The theme of the film is the correction and supervision of the social and political circles by the press. The outline of the story is how two young journalists conducted in-depth reports on the Watergate incident, which affected the entire US political network and even directly led to the impeachment of President Nixon.
First of all, the film has a strong left-wing tendency. When the film was shot, the United States was in an atmosphere of distrust of the government in the 1970s. What the director wanted to express was also the control of government rights. But what's interesting is that the director did not let the two protagonists talk about journalistic ideals or abstract justice. On the contrary, the two protagonists were constantly answering the phone, meeting with witnesses, and were rejected and refuted. In fact, what we see most of the time is the formulaic work of two reporters. The director was very calm in shooting. This method was similar to the direct documentary at the time. He watched from the sidelines without adding his own evaluation. This method makes the whole film very realistic and credible. The main audience of the film is the left-wing elite in society.
Why did the director shoot like this? Why didn't the director portray two heroes and two anti-system "strong men", but instead portray two formulaic journalists. And the only "hero" is President Kennedy who constantly appears on TV. He is ambitious on TV, but is he really a hero? The director's answer is of course no. The director has deep doubts about this kind of god-making. So the director never gave "God" a close-up, on the contrary, Kennedy always appeared in a small piece of TV on the screen. I appreciate this kind of elite suspicion. Therefore, the director did not shoot two "heroes", he must shoot two living people to compare with the "god".
In addition, the director also filmed the help of the news system to the two reporters. The independence of the news organization gave the two reporters the opportunity to report the facts, and their leaders gave them unlimited support. In addition to the support of news organizations, there are also Westerners' insistence on abstract justice. For example, the treasurer, who knew he would be implicated, still provided help to the two reporters. There is also the deep throat of the top Republicans. Nixon's resignation will inevitably involve his interests, and he has given up personal gains and losses for national justice. These are the highlights of human nature under this systemic problematic US government. These are also interesting to me. At the end, I also have a question, why China’s press freedom has been violated? This is what we need to think about.
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