The movie George Clooney called cinematic perfection: “It really is a perfect film”
George Clooney is still regarded by some as the quintessential movie star. Handsome, talented, suave, charming, funny, Clooney has all the qualities that were associated with film actors in the ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’.
He simultaneously feels like a man out of time and a perfect fit for his own era and it’s been fascinating to look at the discourse surrounding him as he transitions into his current ‘elder statesmen’ role.
It’s not just his persona that gets people talking, though. Clooney has been a part of some truly great films, elevating them with his undeniable on-screen talent. He won an Oscar for his supporting role in Syriana and has been nominated a further three times in the ‘Best Actor’ category. From O Brother, Where Art Thou? to Gravity to Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox, the dashing idol has given his fair share to the film community, but which movie does he think is the best of all time?
Speaking to Parade, Clooney revealed his favourite films released between 1964 and 1976, which he described as “the greatest era in filmmaking by far.” In his upper echelon, he selected classics like Network, the Sidney Lumet satire known for its legendary “I’m mad as hell” monologue, and Stanley Kubrick’s half-silly, half-terrifying take on nuclear war, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. For his absolute number one, however, he opted for a tale of real-life political scandal.
“All the President’s Men really is a perfect film. And the reason it’s a perfect film is you start the movie knowing how it ends,” he explained. “We know that Woodward and Bernstein get the scoop and Nixon gets got and you’re chewing your fingernails off through the whole movie.
Released in 1976 – right at the end of Clooney’s preferred period – this movie tells the story of one of the most famous events in recent American political history – the Watergate scandal. Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford play Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, respectively, the two journalists responsible for breaking the story for The Washington Post. As a result of the scandal, which centred around a plot to place secret recording devices in the Democratic Party’s national headquarters, Republican President Richard Nixon was forced to resign, the only time in history this has happened.
Considering that the events of Watergate had happened just four years earlier, Nixon’s resignation was only two – director Alan J Pakula and screenwriter William Goldman were taking a huge risk in making this film.
Luckily, it paid off. All the President’s Men was a hit with both critics and consumers. It picked up eight Oscar nominations and took home four prizes, including ‘Best Supporting Actor’ for Jason Robards and ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ for Goldman’s script. There was a full-circle moment in 2010 when the Library of Congress, a branch of the US government, chose the film for preservation in its National Film Registry. Over half-a-century later, it is still talked about with great reverence.
In many ways, based on its director, cast, and subject matter, All the President’s Men is one of the definitive films of the United States in the 1970s. Given how much Clooney adores the period of cinema, it’s no surprise he loves it so much.
