The Parallax View (Pakula, 1974): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 9pm
This film, part of the Warren Beatty season, is also screening on June 5 at 6.30pm. Details here.
Time Out review:
'A thriller about a journalist, alerted to the
mysterious deaths of witnesses to the assassination of a presidential
candidate, who embarks on an investigation that reveals a nebulous
conspiracy of gigantic and all-embracing scope. It sounds familiar, and
refers to or overlaps a good handful of similar films, but is most
relevantly tied to Klute. Where Klute was an exploration of claustrophobic anxiety, The Parallax View
is inexorably agoraphobic. Its visual organisation is stunning as the
journalist (Beatty) is drawn into an increasingly nightmarish world
characterised by impenetrably opaque structures, a screen whited out
from time to time, or meshed over with visually deceptive patterns. It
is some indication of the area the film explores that in place of the
self-revealing session with the analyst in Klute, The Parallax View
presents us with the more insecurity-inducing questionnaire used by the
mysterious Parallax Corporation for personality-testing prospective
employees. Excellent performances; fascinating film.' Verina Glaessner
Here's an introduction to the film by director Alex Cox on the BBC series Moviedrome.
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