“All the President’s Men” is the finest movie ever made about journalism. It’s probably the only journalism movie that’s really about the thing that its about, and yet the movie stops just short of the moment when the hunch reporting that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were doing became an actual story, and then a scandal. The last shots of the movie are steely cold moments that echo the equally frigid, typewriter opening. The words quickly thunder onto the page at this point as Woodstein is left nearly eclipsed in the background.
Rather, this story of journalism isn’t about a valorous effort to snuff out corruption, a personal vendetta, about two people working together, an effort to prove oneself against all odds or to show that journalism can still matter. It’s about finding the needle in the haystack, about the speculation and possibility that arises from complete uncertainty. Almost like this year’s “Zero Dark Thirty,” it’s a movie about seeing in the dark. Continue reading “Rapid Response: All the President's Men”