Word: pakula
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Bree Daniels, the call-girl who is the object of a shadowy killer, involves us so totally that the girl-in-the-abandoned-warehouse routine at the end doesn't even appear schematic (well, it does, but we're still scared to death). You gotta credit Alan J. Pakula though, who here, as in All the President's Men and the Parallax View, conveys the someone-is-always-watching-you motif with incomparable creepiness. Donald Sutherland is an intelligent, if pallid detective, but the protagonist is Jane all the way, the frustrated hooker trapped by the emotional and physical perils...
...PRESIDENT'S MEN. Redford-Hoffman as Woodward-Bernstein break the Watergate story in Alan J. Pakula's superbly atmospheric, intelligently controlled film that manages at once to be raffish, slightly paranoiac and politically acute...
...Kagyu order of Tibetan Buddhists spread the word to nearly 100 people at the Divinity School Tuesday night, but the appearance of Gwalya Karmapa was overshadowed by the more worldly doings of politicos like Hamilton Jordan and Jody Powell earlier and the week and film director Alan J. Pakula and porn star Harry Reems later...
...Pakula is not unwilling to take credit. He observes that he had "constant hassles with actors who were awed by the subject of the film and thought in an ideological frenzy they had to give it all they had. I've never seen so many experienced professionals overacting in my life." Redford is probably entitled to credit for submerging his actor's ego beneath his producer's needs and playing, as does Dustin Hoffman, as part of an ensemble...
...film as Redford; partly because he plays the more interesting character, his performance may well be more vividly remembered. At 38, Hoffman is the best character lead in the business; it seems impossible to imagine anyone else as Carl Bernstein. On the set Hoffman is a tough, uncompromising craftsman. Pakula's crablike approach to film making, which so unnerved Redford, was just fine with Hoffman, who thrives on improvisation. "I fight like hell with my directors," he says, "but this was a relatively pleasant experience...