Robert Redford Reveals His Documentary All The President’s Men Revisited

Today in New York City I was able to attend a roundtable discussion with director/actor Robert Redford on his upcoming film The Company You Keep, but he also let us in on some exclusive information about his upcoming documentary All The President’s Men Revisited, which was announced last year.

Redford starred alongside Dustin Hoffman in the Watergate scandal film All The President’s Men, but it looks like the actor’s immense interest in how journalism shifts from decade to decade has brought about his new documentary, which takes a look at the Watergate events in an entirely new light.

See below for his quote:

“On April the 21st, we’re having a premiere in DC about a documentary I made called All The President’s Men Revisited, and I spent about a year and a half making it. I’m very proud of it.

The documentary threads together scenes from the film and actual footage of Bernstein and Woodward working, working working. Actual archival footage that no one has ever seen of Nixon in the oval office talking to Haldeman, Dean, and actually saying things like ‘What are we going to do about the Jews?’

When he’s denying that he knew anything about Watergate, he’s saying ‘How do we stop this Watergate thing?’ That’s archival footage where the tape is spinning and he’s got his feet up in the Oval Office that people have never seen. How this man recorded his own mistakes thinking he was going to be this fabulous historical figure is beyond me. It showed how delusional he was. Then there’s scenes from the actual hearings that took place. Dustin and I, today, were interviewed here in NY about how we felt working together then.

This is all threaded together in this film, and I think if there’s a point, it will try to be subtle with how journalism has changed. By making this documentary about what it was like then, because it’s all about then, and then having the voices of today talking like Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart, and Tom Brokaw, you also have how they remember that. Some of them hadn’t even been born then. Rachel Maddow was a baby, and she said “I don’t remember,” but she has ideas about it.

We make no statements about today, we say this is how it was done then. You leave it to the audience to compare and say “Wow, things have really changed.”

All The President’s Men is a phenomenal film which is a staple in Redford’s career, but it’ll be interesting to see how all these new facts and visual aids are received by the public. Mix that with participation from people like Maddow and Stewart, and this documentary has definite potential to change a few people’s perceptions on past events.

There you have it. If you live in the DC area and can get an invite to All The President’s Men Revisited, this might be a documentary worth checking out. There’s no news on a wide release or any other kind of DVD/VOD treatment yet, but look for the first reactions to hit the web sometime shortly after April 21st.