Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

The Parallax View Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov January 23, 2022

Alan J. Pakula's "The Parallax View" (1974) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Via Vision Entertainment. The supplemental features on the disc include new audio commentary by critic Kevin Lyons; new program with critic Kim Newman; new video essay by critic Chris O'Neill; vintage trailer; and more. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

Behind every conspiracy theory, there is an unproven truth. This statement comes from a very smart man with whom years ago I spent a lot of time discussing all sorts of different political events. I understood exactly what he meant long after he passed away, and the older I get, the more convinced I become that he was absolutely correct.

The world was a very different place when we had our discussions. It was divided by the superpowers and as a result it was always easy to predict how the ‘other side’ will react to the latest political events the news networks covered. All you had to do was compare their contrasting points of view and form the 'right' opinion. Then you could get the whole truth, but you had to do the hard work of researching the facts. This process made perfect sense to me, and I never questioned its logic.

But everything changed during the 1980s, when Mehmet Ali Agca attempted and failed to assassinate Pope John Paul II. This was a huge event that rocked the divided world, and there was simply no way to avoid the drama that ensued immediately after it. Like everyone else at the time, I read as many articles as I could, and I watched the trial. Slowly but surely, I was assembling the truth. But the truth that emerged in the media -- starting with Agca’s past with the Gray Wolves to his possible involvement with Eastern European secret services to his supposedly flawless planning of the solo hit on Pope John Paul II -- made very little sense. And then it became flat-out ridiculous when, seemingly overnight, a lot of very powerful people declared that they had the evidence to conclude that Agca had acted entirely alone. At this point, I knew that the official ‘truth’ was actually a convenient lie, just like the one explaining Lee Harvey Oswald’s heinous act in Dallas. It was when I first began to wonder whether researching the facts was enough to get the truth. What if the facts were manufactured, or as my friend used to say ‘doctored’, to help even the hopelessly curious ones assemble a very particular truth?

Some years later, after the Cold War had officially ended, I began to understand what my friend’s statement was meant to convey. Until then, I had always assumed that the emphasis in the statement was on the unproven truth, validating all of the events that would spawn a conspiracy theory. But I was wrong, because I was taught to define everything in absolute terms. Indeed, once it dawned on me that even the most outrageous conspiracy theories have a factual starting point, the logic of my friend’s statement became impossible to dismiss. Take a moment and think about it. Just a tiny fraction of this factual starting point can be expanded to qualify as the unproven truth, and when placed in a proper context, it could be earth-shattering. The nature of the conspiracy theory then no longer matters and neither do its conclusions, because the expansion of the starting point has suddenly compromised a lot of what you have been conditioned to believe in.

Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View does precisely what I described to you above -- it slightly expands the factual starting point of a pretty outrageous conspiracy theory to help you see past events from an entirely new angle. Predictably, the structure of the conspiracy theory and the exact order in which its ‘truths’ are revealed are again utterly pointless. It is why when the final credits roll, you will have a lot more questions than answers to contemplate.

The film opens up at the Space Needle in Seattle, where a prominent senator is killed by a deranged assassin during a highly publicized public event. Reporter Joseph Frady (Warren Beatty) then begins investigating the assassin and discovers that he might be connected to a giant organization that could be behind some of the most talked-about political executions. Frady digs deep to gather information that can expose the organization and its dealings, but gets lost in a massive rabbit hole where people are dying like flies.

The intense sense of paranoia that permeates this film is its greatest strength. As Frady looks for answers, you get the feeling that the real world is nothing but a playground for extraordinarily powerful shadow figures that have the ability to manipulate every single aspect of it. Sadly, this actually seems like a pretty accurate summation of the reality we face today as well.

The Parallax View Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.39:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, The Parallax View arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Via Vision Entertainment.

The release is sourced from the same recent 4K master the folks at Criterion used to produce the North American release of The Parallax View. (If you click on the link, you will see a detailed description of how the master was prepared).

For obvious reasons, I do not have any new comments to add about the quality of the actual makeover. I think that the film looks wonderfully healthy and fresh, exactly as it should after it is properly restored in 4K. The entire master is graded very carefully as well, so the different types of nuances -- and yes, there are plenty -- that are introduced by the original cinematography look quite impressive. However, I must mention one more time than in native 4K everything should look even better because occasionally it is easy to tell that there are even more gentle nuances that ought to be easy to recognize. There are no stability issues. This being said, I think that Via Vision Entertainment's technical presentation should have been better. While r revisiting the film last night, I noticed how in some darker areas, but elsewhere as well, the grain can become quite loose and even begin to struggle with minor compression artifacts. So, small encoding optimizations should have been done to ensure that the technical presentation is solid. My score is 4.25/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-Free Blu-ray release. Therefore, you will be able to play it on your player regardless of your geographical location).

The Parallax View Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English LPCM 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they split the image frame and the black bar below it.

The audio is clear and stable, but you should expect to encounter some unevenness in terms of clarity and balance. Do not be concerned. The lossless track simply reproduces the native characteristics of the original soundtrack. The exact same fluctuations are present on the lossless track from the Criterion release as well.

The Parallax View Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - a vintage theatrical trailer for The Parallax View. In English, not subtitled. (3 min).

• Commentary One - this new audio commentary, critic Kevin Lyons provides some background information about The Parallax View and the original novel that inspired it, and discusses some supposed relationships with actual political events from earlier decades that had an impact on the film's production, the paranoia that permeated the 1970s and its representation in cinema, and the political climate in America.

• Commentary Two - this new audio commentary, critic/podcaster Blake Howard deconstructs The Parallax View and comments on how it differs from the novel that inspired it, Alan J. Pakula's style, the film's visual appearance, etc.

• Kim Newman on The Parallax View - in this new program, Kim Newman discusses the evolution of the paranoid thriller and The Parallax View. In English, not subtitled. (24 min).

• Matthew Sweet on The Parallax View - in this new program, critic Matthew Sweet discusses the idea of brainwashing after the Korean War and how it actually did fuel the paranoia that is depicted in The Parallax View as well is its direct connection to The Manchurian Candidate. In English, not subtitled. (23 min).

• "Witness to a Conspiracy" - an exclusive new video essay by critic Chris O'Neill. In English, not subtitled. (12 min).

The Parallax View Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A lot of the content in Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View looks and feels awfully dated now -- the entire sequence with the bomb on the plane, for instance, is almost surreal -- and its politics are all over the place. However, throughout the film there is an emphasis on a very particular thought process that is impossible to dismiss because it constructs a justifiable validation of the notion that even the most outrageous conspiracy theory has a factual starting point that is worth investigating. The Parallax View is a very close relative of Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation, so if you have seen and enjoyed only one of the two, make sure to check out the other as well.

Via Vision Entertainment's release is sourced from the same excellent recent 4K master the folks at Criterion used to produce the North American release of The Parallax View. Obviously, the film looks very, very healthy. However, this release could have been encoded better. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.