I love these conspiracy/paranoia films, and while The Parallax View is not the best it is intriguing and entertaining. For me it gets better with repeated viewing, just like Three Days of The Condor does. (SPOILERS AHEAD) The idea of recruiting 'suitable candidates' to set them up as patsies to take the rap for your own actions is an interesting one and - who knows - may have been used in one or more high-profile assassinations in recent history. Most of the good films of this type seem to have been made in the 1970's, and the way they are made, from the music to the static camera shots (Parallax is full of them) and of course the fashions and decor combine to produce (for me at least) a feeling of being 'at home', as I was a young man living with my parents when I first saw them. It's a strange effect, on the one hand feeling comfortable in your favourite period yet being unsettled by the on-screen events as our hero slowly realises he can trust no-one and doesn't even realise how he is being manipulated into a corner while he thinks he is investigating the villains.

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.

I have to say that the most interesting thing in this film was a game of Pong with a monkey. Gamers today would not believe what we found interesting.A U.S. Senator is killed, they kill all the journalists who witnessed the attack. Reporter Joseph Frady (Warren Beatty) has so far been spared, his investigations eventually put him on the trail of nebulous Parallax Corporation. Under an assumed name he infiltrates there. I found it hard to believe that Frady made it past the first test, but then the story would end, wouldn't it?The film explores conspiracy theories that were popular post-Watergate.Director Alan J. Pakula gave us an intelligent film that effectively explored the era and it's cynicism.

Warren Beatty plays reporter Joe Frady, whose investigation of the assassination of a U.S. Senator leads him to a multinational corporation called Parallax, which seems to specialize in training assassins for various missions. Joe infiltrates this group as a member, where he is made to watch a fast-moving slide-show of various images meant to invoke an emotional response. This all leads to the eventual revelation that Joe may well have not seen coming, or been prepared for...Unsuccessful conspiracy tale directed by Alan J. Pakula makes very little sense when all is said and done, and has only minimal suspense or dramatic impact. Not believable, though had elements of comedy potential that went unrealized.