American politics
All The President's Men caught my eye on the classic movie channel the other night. This truly is one of the best films. Is it the plot? Is it the knowing it actually happened? Is it the performances? Is it the editing, the camerawork, the direction? Maybe it's the script?

I think it's just the perfect balance and the cool way in which the camera regards these characters whom Redford and Hoffman play as the epitome of heroic, whether you prefer Redford/Woodward radiating earnest integrity or Hoffman/Bernstein's intense pursuit of the truth. Do you think Bernstein is too pushy, or do you too recoil in shock when Woodward says he's a Republican? Do they both go too far when they ask a girl to sleep with a guy so she can get a crucial piece of information from her? Are their lives really in danger, or is it irrational paranoia?

And then of course there are the elements that are simply movie classics: the hard-boiled editor whose only concern is for the paper and the truth (The Front Page); the reporter whose painstaking pursuit of the case uncovers the real story (Call Northside 777, with Redford channelling Jimmy Stewart); all the people who won't go on the record because of their lesser or greater fear or corruption... All transposed to the harsh lights and faded colour of the early 1970s.

And of course the luminous intensity that you get from both the leading actors. There is a scene where they sit on a sofa trying to persuade a woman to talk to them, and you can feel them using every inch of their charisma to get her to open up, every trick they use to make the camera love them being channelled into their roles and turned on this helpless woman, in a fusion of their real star quality and the characters they are playing. It's not just Woodward and Bernstein who turn on the charm, it's Redford and Hoffman, and what lowly staffer or bit-part actress could possibly resist?