The recent death of Robert Redford was a reminder of just how much All the President’s Men unsettled old certainties about American democracy. An exposé of the Watergate scandal of 1972 (when members of the campaign to re-elect Richard Nixon were caught planting secret recording devices at the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate building), Alan J. Pakula’s film fed into an increasing sense that the institutions of American governance were riddled with corruption.
Maybe not everyone agreed with Pakula’s dark vision. But he was not alone. Over the years since, Oliver Stone could also be relied on to make state-of-the-nation cinema, as could Martin Scorsese – or before them, Frank Capra. Such films attempted to capture, usually to critique, the national mood at that moment in time.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film, One Battle After Another, suggests that there is still a place for challenging filmmaking in today’s culture. Along with the recently released Eddington by director Ari Aster, these new state-of-the-nation films explore an America that is in crisis and throw it in our faces in staggering, epic narratives.
