuguAbraham · 8/10 · 27 March 2003]

I saw this film first some twenty years ago and loved it. I saw it again this week and found the film superior to most other films of director Pakula and found it to be another gem from cinematographer Gordon Willis.

"Parallax View" never won Oscars or other major awards for Pakula but this film along with "Klute" and "Sophie's Choice" are his finest works. Articles on Pakula often focus on his award-winning work and neglect this fine movie.

What was great in this film that was missing in "All the president's men" or "The pelican brief"? Here the element of existentialism sucked in the viewer to participate in the whirlpool of deceit, exemplified most by the test given to the lead character in the offices of Parallax Corporation, the staccato editing (John Wheeler) that exemplifies the individual's helplessness, and the imaginative photography (Willis) that stunts the individual (not crowds) against the himalayan landscapes of glass and steel.

The film was made at a time when Hollywood was brimming with great films with a similar line of thought (Spielberg's "Duel", Coppola's "The Conversation", Penn's "Night Moves", Polanski's "Chinatown", Antonionni's "Zabriskie Point", Altman's "Nashville", Boorman's "Point Blank", etc.) internalizing the external, as Camus would have best described it. "Parallax View" among all these films touched the subject of politics using the least obscure metaphors and similies.

Can one forget the dead calm in the sea before the explosion/assasination? Or the assassination viewed from the roof top of the victim's cart colliding with empty tables and chairs towards the end of the film? None of Pakula's other films have such hardhitting scenes as these, even if one were to discount the unconvincing cool response of the lead character in the airplane when he realizes that there is a live bomb on it.

This is a film that grips you nearly 30 years after it was made, when US politics seems to be at a point very close to what the film depicted three decades ago.

An ambitious, but ultimately dissatisfying paranoia thriller from Pakula...

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 10 August 2001]

Fascinating premise gets somewhat pretentious, lugubrious treatment from acclaimed director Alan J. Pakula. Conspiracy thriller has newspaper reporter Warren Beatty investigating years-old assassination of a U. S. Senator wherein witnesses to the shooting are all mysteriously dying. Beatty gives one of his better performances here, although the scene in which he defeats a taunting deputy in a bar is fairly absurd (as is the sidebar involving a hick town built around a dam, which seems to be little more than a red herring). Gordon Willis' arty cinematography is exasperating, although a shot early on of assassin Bill McKinney looking up at the Space Needle is chilling; McKinney has few lines but suits his role well, as does Paula Prentiss in small part as a frantic 'next target'. The much-discussed 'Parallax test' (a delineation on how innocent boyhood is corrupted by sex and violence at the expense of Mom and Country) is handled with sledgehammer style, and the unhappy ending is too cynical to swallow whole. **1/2 from ****

nope

[treywillwest · 7/10 · 11 August 2016]

It has become commonplace to identify '70s Hollywood films as their own genre. I'll go one farther and identify this era as a collective, structural autuer.

If that hypothesis holds any water, this is one of its impressive works. Made shortly after Watergate, and less than a decade after the JFK assassination, this envisions conspiracies and assassinations not as a disruption of, but a cornerstone of the American establishment.

This is, in a sense, not a POLITICAL conspiracy thriller. The US government, or that of any other country, is presented as merely a dope of a greater power- that of the big corporations of whatever stripe. This is a dystopian capitalist democracy- one in which representatives are elected to "officially" be as clueless as the general populace about the real social reality around them.

Perhaps the most subversive thing about this very subversive film is that the assassinations don't seem catastrophic, or even troubling. When one takes place, the victim politician is basically a walking sound bite. His sacrifice seems only the continuation of a ritual of banal brutality.

In one scene, a film is shown that is supposed to condition the viewer to murderous obedience. It is a montage of images of Americana, including those of violence and oppression. In most '70s conspiracy thrillers, the evil that lurked beneath the surface had a predatory relation to the commonly understood reality. People were putting their trust in a machine that was not what it seemed. Here, the evil is the surface. America IS the conspiracy.

DP Gordon Willis has never impressed me more. In his work with Woody Allen and Francis Coppola his show-offy use of shadow and in-the-frame lighting sources seemed at times to distract from the tone or theme of the film, as if Willis was only interested in defining his "look" regardless of its relation to the film's content. Here, it fits the tone of the film perfectly. The final scenes, largely devoid of dialog, in a hall filled with terrifyingly "patriotic" imagery, is gorgeous. Many of the shots reminded me of de Cherico paintings.

Mainstream US Cinema at its 70s Best

[robertconnor · 1 September 2006]

A US Senator is assassinated and the official inquiry concludes it was the work of a lone gunman. Three years later, with 6 witnesses dead, a TV reporter present at the killing is frightened for her life. She takes her fears to a journalist ex-boyfriend. At first he is sceptical...

Brilliant paranoid thriller from Pakula, utilising choppy realism and naturalistic dialogue to create a bleak and uncompromising picture of cynical, corporate conspiracy within US politics. Beatty has never been better as the ambitious journo-hack Joe Frady, and he is superbly supported by Cronyn, Daniels and a deeply compelling cameo from Prentiss. You can bet this wasn't diluted by audience testing prior to release... unmissable.

One of the most memorable of 70s paranoia films.

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 19 August 2018]

Warren Beatty is fine as Joseph Frady, a third-rate reporter who misses out on being present for the assassination of a U.S. Senator atop the Space Needle. However, an ex-girlfriend (Paula Prentiss, in an affecting cameo) WAS there, although she and other witnesses aren't entirely sure of what they saw. Nevertheless, the witnesses start to get killed off - including Prentiss - and Beatty is motivated to investigate into the matter. He eventually discovers a typically shadowy organization, dubbed Parallax, that is in the business of professional assassinations.

The story isn't always completely coherent, but the fast-paced editing by John W. Wheeler ensures a story (scripted by David Giler and Lorenzo Semple, Jr., based on a novel by Loren Singer) that moves quickly and with no filler. Director Alan J. Pakula, also known for such top 70s features as "Klute" and "All the President's Men", is clearly in his element, and he keeps the element of mystery and nervousness high. He's ably assisted by the legendary cinematographer Gordon Willis, who never lights scenes more than absolutely necessary. This is especially essential when it comes to the nerve-wracking finale, taking place at a rehearsal where Parallax intends to give Frady his first assignment.

Particularly of intrigue is the sequence where Frady is "tested". The questionnaire and personality-testing montage have to have individual viewers wondering just how they would personally fare, going through these processes. In the end, this system succeeds in creating such efficient cold-blooded creeps such as Bill McKinney's character (who has absolutely no dialogue).

Glum, riveting, and ultimately downbeat, "The Parallax View" offers choice acting opportunities to a solid cast that also features Hume Cronyn (as Frady's long-suffering editor), William Daniels, Walter McGinn (in a standout turn as a friendly Parallax recruiter), Kelly Thordsen, Earl Hindman, Jim Davis, Kenneth Mars, William Jordan, Edward Winter, Stacy Keach Sr., Ford Rainey, Richard Bull, and an uncredited Anthony Zerbe. It's particularly fun for this viewer to see future 'Home Improvement' cast member Hindman as a hostile Sheriffs' deputy (who gets his ass handed to him by Frady).

As was said, Beatty does a fine job. This is a character who's not an infallible superhero, and you can see that he really is out of his depth here.

Pakula did do much more popular pictures during his career, but never really got enough credit for this one.

Seven out of 10.

Terrifying Masterpiece

[secragt · 10/10 · 7 May 2003]

PARALLAX VIEW is an impressive political thriller with an unusually specific and scary viewpoint. It posits that many conspiracies work because relatively few people are in on the whole joke; some are involved in the set up, some in the telling, and some in the punchline, but only a precious few are given the whole picture, making detection almost impossible. The argument is compellingly made.

It is the perfectly machine-tooled "punchline" role the Powers That Be assign to an unwitting Warren Beatty that makes PARALLAX VIEW such a frightening movie. There seems to be a thread running through many of the bigger conspiracy movies (see ARLINGTON ROAD, ROLLERBALL, NETWORK, THE INSIDER, etc.) that suggests unless the individual can find an inroad to make themselves useful to the system, the system finds a role for individual (often not to his liking). In the case of NETWORK, individual Howard Beal is initially spared by one geopolitical phase of the corporate system and allowed continue to rant on TV once he is properly slotted by Ned Beatty, but he is ultimately murdered when the corporate television arm of the system no longer has a use for his declining ratings. He becomes a punchline.

In THE INSIDER, Russell Crowe is initially hung out to dry by the system until Al Pacino is able to find a way to manipulate the television arm of the system to find a value for Crowe. Crowe becomes the instrument of the telling.

In ROLLERBALL, James Caan is beloved by part of the system as the greatest celebrity sports figure of his time, but ultimately sabotaged by another part of the corporate world which is trying to espouse the notion in the game that the individual can never beat the system, something Caan has been indirectly doing by being too successful in the game. Caan successfully defeats the setup, telling and punchline (though he's probably not long for this world.)

In the case of Warren Beatty in the PARALLAX VIEW, he is elected to take the fall for a political assassination which will simultaneously discredit his own conspiracy investigations. The task is accomplished with such cold blooded efficiency and clever precision, one has to seriously doubt whether our own Federal government could do it. But then, is that perceived incompetence of our officials just another con being perpetrated on us by "Them"? Beatty's mistake is that he underestimates "the set-up" and becomes the posterchild of the system's "punchline."

It is in this battle between individual and system that THE PARALLAX VIEW really distinguishes itself. What initially appears to be the ambiguous paranoia of a decidedly neurotic woman is gradually allowed to organically grow such that we can begin to see tips of the iceberg along the way, but don't want to believe what we're seeing even when the truth is apparent. That iceberg subtly floats by in different forms every time Beatty investigates further or reexamines his own position, yet remains nearly invisible possibly because it is so big it cannot be seen or contemplated?

Certainly there are aspects which lurch toward absurdity. For instance, the non-fallout from the cartoonish bomb explosion of Beatty's plane (containing an important political official no less) certainly should have aroused greater attention and suspicion. A car chase about 2/3rds of the way through feels particularly tacked-on. However, the overall focus of this movie, which is the slow peeling back of the layers to get to the irresistible mystery, is highly effective. People can judge for themselves whether any of the dirty tricks this movie documents really go on, but that's really not the point.

This is a story full of intriguing moves and clever counter-moves. Scams and ploys and scams inside of ploys. Most of these details are fascinating and we feel like Pakula is letting us in on some of the dirty little subversive things we've always feared may occur behind the doors of the seat of government. But ultimately, this is a story about a man who looks too long at the sun and is so intrigued yet blinded by what he sees, he ignores the nature of the sun, which is to both illuminate and to burn. Whether any of the conspiracy suggested is true, it remains one of the most compelling efforts of the seventies, and is a must-see. See it and judge for yourself.

Interesting, but not entirely coherent

[grantss · 6/10 · 24 February 2014]

Interesting, but not entirely coherent. Quite original conspiracy theory and the twists therein. Very powerful ending.

Direction by Alan Pakula is solid: intrigue is built and maintained well.

However, the suspense is based more on style than substance. We are kept in suspense by lack of information, but some of this information is available, the director has just chosen to not reveal it. Plus the links between certain scenes are quite tenuous, at best. So, we have suspenseful scenes occurring in isolation (eg the plane scene), merely for the sake of intrigue and suspense.

By the end of the movie you are still none the wiser what is going on, and how it is going to end, but you know something is going on. The ending resolves this quite well, but until then it is really an illusory trick by the director, creating suspense with a disjointed plot and having the audience buy it.

However, look through all that, and you see the holes in the story.

Good performance by Warren Beatty in the lead role.

A Triumph in Cinematography as Seeing

[rrebenstorf · 10/10 · 15 January 2003]

The term, parallax, has everything to do with seeing, and as such it is particularly fitting for a film that is about seeing on many levels. Gordon Willis' distinctive cinematography is a perfect match for just such an enterprise. His commanding use of light, shapes, and (most of all) darkness creates a sense of uncertainty that flavors this so-called paranoid thriller. Along with under-sung director Alan J. Pakula, Willis is working here with pretty much the same production team that would next give us _All the President's Men_, but they do as well in this earlier film with apparently a lot less. Contrast the newsroom as shown here with the detailed recreation of The Washington Post in ATPM. It seems like Hume Cronyn and Warren Beatty are the whole newspaper in _The Parallax View_. That's fine. It's supposed to be two-bit paper.

We are shown eyewitnesses who don't know what they thought they saw during an assassination attempt. We don't know what we thought we saw either. We are shown conspirators who are constantly seeing around the next corner. We are kept guessing as well. We follow Warren Beatty nervously as he tries to keep ahead of this game. Kenneth Mars even gives Beatty a second false identity just in case the first one is checked. Finally, we take a slide-show psychological exam right along with Beatty, and perhaps we wonder what our own responses to it show us to be. It's a very special film that allows us to trust the filmmakers even though we know they may be giving us unreliable information. That blind trust seems to be the soul of this truly great movie.

Finally, I'd like to cast a vote for Mr. Beatty as one of our true American acting treasures. Where would the great films of the 70s be without his hip, wise-cracking presence? Did we expect Elliott Gould to do all the work?

good paranoid thriller

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 3 April 2015]

Independent minded Senator Carroll is assassinated on top of the Space Needle. The assumed killer falls to his death and a commission declares him to be a lone gunman. Three years later, Lee Carter pleads with reporter Joe Frady (Warren Beatty) to investigate the Carroll assassination. The people around Carroll on that day are getting killed off. Frady finds something disturbing. He is attacked by Sheriff Wicker. He kills Wicker and discovers the name Parallax Corporation among the sheriff's belongings. His boss is Bill Rintels (Hume Cronyn) doesn't believe him at first. He suspects that they are recruiting psychopaths and he intends to infiltrate the organization.

The first half is really compelling. There is a good sense of paranoia. It fades a little after the plane bombing. They couldn't film the plane exploding. It's the first sign of the movie's limitations. I wish the movie could find the next gear but it's not really there. I also wasn't impressed with the long montage sequence that Frady sits through. It could be much more compelling but it feels derivative of 'A Clockwork Orange'. It's still a very good paranoid thriller.

Conspiracies done right

[kosmasp · 10/10 · 19 June 2021]

There is so much to unpack here. Apart from this being a political (conspiracy) thriller it also may have the funniest lines outside of a Zucker/Abrams/Zucker production ... which I did not expect at all. There is doom and gloom and there is Warren Beauty ... in case you never saw him in young (I know it is spelled Beatty, but you'll forgive my very obvious pun).

Talking about very obvious, the movie and its premise and what it tells us the viewers is also not hiding behind anything. We get into the mindset of the main character and we do find out more about what happened and about what sort of still happens ... with a great director like Pakula at helm this does not get as much credit as it deserves at all. Neither back in the day (awards wise) nor now ... though with many wild conspiracies growing, it may be the wrong time to praise this at the moment ... still it is exceptional to say the least! I've never tried to kill myself succesfully ... just one of the many quotes one can take from this movie, without even spoiling anything! And up there with "there is no fighting in the war room"! :)

Dated and not quite All The President's Men

[faraaj-1 · 6/10 · 23 March 2008]

Was The Parallax View a trial run for Pakula's brilliant All The President's Men which came out two years later? The visual style of both films is similar and one can't fault the mechanics of either film. But there are significant differences between the two that make ATPM a classic and Parallax dated.

All The President's Men was based on an actual historic incident and tried to portray it as authentically as possible while maintaining a thriller feel to the piece. Parallax was certainly inspired by the unfortunate assassination of Robert Kennedy which was recreated in the opening set piece. But, while the opening is genuinely interesting, the rest of the film goes off on tangents that are unexplained and don't really add any value.

The Parallax View has no real characterizations of the various players in the piece except Beatty. With ATPM, you had Redford, Hoffman, and the their editor, all characterizations rooted in real personalities and their interplay was fascinating. Here Beatty was made to look scruffy looking to cut down on the glamor boy image, but he's no Dustin Hoffman and can't really carry the film.

The whole conspiracy theory in Parallax was over the top and not at all convincing. There are sub-plots that lead nowhere. All in all, helmed by a solid craftsman with two good set-pieces and good use of the score but the basic script was weak. The funny thing is that after seeing this, I thought Pakula made it to capitalize on the success of ATPM. I saw surprised to see this was made two years earlier.

" When you've asked a hundred question and received no answers, you're not suppose to know "

[thinker1691 · 9/10 · 18 June 2010]

In the age of conspiracy, there are dozen of reasons why bad things happen to good people. They never happen to bad people, they are protected. Lincoln, Kennedy, Luthor King and even Bobby Kennedy, all were targeted for death by their enemies. Bush, Nixon or even pedophile priests, all have guardian angels. This movie is called " The Parallax View " which offers a plausible suggestion of how such powerful organizations work. Warren Beatty plays Joseph Frady, a top notch reporter who discovers a mounting pile of evidence, all which indicates a U.S. Senator was not assassinated by a lone gunman. However, as he begins collecting both the name of witnesses and collaborating evidence to substantiate his conclusions, he become the primary target of the Paraallax corporation. With Williams Daniels and Hume Cronyn in supporting roles, this strange and compelling film urges the audience to try and stay ahead of the assassins. Base on the David Giler novel and aptly directed by Alan J. Pakula this movie is driven by suspense and fueled by circumstance. From the very beginning, the audience is drawn ever forward with the hero and we hope he will get to the exit door before the Parallax crew prevents him. An exciting and heart pounding ending awaiting anyone paying attention and riveted to their chair. Superior film for Warren Beatty and one destined to become a Classic. ****

The best is chilling and fascinating, and the best is at least half of it.

[secondtake · 7/10 · 20 February 2011]

The Parallax View (1974)

Another Alan Pakula film that promises a lot and delivers at least half of that--half of a lot being not bad. Warren Beatty is a vaguely convincing renegade journalist in Seattle, on the trail of a company (Parallax) that trains and uses its employees to committee political crimes. You get this hint pretty soon into the film, and it develops step by step until Beatty is in the middle of it all. It's a thriller, half espionage, half crime (the idea puts it somewhere between, and so does the filming).

There are conventions here that are a bit usual, and maybe rightly so, like the hardboiled but eventually supportive editor, or the cops you can't trust, or of course the women at the beginning who want our leading man, one way or the other. This doesn't become a central thread, however (as it does say in the formative 1971 "Klute" or in "Three Days of the Condor" the next year). The development of the leading man who has to go loner against something bigger than himself, is a usable scenario (maybe seen earliest in the New Hollywood era in "Point Blank" in 1967), but it isn't developed with as much savvy as you need to give it its aura and mystery. The photographer here, interestingly, is the great Gordon Willis, who seems to dominate increasingly as the film goes on, until the brilliant scenes on the plane, and the final broad scenes in a convention hall.

This could have been as intensely action-adventure as the "French Connection" or (much later) the Bourne films. Or it could have developed the psychology of Beatty's journalist with greater subtlety. The plot is in a way an assemblage of separate scenes--the fabulous opening sequence, the awkward (and absurd) fistfight in the mountain bar, the drowning and near drowning scene (with a complete indifference to the warning siren), and so on. It sounds exciting, it should be both chilling and scary.

But between Beatty, who lacks some edge he needs, and Pakula, who thinks too much about effect and sensation, it mostly works but misses something great. And it's worth saying, because it has the elements there for something great. Which makes it worth watching, no doubt at all, and clearly the ending is ambiguous in an attempt to be profound. I actually get the sense it resorts to this final strange scene as a last resort, but it does work, the way people seem to know the danger is gone, standing as a group, even though there is no reason for them to know. It isn't feasible, for sure, but it's eerie enough to work.

Parallax View - A greatly overrated and disappointing picture?

[The_TJT · 4/10 · 29 September 2009]

Parallax View, starring Warren Beatty playing a reporter in Alan J Pakula's film, a couple years before ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN. A film that did not enjoy success when it first was released but has apparently gained some momentum since.

I had been reading some reviews full of praise for this film. It was compared to movies about conspiracy such as Three Days of the Condor, All the President's Men, Manchurian Candidate, JFK and the Conversation. The movie has 7.4 average at IMDb and 91% at Rottentomatoes. My comparison would be POINT BLANK except this one being slightly inferior on all counts.

"A masterpiece of suspense, tension and cinematic storytelling the likes of which, sadly, Hollywood doesn't make anymore."

I'm happy that they don't. Maybe 70's seems better from distance, or from parallax viewpoint? The movie was about a reporter Joseph Frady(Beatty) tracking a conspiracy to kill high position politicians, I think...

However the plot is sort of messy and unsatisfying, questions are being unanswered and unexplained or never made. I'm not sure if this was by purpose or due to inadequate writing. In the beginning a politician is killed and shortly after possible witnesses from the crime scene are getting killed in various "accidents"...which sounds like a nice prospect for a thriller. However we are never explained why the urge to kill the witnesses in the first place? There was nothing to witness after the assassin getting killed at the event. Yes, us viewers do see that someone else was involved in assassination at the crime scene, but how would the "witnesses" know that remains a question not answered in the movie. I guess they just have to be killed, all 12? of them...now that will make the conspiracy less noticeable for sure.

While following a "lead" for one of the witness killings, Frady eventually finds out that there may be a company called Parallax behind all this. So how to get more information on the company? - Simple, fill out a psychological test application form and send it to the company. If you're found out to be an anti-social murdering type you get an interview...because that's how hit men are really recruited. In this interview they apply some brainwash techniques, just to be on the safe side when dealing with a psychopath I guess. Although I don't see the need for a brainwash AND being a psychopath.

Anyways the problem with the movie, apart plot holes, was the long, dragging scenes. I found myself just staring at the screen thinking something unrelated. The movie never grabbed me along the attempted atmosphere...which was supposedly very "dark" and "paranoid". Actually what was "dark", was the dim lit filming...it was so dark that you could hardly see anything in many of the scenes. This is something that is typical to many films of the 70's, usually for the bottom of the barrel types. It can be used to film's advantage, but not all way through imo, especially when you're kept in the dark about what and why things are happening in the first place. Filming long and black shots does not a suspense make, it actually requires something to be suspenseful about...something along the lines of TIGHTROPE or DIRTY HARRY perhaps, where darkness was used wisely to not only in attempt to create but also to enhance existing atmosphere created by script, acting and characterization.

Talking about characters...There was no character development at all, not even for the protagonist. Other characters did get very little screen time and seemed to be irrelevant. I don't know...maybe Hackman could have pulled this off, but Beatty didn't seem to be able to.

After the movie I found myself thinking...Wow, I would have really hard time explaining the actual plot afterwards. Very unclear plot, an unnecessary bar fight scene and out of nowhere car chase. What was that boat explosion all about...How come Frady was the only one to survive and how did he get to dry land? Were there only Frady and his boss working in this newspaper? How did he know there was a bomb on the plane? Who were the people he asked about the application form? etc etc...And most importantly, why did this all happen in the first place!? It's really hard to tell since there was no character development nor explanations but rather jumping from one scene to another making it look sort of like a montage of cut scenes that were barely related. Rather hard to follow when you're in the trance state of staring and suddenly notice that it's a new scene you're watching...what happened in the last one, how did we get here...

Positives for the movie would be: -Somewhat creative brainwash scene along the lines of CLOCKWORK ORANGE -Unclear ending...was Frady actually brainwashed and an assassin himself in the end. -The way how he informs the plane crew about the bomb while not being accused himself of planting it. -And finally a scene with a chimpanzee playing Pong. Yes, you read it right, this was the highlight of the movie for me personally...

Watch The CONVERSATION or THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR instead. Former being vastly more successful on creating paranoid atmosphere and latter on suspense and having a good tight script with great pacing on keeping the suspense...NOT letting it drain away with long, pointless, disjointed and dim scenes as in PARALLAX VIEW.

4/10

THE definitive 1970s paranoid thriller. Intelligent, tense and effective.

[Infofreak · 23 February 2004]

When I hear mention of Warren Beatty these days I almost begin to snore, but before Beatty became a boring old fart he made a handful of very interesting and adventurous movies like 'Mickey One', 'McCabe & Mrs Miller' and 'The Parallax View', hardly safe Hollywood movie star material. 'The Parallax View' is THE definitive 1970s paranoid thriller, beaten only by Coppola's 'The Conversation', released incidentally the same year. The movie has to be watched in the context of when it was made. It's shot through with post-Watergate cynicism and the Kennedy assassinations cast a long shadow over the plot. Beatty gives a very subtle, relaxed performance, and for me is totally believable. The supporting cast is first rate. Veteran Hume Cronyn ('Shadow Of A Doubt') plays Beatty's editor, Paula Prentiss ('The Stepford Wives') a hysterical fellow journalist, and William Daniels (Dustin Hoffman's father in 'The Graduate') has a brief but memorable bit as another witness who fears for his life. Also keep an eye out for the legendary Bill McKinney (who nobody who's ever seen 'Deliverance' will forget!) as an assassin, Anthony Zerbe ('The Omega Man') as a psychologist (playing Pong with a chimp!), and Earl Hindman ('The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three') in the bar fight scene. Much of 'The Parallax View' was later used in 'Arlington Road', an unconvincing movie which was much too contrived for me to be believable. It just didn't have the subtlety that this one has, and spelled everything out, seeming assuming its audience wasn't bright enough to get it. 'The Parallax View' is still one of the most intelligent, tense and effective conspiracy thrillers ever made, and the direction by the late Alan J. Pakula is just about flawless. Highly recommended.

Nihilism Compromises Potential Classic

[Rathko · 7/10 · 10 March 2005]

'The Parallax View' has such great potential that it's almost painful to watch it fail. The first hour is a tightly scripted, beautifully paced investigation into the mysterious cause of death of several individuals present, three years earlier, at a Senator's assassination. The performances are universally sound, with that wonderfully slow, natural, almost improvised, quality that seems to be a hallmark of 'seventies cinema. The economy of dialogue and almost Kubrickesque use of wide angles and long-shots to establish Joe Frady's isolation show Pakula at the peak of his talents, all impeccably photographed by the incomparable Gordon Willis.

The Parallax Interview Film is a rightfully famous sequence; evoking contemporary concerns about the media and subliminal advertising, using the language of marketing with a strong understanding of concurrent experiments in conceptual art. The movie-within-a-movie is Orwell's Five Minute hate come to life; terrifying proof of the ease with which we can be emotionally manipulated. The Parallax Interview Film is one of the most important films to come out of American cinema in the 70's and despite it having dated over the years, is as effective and chilling as ever.

Then things take a turn for the worse. The entire story thus far has been concerned with finding why these people were murdered. The investigation leads Frady to the Parallax Corporation, where he undergoes the required brainwashing/encouragement to become an assassin. Then suddenly, all interest in the 'why' is abandoned as we rapidly follow Frady towards his inevitably tragic demise. While I fully appreciate that the outcome mirrors the general proposition that we can NEVER really know the truth and investigation is futile, there's something deeply unsatisfying about being promised a story that fails to materialize. Many questions remain unanswered and require some pretty nimble thinking on the part of the viewer to concoct explanations for what, in all truth, are probably simple plot holes.

This really is a very good movie, with a strong premise, wonderfully written and presented. However, the nihilistic urge to deny the viewer ANY explanation is a pyrrhic victory, that while honest to the story, remains emotionally unrewarding.

An End To Innocence

[seymourblack-1 · 9/10 · 9 September 2011]

After the optimism and idealism of the 1960s came the scepticism and unease of the 1970s. The assassination of President John Kennedy had been shocking and the findings of the Warren Commission had left the majority of the public unconvinced. Most didn't believe that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone and there was also a strong belief that there had been a high level cover up.

When the President's brother Robert was later assassinated in circumstances which also led many to believe that a second gunman had been involved, public distrust of official explanations grew even deeper and the Watergate scandal reinforced the opinions of those who believed that corruption, cover ups and conspiracies were routinely being practised on a massive scale by ruthless groups who simply served their own interests and certainly didn't hold themselves accountable to the general public.

"The Parallax View" captures perfectly the ominous and unsettling mood of this period when suspicion and cynicism were widespread and an increasingly apprehensive public became convinced that truth and integrity had become the greatest casualties of the era.

When Joe Frady (Warren Beatty), a reporter for a small time newspaper is visited by his ex-girlfriend Lee Carter (Paula Prentiss), she tells him that she's terrified and fears for her life. Three years previously, she'd been a television reporter at an event at the Space Needle in Seattle where she'd witnessed the assassination of Senator Charles Carroll (William Joyce) and since that time six other witnesses had died unexpectedly. Her fear is that she'll be the next witness to be killed. Frady dismisses her concerns as being unfounded and regards the series of deaths as pure coincidence. When Lee's dead body is found shortly after and her death is recorded as either a suicide or the result of an accidental overdose, Frady decides to investigate further.

Frady's investigations lead him to the town of Salmontail where he gets involved in a fight with the local deputy sheriff and survives an attempt on his life before discovering some papers about the Parallax Corporation which appears to be an organisation which hires political assassins. He then meets Senator Carroll's ex-adviser on a boat which is destroyed when a bomb explodes. Frady is presumed dead and this enables him to continue his work under an assumed name.

Frady subsequently applies to join the Parallax Corporation and after being accepted finds himself involved in some tense situations when a bomb is planted on a plane and again when another Senator is assassinated at a convention hall.

The plot of "The Parallax View" is given credibility by the inclusion of elements which are recognisable from the JFK assassination (more than one gunman involved and the untimely deaths of witnesses) and an investigator who like Woodward and Bernstein (in the case of the Watergate investigation) is a newspaper reporter. Furthermore, a powerful montage of images and titles which form part of the psychological test which Frady has to undergo in order to be recruited into the Parallax Corporation, shows a very simple method by which a candidate's values and beliefs could easily be distorted.

Frady is a flawed character who clearly believed he was a good deal smarter than he was and whose career had been set back by what his editor described as creative irresponsibility and drinking. When he embarked on his investigation, he was immediately out of his depth and totally underestimated the degrees of danger and deception he would encounter. On screen, this is symbolised on a number of occasions as he's seen dwarfed against an enormous dam or against the huge exterior wall of a convention hall or minimised in the centre of the frame when he's about to take the Parallax recruitment test.

Importantly, Warren Beatty is always believable as the main character in this movie which so brilliantly conveys the sense of disenchantment and paranoia which pervaded a period of time which was later seen by many as representing an end to innocence.

One of My Favorite Movie Genres

[evanston_dad · 7/10 · 19 April 2023]

"The Parallax View" belongs to one of my favorite movie genres -- the paranoid 1970s political thriller. Cashing in on a decade of assassinations and government corruption, the film stars Warren Beatty as a journalist who infiltrates a shadowy organization that's training people who fit certain psychological profiles to become assassins of political figures. It's got a satisfying, eerie vibe and pretty accomplished direction from Alan J. Pakula, who certainly knew his way around a thriller with political overtones. Gordon Willis's deservedly lauded cinematography goes a long way to making the film work, using lighting and framing to create oppressive and sinister compositions. The editing is a bit ragged in spots, resulting in abrupt transitions that can be disorienting. And I'll admit that toward the end I sort of lost the thread of what was going on. But overall this was an entertaining if maybe minor contribution to the world of disaffected 1970s cinema.

Grade: A-

Once upon a time, before Oliver Stone...

[lee_eisenberg · 10/10 · 4 June 2005]

In the early 1970's, distrust of the government was widespread. "The Parallax View" was one of the movies that reflected this.* Joe Frady (Warren Beatty) is a reporter who one day is covering a candidate's campaign, when the candidate is assassinated. A governmental committee concludes that there was no conspiracy. However, within three years, Joe is the only witness still alive. As he tries to investigate further, he finds himself on the run.

I'm guessing that the central idea was loosely based on the Kennedy assassination. Director Alan J. Pakula sets every scene so as to maintain a sense of impending doom. You may be uncertain as to whom you can trust after watching this movie. It's that well done. It just goes to show that the world's real horrors aren't supernatural at all.

*Others include "Three Days of the Condor" and "All the President's Men".

Well crafted but hardly believable

[andromaro · 7/10 · 30 April 2023]

This movie sets the tone quite effectively, and was able to hold my attention almost until the end...almost. The paranoia is tangible and made enjoyable thanks to the sure acting of Beatty. Everything is embellished by some outstanding cinematography, with some memorable moments, such as the test screening sequence and some breathtaking architecture in certain locations.

However, most of the plot is not plausible, it is not clear how the main characters gets his intel, how or when the "foe" he's fighting gets a step ahead. And from the indoor parade I got a bit lost because my attention dropped. It is still a movie I'd recommend and probably rewatch to get a better grasp of it.

"Theres no conspiracy, every death can be explained ! - - - - - - Or can they?"

[dgrahamwatson · 9/10 · 3 March 2007]

There are many people who comment on the IMDb web site that are in the movie industry in some capacity struggling to earn a living in writing, directing or producing and even the ones on the outside that are looking in and can't find work. They see their vastly superior scripts, or movies that they are trying to promote or be financed rejected and then they come across a film such as the PARALLAX VIEW, it must drive them potty having to make sense of this! That's too bad for them, but in my case I'm just an end user, I don't care about poor writing or plot holes or if a movie is a bit of a train wreck. I judge a film positively simply on the basis if it keeps my attention and entertains me, or there are scenes in it that I like, nothing else!

In 1974 this type of movie was contemporary with America embroiled in a political and constitutional crisis with Watergate and struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of the Vietnam war as well as the hangover from the assassination of a President in 1963 . An investigation followed where the official report from the "Warren Commission" concluded Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone as the assassin . If this wasn't bad enough Oswald himself was rubbed out while in police custody by Jack Ruby who also died very shortly after, seemingly in mysterious circumstances. In addition over the years there was apparently an unusually high number of deaths from people who were at some capacity involved or close to the facility of the JFK shooting i.e doctors, nurses, coroners, security etc. Endless documentaries and books outlined the fact that many suffered more than there fare share of coronaries or pulmonary embolisms, car crashes ,drownings and suicides in the immediate post-assassination years!

In addition if that wasn't enough ten years on from JFK and after the assassination of prominent civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr and popular democratic presidential hopeful Bobby Kennedy as well as an failed attempt on segregationist and presidential contender George Wallace, a skeptical US public did not buy the official line of a lone deranged gunmen with a grudge. The government had lied to them for so long about so much, they were just ripe for alternative view or theory.

What I like about this movie is the atmosphere created by Pakula the music score both at the beginning and the end as well as in certain areas during the movie. Also there is an eerie sense of foreboding, it's quite unsettling. There are some good scenes i.e. up on top of the Seattle space needle, the grinning assassin at the bottom after, Joe Frady on the plane, the meeting with one of his female companions, the desperate and frightened Austin Tucker and lastly the brain washing scene at the parallax complex. I admit to seeing plot holes and I understand that it's frustrating at times with more questions than answers here, but it still kept my attention.

The ending is unsatisfactory and not easy to explain? Did Parallax realize that Frady was an investigative reporter, or was he simply hired to be a patsy that would take the fall for a killing? I believe that it's likely that the movie allows the viewer to fill in these plot holes anyway they like bearing in mind that it would be impossible to produce this type of conspiracy in under two hours. Also, they would have to fill in the gaps and form their own conclusions! Then again, maybe Pakula was being subtle! The fact that the events that unfolded are not plausible only reinforced my feeling that maybe it was just his way of pointing out to a cynical public that the idea of this type of organized conspiracy was simply ludicrous, so he presented a film that suggests just that!

Personally I liked the movie, there is a good cast with Warren Beatty, William Daniels, Paula Prentiss, Hume Conyn and Earl Hindaman (who played Mr Brown in the taking of Pelham 1,2,3). In particular I liked Bill McKinley as the assassin, he never said much but came over as menacing, he really seemed to enjoy his work! Overall, more worked for me in this film than didn't. If you like 70's films and government conspiracy movies you'll probably get a kick out of this. There are also some nice out door shots too. I would recommend this movie.

Note: in 1975 a year after this movie was released President Gerald Ford who prior to becoming president was on the "warren Commission" was also a victim of a couple assassination attempts on him, apparently from lone deranged gun-women. Also, ironically both Walter McGinn and Alan.J.Pakula were killed in automobile accidents a few years later.)

Red Meat for conspiracy fans

[PaulusLoZebra · 7/10 · 10 May 2023]

Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View works best when it is showing us the unexplained phenomena that beg to be investigated and linked together by an enterprising and clever reporter to demonstrate the existence of a conspiracy. In those moments it's a tense, intelligent thrille, aided by great cinematography. Warren Beatty is credible and likable in the role. Paula Prentiss was outstanding in a brief but crucial role. The movie works less well when it focuses on the reporter's back story and on the chase scenes in cop cars, which 70s era movies loved so much. The overall effect is a positive one, to get us to think about how we are manipulated and could be mortally manipulated. You don't have to actually believe in any one particular consiracy theory to see the value of this film.

Paranoia in Natural Light

[jzappa · 9/10 · 24 February 2011]

I don't know how to start this review of the second installment in Alan J. Pakula's virtuoso Paranoia Trilogy. I guess I'll start at the beginning. The brooding realism of the beginning is arranged with a keen sense of the vertical. The camera divulges Seattle's Space Needle tower behind a totem pole, where an assassination goes down amidst Independence Day pomp. A committee of officials, constrained by the frame, proclaims the lack of evidence of a wider conspiracy, yet these are Watergate times, and Alan J. Pakula marshals his investigation as a compulsory act of "irresponsible speculation." Gordon Willis' cinematography twists the menacing from the everyday with unreserved harshness: Overwhelming architecture, the bomb warning scrawled on a napkin, one character's last cup of coffee. All of the decade's political misgivings and introspection is concentrated into the merciless culmination, with Yankee Doodle trumpeting in the bare hall while unpleasant transactions imbue the catwalks above, a country awakening to methodical obscurity and transparency alike.

What happens to our muck-raking protagonist splinters the movie's straightforward standards and leaves the final 40 minutes or so as the most transcendent, impressionistic illustration of paranoia, not as a psychosomatic condition but more like the belief in it as an idea, that I've ever seen. The first half of Pakula's anamorphically shot impressionistic thriller is about paranoia, the second is paranoia. The movie is not that suspenseful. A lot of times, Beatty's escape from danger seems remarkably effortless, and his way of being recruited by the Parallax Corporation is less an obstacle than a convenient turning of the page to the recruitment itself. The movie is not about suspense. It's about mood and atmosphere. And when something malevolent happens, the suspense is diffused in favor of creeping through this dark, kitchen-sink world governed by power, fear and indoctrination.

Another thing at which Pakula excels, and at which he reached an indelible peak in All the President's Men, is demonstrated consistently throughout The Parallax View. People talk so very quietly in his movies. And if you think about it, if you're this scared all the time, there's no reason to talk any louder than that. And when Paula Prentiss, an estranged fellow journalist of Beatty's who believes someone is trying to kill her, does raise her voice early on in a scene she makes terrifying with a brilliant performance, it's not only rage and fear, our ears are racked with a profound desperation to escape from a silence that's turned lethal. Later, someone else will talk to Beatty, and he will say, "Who are you?" He will be so tranquil and tenderly quiet when he says it.

The evolution is realized through what I sincerely consider to be one of the very central sequences in American cinema in the 1970s, Pakula's virtuoso showpiece of Kuleshov-style perception, the indoctrination slideshow, a celestial event of imagery and keywords shot through the viewer's brains. I could describe further, but the account would be dull and futile. It's simply a conquest of film language in a way that confounds textual explanation. Beholden in no insignificant portion to the Soviet montage theory, in which solitary snippets of imagery are given implication due to the images flanking it, this is shown to us from a character's precise point-of-view. We've become him, and are undergoing exactly what he is.

Pakula shoots on location to capture a careful texture of the outside world's danger much of the time. And he has a strong feeling for the bizarre, as in a scene where a character on a golf cart is shot in a vast banquet hall, and the cart strays, knocks over tables, until police cars arrive on the vestibule floor. There's also an endeavor to enforce the glare of modern American architecture throughout as a monumental backdrop, steel and glass edifices that look somehow…oppressive.

The conclusion has a relentless common sense to it. Sans spoilers, I can merely say that it both insinuates how an establishment might get away with murder, and how the "unassisted loner" hypothesis of assassination has a convincing tidiness about it.

What do you mean "no conspiracy?"

[view_and_review · 7/10 · 10 January 2020]

An assassination, an investigation, and a no findings.

On the Fourth of July a U.S. senator was gunned down in front of dozens of witnesses in the Space Needle in Seattle. The U.S. senate formed a committee, they did a months long investigation, then a weeks long hearing just to return a finding of no conspiracy. It was a lone gunman that had an ax to grind.

I'm trying to think if we ever had anything happen like that here in the U.S. where a politician was killed, then there was a long investigation just to come up empty. OH YEAH... JFK.

In Parallax View the whole matter would've been put to rest except witnesses to the assassination started to come up dead. They all looked accidental or natural so who would bat an eye? One of the witnesses did and she went to her investigative journalist friend, Joe Frady (Warren Beatty), for help. No, not the L.A.P.D. detective Joe Friday, Joe Frady (like fraidy cat).

Joe was quick to brush her off as a massive conspiracy theorist until she wound up dead too. Then the quest was on. Frady sunk his teeth into the matter gums deep and never let go.

Parallax View was a cloak and dagger movie from then on. It hit some snags pacing-wise at some points but kept plodding forward to uncover the truth. Even the most suspenseful moments were somewhat tame. Beatty was good as the long-haired truth seeker. This was a competent conspiracy movie that didn't go overboard with wanton killing of any and everyone. I can appreciate a movie that relies more on dramatic build up instead of the contrived drama of killing anyone who even looks like they may know something.

Too many unanswered questions

[geoaar-1 · 4/10 · 19 July 2013]

The plot of this movie is just weak. That and crippled by too much unexplained nonsense.

How does a - seemingly - huge organization make money by assassination? They must be doing several a day at many thousands - or millions - of dollars each. And why the hell does EVERYBODY who was present at the first assassination have to then be killed themselves? If that's company policy it's going to make for a really messy clean-up detail for every job. And if all the witnesses have to die, why not just whack them all at the same time. Geeze, you'd think a corporation that specializes in assassination would be a little more efficient than all that.

And how is it that a super-secret, espionage-like organization can't figure out who it is that just applied for work with them? They must be incredibly inept. And how did they get to the Sheriff in Bubbaville, Texas? And how come there's zero repercussions for the ace reporter when he destroys half the town and kills off their Sheriff? And the list goes on. Obviously there wasn't a lot of thought put into the script. Nor was there any suspense. It's an amazingly dull movie.

Beatty looks like he just stepped out of GQ to do this pic, and does a passable job of acting. He's just got damned little to work with. Overall, it's just pretty lame.