Television Review: Robert Redford Narrates ‘All the President’s Men Revisited’

That’s pretty much the crux of a new documentary about Watergate, “All the President’s Men Revisited,” on Discovery on Sunday. It’s a look at the scandal that toppled Richard M. Nixon and made Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein famous. But the documentary gives almost as much credit to Mr. Redford for making a movie about Watergate as it does to The Washington Post for sticking with the story.

That’s probably because Mr. Redford, who not only played Mr. Woodward in the film but also bought the rights to the Woodward-Bernstein book “All The President’s Men” and was instrumental in getting the film made, is the narrator and executive producer of this documentary. And in his telling, the true story and the movie version are so closely linked that when Dustin Hoffman, who played Mr. Bernstein, says, “And Bob did something that was brilliant,” he means Bob Redford, not Bob Woodward.

“All the President’s Men Revisited” is nonetheless well worth a look, less because it is so well made than because the subject is still so captivating.

Nixon remains as unknowable as ever. The film begins with an eerie outtake of the president seconds before he delivers his resignation speech, sweaty and alternately testy and cheery as he poses for the still camera. Addressing the people in the room, he puts on a goofy Gomer Pyle voice to joke about the photographer: “I’m afraid he’ll catch me pickin’ my nose.”

Watergate is that mythic scandal that keeps on giving, a moment in history so odd and hypnotic that it continues to inspire ambitious works of fiction. Last year Thomas Mallon published a novel called “Watergate” that imagines the inner thoughts of real-life characters like Rose Mary Woods (the president’s secretary) and Fred LaRue (a campaign official). Peter Morgan’s 2006 play, “Frost/Nixon,” was made into a movie in 2008. The opera “Nixon in China” had its debut in 1987, and, of course, “All the President’s Men,” which was released in 1976 and directed by Alan J. Pakula, is one of the best movies about journalism, up there with “The Front Page” and “Broadcast News.”

So Mr. Redford’s self-celebration is not entirely undue or unwelcome. It could well be that his movie is the most indelible legacy of Watergate.

Certainly it’s hard to argue that any of those other lessons learned have stuck. Other presidents, notably Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, have orchestrated cover-ups. And the so-called imperial presidency did not end with Nixon’s resignation in 1974. It made it possible for President Obama to order drone strikes on human targets from the Oval Office.

Campaign finance reform didn’t get very far. It’s harder than ever to “follow the money” when there is so much of it fueling election campaigns.

And what’s most obvious in this look backward is how far The Washington Post has fallen since its heyday, those so-called “fat” days, as Mr. Woodward puts it. The Post, like so many newspapers, has been struggling with falling circulation and advertising revenue. Last year the paper turned to the Ford Foundation for a grant to finance four new reporters.

In the documentary, Mr. Redford stages a newsroom reunion, filming a meeting of Mr. Bernstein and Mr. Woodward in the old headquarters as they embrace their former executive editor, Ben Bradlee, who is still dapper and charming at 91. The celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz is there to shoot portraits of the real newsmen and the actors who played them. It’s a moment bathed in nostalgia and a chance for Mr. Redford to recall how he became interested in making a film about the two mismatched reporters.

Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein are interviewed as well, and subsequent events, notably the revelation by the former No. 2 F.B.I official W. Mark Felt that he was the secret source they called Deep Throat, are highlighted. Mr. Bernstein explains that the reason they kept the identity of Deep Throat secret so long was that, as he puts it, “neither of us told our ex-wives.” (Actually, Mr. Bernstein’s former wife, Nora Ephron, guessed it was Mr. Felt and wrote a funny essay about saying so and not being believed.)

Many other journalists also weigh in, too many of them the usual suspects of cable who don’t really have anything to do with Watergate, like Rachel Maddow, who explains rather smugly than she watched the Watergate hearings as a newborn — her mother fed her while glued to the television set.

But it’s the interviews with the principals and even the bit players of history that bring home how intently the country followed the drama unfolding in the Oval Office and Congress. (There is a shot of John Lennon and Yoko Ono crammed in with other spectators at the Senate hearings.)

Alexander P. Butterfield, the White House aide who revealed the secret Oval Office taping system, describes how at 11 a.m. he was “enjoying” a haircut at the barbershop when he was summoned to testify that afternoon before the Senate Watergate committee.

Fred Thompson, who before he was a senator and an actor on “Law Order” was the lead counsel to the Republicans on the Senate committee investigating Watergate, is still gleeful as he recalls the damning testimony of John Dean, the White House counsel who described the president’s role in the cover-up. “You can’t have anything worse happen to you than your own lawyer turning against you,” Mr. Thompson says with a deep chuckle.

Even some of the minor participants seem to have a movie in their heads about their own crash encounters with history. Jill Wine-Banks, the young prosecutor who questioned Ms. Woods about the infamous 18 ½-minute gap in a White House tape, recalls that, at the time, she was referred to as the “mini-skirted bitch” and frames her time in court with Ms. Woods as a cultural collision between a modern career woman and a traditional secretary who represented a majority of women at the time.

“There we were, head-to-head combat,” Ms. Wine-Banks says, as if setting the scene for a Peter Morgan play or a Robert Redford screenplay.

Watergate is an oft-told tale that still has unopened chapters. “All the President’s Men Revisited” provides a lingering look at the best-known moments and at a few tantalizing ones left on the discard pile of history.

All the President’s Men Revisited

Discovery Channel, Sunday night at 8, Eastern and Pacific times; 7, Central time.

Produced for the Discovery Channel by Partisan Pictures in association with Sundance Productions. Directed by Peter Schall; Robert Redford, Andrew Lack and Laura Michalchyshyn, executive producers; Mr. Schnall, producer. For the Discovery Channel: Nancy Daniels and Denise Contis, executive producers.

Article source: http://tv.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/arts/television/robert-redford-narrates-all-the-presidents-men-revisited.html?partner=rss&emc=rss