Hollywood's White House : the American presidency in film and history / edited by Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor. [0813122708 (Cloth : alk. paper) ] Lexington : University Press of Kentucky, c2003.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1995.9.U64 H65 2003

 

    The chapter on The Transformed Presidency: The Real Presidency and Hollywood’s Reel Presidency studies the transformation that the job and the image of commander-in-chief has undergone.  Levine spends a few pages discussing the transformation of the presidency in reality. A major change between the terms of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the present has occurred in the relationship of the president and the press. FDR was the first president to appoint a press secretary; today there are a slew of assistants, liaisons, writers, and spokespersons who, on many occasions, deal with the press in place of the president himself.  All the President’s Men is a “testament to the change in White House-press relations,” Levine states. By attributing the “cracking” of the Watergate scandal to two journalists, the film inspired a new generation of investigative reporting. One reason that Woodward and Bernstein appear so heroic in the film is because they persist “despite the lies and the disinformation fed by the official White House press machine.” By the time Nixon was in office, the post of press secretary had evolved into a fleet of employees comprising a “press machine.”
    Like Cameron, Sorlin, and Toplin, Myron Levine brings up the fact that the film belittles the contributions of people other than Woodward and Bernstein to bringing some members of the Nixon administration to justice. However, Levine states, Woodward and Bernstein played an extremely important role in maintaining pressure on other investigators and government bodies to act against corruption. The author also points out that the editor of the Washington Post, Benjamin Bradlee (portrayed in the film by Jason Robards) was extremely careful about publishing only substantiated allegations. Levine believes that this journalistic standard has also changed over time. He finds it unfortunate that, as a result of the near instantaneous speed with which news gets to today’s readers, media outlets no longer seem concerned with confirming the facts before print. Ultimately, All the President’s Men reflects the backlash against the modern White House’s attempt to strictly control the flow of information about the president and his administration. 
 

Toplin, Robert Brent, 1940-. History by Hollywood : the use and abuse of the American past / Robert Brent Toplin. [0252020731 (cloth : alk. paper)] Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c1996.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1995.9.H5 T66 1996

 

    In part 4 of his book, Robert Toplin discusses movies that celebrate “the ‘Great Man’ in the Documentary Style.” He uses All the President’s Men as one of two main examples. He argues that although the movie generally maintains a commitment to authenticity, it overemphasizes the role that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein played in cracking the Watergate scandal. Focusing on the personal experiences of these two journalists helped the filmmakers minimize complexity in an already intricate story. He also mentions that the movie's documentary feel is obtained through attention to detail and the strategy of withholding information from the audience.
    For the film to be interesting to the audience, it had to depict the every day tasks of the characters, phone calls, note taking, and staff meetings, as exciting and dramatic. The director, Alan J. Pakula, portrayed “typewriters, pencils, pads…as important weapons that could bring down some of the most powerful men in the country.” The movie begins with an close shot of a typewriter; each key stroke sends out “cannon shots, suggesting the power of the press in exposing assaults on freedom.” This strategy served to glorify both journalism and the protagonists. Many people other than Woodward and Bernstein were involved with bringing down the conspiracy, but the movie elevated these two journalists to the roles of primary and practically sole players in most people’s memory of this historical event. Toplin ultimately excuses the glorification of Woodward and Bernstein as a common tendency of docudrama, and he credits the film as “a bold an informed view of a significant crisis in American political life.”