Review of The Parallax View (1974) by Andrew S — 08 Feb 2011

Probably Alan Pakula's best film, here he creates menace and fear in plain sight with almost all the action framed in long or extreme long shot. Quite literally there is no place to hide for Warren Beatty's frazzled journalist, chasing some sort of elite conspiracy that seems increasingly wide in its reach.

Pakula relies on suspicion of the American state and its ability to subcontract antidemocratic manoeuvres to a shadowy corporate sector to create unease from the surprisingly disturbing first scene. The film's appearance in 1974, at the apogee of Presidential secrecy and corruption, perhaps led to its theme â" of an individual caught up in sinister networks well beyond his control or understanding â" being received as too realistically bleak.

Like all the best paranoia thrillers of the period it also relies on the absence of collective responses to the state. Therein lies their dark artistic strength and weak political purchase.