7/10
One of the quintessential “paranoid thrillers” of the 1970s, Alan J. Pakula's THE PARALLAX VIEW (102 mins., 1974, R; Criterion) is a slick case of atmosphere triumphing over characterization and coherence. Warren Beatty stars as a grizzled reporter who witnessed the assassination of a senator on the top of the Space Needle in Seattle. Years later, his ex (Paula Prentiss) reappears on the scene, claiming there's a conspiracy and that witnesses who were there are being murdered. Beatty springs into action, telling only his publisher (Hume Cronyn) of a possible cover-up and ultimately going down a rabbit hole that involves the mysterious “Parallax Corporation.”
While Sydney Pollack's subsequent “Three Days of the Condor” is often deemed a comparatively lighter piece of escapist entertainment, the decidedly more downbeat and disturbing “Parallax View” actually provides a far less involved story. With a writer's strike looming and star Beatty on a pay-or-play deal, Pakula decided to go into production regardless of not having a completed screenplay (the script is credited to David Giler and Lorenzo Semple, Jr., who oddly enough also wrote “Condor,” with reports that “Chinatown”'s Robert Towne also played a hand in crafting material for the picture).
The result was a turbulent production that was something of a nightmare for all involved – something that does carry over to the movie's weakly drawn characters (we end up knowing nearly as little about Beatty as we do the shadowy government organization responsible for it all). This is a movie that taps into the mindset of a country emotionally damaged by the Kennedy/MLK killings and crafts an overall mood of tension and conspiracy that's hard to shake, but beyond the surface elements, there's really not a lot here. The formula – Beatty learns some piece of information, narrowly escapes death, moves onto the next group of characters, rinse, repeat – is straightforward and there's little development of any of its players.
That said, sometimes being backed into a corner brings out the best in artists, and that's true of both Pakula and cinematographer Gordon Willis' work here. The sense of time and place is expertly conveyed, the use of location shooting is memorable (the opening set-piece alone is worth the price of admission), and the movie's shock bursts of violence and action are superbly edited and choreographed by the duo, reuniting for the first time since “Klute.” This is a movie that looks dynamic, bathed in warm primary colors and widescreen – what the filmmakers apparently felt was a “comic book movie” by the standards of '70s cinema results in a film that overcomes its narrative shortcomings through sheer technical style alone.
Criterion's Blu-Ray (2.39, PCM mono) of “The Parallax View” is based off a new 4K digital transfer and looks naturally “filmic” throughout. I wasn't crazy about Alex Cox's 15 minute interview on the film (he seems to be a “go to” source for commentaries and such at the moment for a variety of labels), but there's a 2004 Willis interview that's well worth watching, as well as an insightful remembrance of the production with Jon Boorstin, who was an intern/assistant on the film for Pakula. Especially interesting are his memories of assembling the movie's most effective sequence, the “Parallax indoctrination montage,” which takes up nearly five minutes of screen time. A 1975 audio conversation with Pakula and an all-too-brief 1995 talk with the director – just a few years prior to his final movie (the forgettable Harrison Ford-Brad Pitt vehicle “The Devil's Own”) and subsequent tragic death in a car accident – rounds out the release.