Someone is always watching, listening, or following in director Alan J. Pakula’s so-called Paranoia Trilogy.
And I think the same thing is happening right now.
RobotandHomecoming, and even to films like 2020’sThe Invisible Man.
The opening titles of ‘Klute’ set the mood for director Alan J. Pakula’s entire Paranoia Trilogy.Warner Bros. Pictures
“This wasn’t justDonald Trump.
This is where we’ve been going for decades.”
It wasn’t just Watergate and Vietnam, either.
Jane Fonda as Bree Daniels in ‘Klute’.Warner Bros. Pictures
Paranoia has manifested in various formsthroughout American history, and, accordingly, in American film.
Strangelove(all released in 1964).
(“I don’t consider myself a terrible man,” villain Peter Cable says at the climax.
A Warren Commission-esque committee depicted in ‘The Parallax View’.Paramount Pictures
“No more than others.")
“Klutefeels modern in a way that other movies from that period don’t,” Harris says.
Because I likeThe Departed.'”
Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) search for answers in ‘All the President’s Men’.Warner Bros. Pictures
“That movie has a lot of Pakula in it, I think,” Boorstin says.
Like most of us, I’m balanced between the two."
That it’s all based in fact marksAll the President’s Menas the apotheosis of the ’70s paranoid thriller.
Hal Holbrook as the mysterious Deep Throat in ‘All the President’s Men’.Warner Bros. Pictures
I don’t know if people can feel that way anymore."
Everyone has become so much more cynical."
Perhaps that’s why, as Esmail says, “paranoid conspiracy thrillers are coming back into vogue.
The genre also seems to be evolving in expansive ways.
“Rights and identity have become a big factor in what shapes paranoia [on screen].”
“I certainly can’t think of anybody else who is working that turf nearly as interestingly.”
Clearly, 2021 paranoid thrillers aren’t going to look like the ones from the ’70s.
Whatever paranoia’s future, history indicates that it will always infiltrate the screen in some form.
“And it’s a therapeutic thing, I think, when you see [a paranoid thriller].
