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The Candidate (1972 film)
Encyclopedia
The Candidate is a 1972 American film starring Robert Redford
. Its themes include how the political machine
corrupts. There are many parallels between the then-recent 1970 California Senate election between John V. Tunney
and George Murphy
; however, Redford's character Bill McKay is a political novice while Tunney was a seasoned congressman. The film serves mainly to show how a race for a seat in the Senate
develops.
The film was shot in Northern California
in 1971. Peter Boyle
plays the political consultant Marvin Lucas. The screenplay was written by Jeremy Larner
, a speech-writer for Senator Eugene J. McCarthy during McCarthy's campaign for the 1968 Democratic Presidential nomination.
), a political election specialist, is given the unenviable task of finding a Democratic candidate to unseat California
U.S. Senator Crocker Jarmon, a popular Republican
. With no big-name Democrat
eager to enter the seemingly unwinnable race, Lucas seeks out Bill McKay (Robert Redford
), a thirty-something, married, attractive man who couldn’t be further removed from politics. Despite being the son of former governor John J. McKay (played by Melvyn Douglas
), Bill was never interested in politics and instead acts as a lawyer for liberal causes.
Lucas gives McKay a proposition: Jarmon can’t lose; and since the race is already decided, McKay is free to campaign saying exactly what he wants because none of it will count. Though he knows he will definitely lose, McKay accepts to have the chance to spread his liberal values (which include support for abortion rights, busing, environmental regulation
, and welfare
). He rejects help or involvement from his father, wanting to make it on his own.
McKay hits the trail. His campaign staffers air pro-McKay commercials with ads making Jarmon look old and weary. With no serious Democratic opposition, McKay cruises to the nomination on his name alone. Lucas then has distressing news: According to the latest election projections, McKay will be defeated by an overwhelming margin. McKay counted on losing, but not on being “humiliated” – the primary win means he cannot quit. He agrees to “broaden” his message appealing to more voters.
McKay travels the state, with his liberal statements eroding each day. His support of abortion rights and gun control
fade to mush, while his stump speech
is reduced to the same few clichés and a new slogan: "For a better way: Bill McKay!" The new approach lifts him in the opinion polls, but he has a new problem. Because McKay’s father has stayed out of the race, the media speculates his silence is an endorsement of Jarmon. McKay begrudgingly meets his father and tells him the problem, who tells the media he is not endorsing Jarmon, simply honoring his son’s wishes to stay out of the race.
As McKay continues to do as he’s told (rather than say what’s in his heart), he gains in the polls. Realizing he is being manipulated, he yells at Lucas to explain what the campaign has become. Though never verbalized, it’s evident that Lucas saw McKay as an unpolished gem – a candidate who began with things you couldn’t buy: good looks, confidence and massive name recognition. Lucas counted on molding McKay as the months went along. Lucas downplays the shift in election strategy, what is important he says, McKay is now only nine points down – so close that Jarmon proposed a debate. Lucas says this will help close the gap. McKay, somewhat resigned to his new course, agrees to give tailored answers in the debate, rather than his real opinions.
At the debate the candidates trade barbs, with McKay the slight winner overall. Just as the debate is ending, McKay has a pang of conscience and blurts out that the debate didn’t address any real subjects, such as poverty and race. Lucas is furious as this will hurt the campaign. The media try to confront McKay backstage but arrive as John J. McKay vigorously congratulates his son on the debate, apparently having been very impressed with the honesty McKay showed at the end but probably, as a seasoned politician, pulling the stunt to deflect from his son's political gaffe. Instead of reporting on McKay’s outburst, the story becomes the reemergence of former Gov. McKay to help his son. The positive story, coupled with McKay senior’s help on the trail, further closes the polling gap.
By election day, McKay has strayed so far from his original values that he’s in a hotel room slightly confused. Inexorably, McKay wins. In one of the movie’s famous scenes, McKay escapes the victory party and pulls Lucas into a room while throngs of journalist
s clamor outside. McKay asks Lucas: “Marvin ... What do we do now?” The media throng arrives to drag them out at that moment and McKay never receives an answer.
The titular candidate is politically disaffected. It is revealed that he has not registered to vote and does not have a clear political message to communicate. But there are issues he is interested in (‘saved some trees and got a clinic open’ as Lucas badly explains) and this opportunity presents a public platform and the facility to be in a position to communicate his ideas. In agreeing to run, after Lucas guarantees that he’ll lose, he makes what Ian Scott describes as a ‘Faustian pact’, which will inevitably lead to his ideology being submerged during the process of campaigning.
McKay naively believes that Lucas will let him, to paraphrase, go where he wants, do what he wants and say what he pleases. As the narrative progresses this promised freedom evaporates, his ideology becomes eroded and he is compromised. His ‘straightforward stands on issues’ are blanded out in interview rehearsals – he is revealed to be pro-choice on abortion but advised to say that he is considering what his position should be. When he does go off message, and presents his own ideas, particular at the end of a television debate with his rival, it is treated with the same collective horror as a basketball player dropping the ball at a crucial moment of a game. Despite some early scenes in which the candidate strolls onto a beach to talk off the cuff to youngsters about environmental issues and doing walkabouts in Watts
(recorded footage of which are used in television commercials throughout the campaign), by the end of the film he’s standing on soap boxes working a pre-prepared speech in front of middle class garden parties and factory workers. McKay changes his message to suit the social classes he talks to in order to win votes. He is even quoting the campaign slogan in the stump speech.
McKay becomes corrupted, but it is largely his own choice. In a key scene, he is called into Lucas’ war room and shown the results of a poll in which he is losing badly, he asks why that is so important since he was going to lose anyway. ‘Lucas asks him if he really wants to be humiliated. McKay answers, “That wasn’t part of the deal.”’ Even when he makes attempts to distance himself from the process -- he ‘collapses into helpless laughter while trying to tape a television statement; he mocks his own stump speech.’ and sits in the back of the campaign car mocking his stump speech (‘this country cannot house its houseless’) – it is clear that he cares for his own image, especially in the eyes of the voting public. When a rumour suggests that his father, whom he has hitherto kept out of the campaign, is backing Jarman, his rival, he immediately pays him a visit in order to get a statement released. Indeed his descent into politics becomes a cliché – it is visually hinted that he is going to be late for an important meeting with a labour leader after a brief romantic tryst with a campaign worker. ‘There is a sexual compromise for the candidate and an association between sex and power’. In the closing moments he is chaste. ‘I wonder if anybody understood what I was trying to do’, to which is father replies, "Don’t worry, son, it won’t make any difference."
Unusually, in a film so steeped in political and electoral process, the iconography usually associated with a campaign, and in particular the stars and stripes, only appear at certain key moments in order to demonstrate the corruption of the candidate. Unlike Tim Robbins
’s Bob Roberts
(1992) in which the American flag is fetishised to the point of parody with the titular Roberts in one key image standing naked but for a flag wrapped about his form, McKay is distanced from even the colors through much of the film. It is worth noting that the poster for the film has Robert Redford front and center with the U.S. flag in the background, which is an odd choice considering its lack of an appearance throughout much of the film.
His campaign banner is in green and yellow and at the rallies organized by his own campaign team, red, white, and blue are nowhere to be seen. The only deployment of the flag itself in the film happens almost subliminally during an archive television commercial for his Republican competitor. When the colors do finally appear, draped over a car during a tickertape parade with McKay standing in the center, it emphasises that the candidate’s approach has utterly changed – in these late successful stages he has embraced the standard iconography of a political campaign and is aligning himself with expectation.
One central message of the film is that the business of campaigning has overridden the condition of taking office. At the end of the film rather than being ‘triumphant in victory: Bill McKay is only confused’. The weakness is that the spectator does not clearly see the consequences of the campaign. As Scott describes ‘The dilemma for the director was to answer these charges of media power and sound bite manipulation, not simply pointedly to allow campaign guru Lucas to fly off to his next candidate as if going to a sales meeting.’ just after the oft-quoted line from McKay ‘What do I do now?’ Monaco agrees that it is not ‘enough to excuse the film by explaining that it works in a Brechtian way, to ask questions rather than to answer them. Brecht always implied answers.’
It has been reported that upon viewing the film, Dan Quayle
came to the conclusion that he was more handsome than Robert Redford
, and that he would be well equipped to win a campaign to enter the White House. Ironically, the future vice-president of the United States, perhaps inadvertently, highlights one of the themes of the piece – that no matter the ideology or interests of the candidate, the business of political campaigning is driven by image.
applauded Redford's performance and commented that: "The Candidate is serious, but its tone is coldly comic, as if it had been put together by people who had given up hope."Christopher Null
from filmcritic.com gave the film 4.5/5 and said: "... this satire on an American institution continues to gain relevance instead of lose it."
, Gene Cantamessa
).
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
. Its themes include how the political machine
Political machine
A political machine is a political organization in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters and businesses , who receive rewards for their efforts...
corrupts. There are many parallels between the then-recent 1970 California Senate election between John V. Tunney
John V. Tunney
John Varick Tunney , is a former Democratic Party United States Senator and Representative.-Biography:He is the son of the famous heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney and Connecticut socialite Polly Lauder Tunney....
and George Murphy
George Murphy
George Lloyd Murphy was an American dancer, actor, and politician.-Life and career:He was born in New Haven, Connecticut of Irish Catholic extraction, the son of Michael Charles "Mike" Murphy, athletic trainer and coach, and Nora Long. He was educated at Peddie School, Trinity-Pawling School, and...
; however, Redford's character Bill McKay is a political novice while Tunney was a seasoned congressman. The film serves mainly to show how a race for a seat in the Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
develops.
The film was shot in Northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
in 1971. Peter Boyle
Peter Boyle
Peter Lawrence Boyle, Jr. was an American actor, best known for his role as Frank Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, and as a comical monster in Mel Brooks' film spoof Young Frankenstein ....
plays the political consultant Marvin Lucas. The screenplay was written by Jeremy Larner
Jeremy Larner
Jeremy Larner is an author, poet, journalist and speechwriter. He won an Academy Award in 1972 for Best Original Screenplay, for writing The Candidate.-Childhood:...
, a speech-writer for Senator Eugene J. McCarthy during McCarthy's campaign for the 1968 Democratic Presidential nomination.
Plot
Marvin Lucas (Peter BoylePeter Boyle
Peter Lawrence Boyle, Jr. was an American actor, best known for his role as Frank Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, and as a comical monster in Mel Brooks' film spoof Young Frankenstein ....
), a political election specialist, is given the unenviable task of finding a Democratic candidate to unseat California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
U.S. Senator Crocker Jarmon, a popular Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
. With no big-name Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
eager to enter the seemingly unwinnable race, Lucas seeks out Bill McKay (Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
), a thirty-something, married, attractive man who couldn’t be further removed from politics. Despite being the son of former governor John J. McKay (played by Melvyn Douglas
Melvyn Douglas
Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg , better known as Melvyn Douglas, was an American actor.Coming to prominence in the 1930s as a suave leading man , Douglas later transitioned into more mature and fatherly roles as in his Academy Award-winning performances in Hud...
), Bill was never interested in politics and instead acts as a lawyer for liberal causes.
Lucas gives McKay a proposition: Jarmon can’t lose; and since the race is already decided, McKay is free to campaign saying exactly what he wants because none of it will count. Though he knows he will definitely lose, McKay accepts to have the chance to spread his liberal values (which include support for abortion rights, busing, environmental regulation
Environmental law
Environmental law is a complex and interlocking body of treaties, conventions, statutes, regulations, and common law that operates to regulate the interaction of humanity and the natural environment, toward the purpose of reducing the impacts of human activity...
, and welfare
Welfare
Welfare refers to a broad discourse which may hold certain implications regarding the provision of a minimal level of wellbeing and social support for all citizens without the stigma of charity. This is termed "social solidarity"...
). He rejects help or involvement from his father, wanting to make it on his own.
McKay hits the trail. His campaign staffers air pro-McKay commercials with ads making Jarmon look old and weary. With no serious Democratic opposition, McKay cruises to the nomination on his name alone. Lucas then has distressing news: According to the latest election projections, McKay will be defeated by an overwhelming margin. McKay counted on losing, but not on being “humiliated” – the primary win means he cannot quit. He agrees to “broaden” his message appealing to more voters.
McKay travels the state, with his liberal statements eroding each day. His support of abortion rights and gun control
Gun control
Gun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens...
fade to mush, while his stump speech
Stump speech (politics)
A political stump speech is a standard speech used by a politician running for office. The term derives from the custom in 19th century America for political candidates campaigning from town to town to stand upon a sawed off tree stump to deliver a standard speech...
is reduced to the same few clichés and a new slogan: "For a better way: Bill McKay!" The new approach lifts him in the opinion polls, but he has a new problem. Because McKay’s father has stayed out of the race, the media speculates his silence is an endorsement of Jarmon. McKay begrudgingly meets his father and tells him the problem, who tells the media he is not endorsing Jarmon, simply honoring his son’s wishes to stay out of the race.
As McKay continues to do as he’s told (rather than say what’s in his heart), he gains in the polls. Realizing he is being manipulated, he yells at Lucas to explain what the campaign has become. Though never verbalized, it’s evident that Lucas saw McKay as an unpolished gem – a candidate who began with things you couldn’t buy: good looks, confidence and massive name recognition. Lucas counted on molding McKay as the months went along. Lucas downplays the shift in election strategy, what is important he says, McKay is now only nine points down – so close that Jarmon proposed a debate. Lucas says this will help close the gap. McKay, somewhat resigned to his new course, agrees to give tailored answers in the debate, rather than his real opinions.
At the debate the candidates trade barbs, with McKay the slight winner overall. Just as the debate is ending, McKay has a pang of conscience and blurts out that the debate didn’t address any real subjects, such as poverty and race. Lucas is furious as this will hurt the campaign. The media try to confront McKay backstage but arrive as John J. McKay vigorously congratulates his son on the debate, apparently having been very impressed with the honesty McKay showed at the end but probably, as a seasoned politician, pulling the stunt to deflect from his son's political gaffe. Instead of reporting on McKay’s outburst, the story becomes the reemergence of former Gov. McKay to help his son. The positive story, coupled with McKay senior’s help on the trail, further closes the polling gap.
By election day, McKay has strayed so far from his original values that he’s in a hotel room slightly confused. Inexorably, McKay wins. In one of the movie’s famous scenes, McKay escapes the victory party and pulls Lucas into a room while throngs of journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
s clamor outside. McKay asks Lucas: “Marvin ... What do we do now?” The media throng arrives to drag them out at that moment and McKay never receives an answer.
Cast
- Robert RedfordRobert RedfordCharles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
as Bill McKay - Peter BoylePeter BoylePeter Lawrence Boyle, Jr. was an American actor, best known for his role as Frank Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, and as a comical monster in Mel Brooks' film spoof Young Frankenstein ....
as Marvin Lucas - Melvyn DouglasMelvyn DouglasMelvyn Edouard Hesselberg , better known as Melvyn Douglas, was an American actor.Coming to prominence in the 1930s as a suave leading man , Douglas later transitioned into more mature and fatherly roles as in his Academy Award-winning performances in Hud...
as Former California Governor John J. McKay - Don PorterDon PorterDonald Porter was an American actor who appeared in a number of films in the 1940s, including Top Sergeant and Eagle Squadron, but is perhaps best known for his role as Russell Lawrence, the widowed father of 15-year old Frances "Gidget" Lawrence in the 1965 ABC television series...
as Senator Crocker Jarmon - Allen GarfieldAllen GarfieldAllen Garfield, born and sometimes credited as Allen Goorwitz , is an American film and television actor.-Biography:...
as Howard Klein - Karen CarlsonKaren Carlson- Career :Carlson was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. She has appeared in many television series and a few films. Her film credits include Shame, Shame, Everybody Knows Her Name , The Candidate with Robert Redford and The Octagon with Chuck Norris...
as Nancy McKay - Quinn K. Redeker as Rich Jenkin (as Quinn Redeker)
- Morgan Upton as Wally Henderson
- Michael LernerMichael Lerner (actor)-Life and career:Lerner was born in Brooklyn, New York of Romanian Jewish descent, the son of Blanche and George Lerner, who was a fisherman and antiques dealer. He was raised in Bensonhurst and Red Hook. His brother, Ken Lerner, is also an actor...
as Paul Corliss - Kenneth TobeyKenneth TobeyKenneth Tobey was an American stage, television, and film actor.-Early years:Born in Oakland, California, Tobey was headed for a law career when he first dabbled in acting at the University of California Little Theater...
as Floyd J. Starkey - Natalie WoodNatalie WoodNatalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...
as Herself - Chris Prey as David
- Joe Miksak as Neil Atkinson
- Jenny SullivanJenny SullivanFor the Welsh author see Jennifer Sullivan.Jenny Sullivan is an American actress who has starred in films and on television. She has starred in some made for TV movies, her best known role is in the 1983 NBC hit miniseries V as the reporter Kristine Walsh. In 1984, she reprised her role as...
as Lynn - Tom DahlgrenTom DahlgrenTom Dahlgren , is an American actor. His professional acting career spans four decades, beginning in 1972...
as The pilot - Gerald Hiken as The station manager
- Leslie Allen as Mabel
Analysis
The film highlights many criticisms of modern day American politics, such as the importance of money and the emphasis on the image of political candidates. In particular, the degeneration of McKay from an idealistic public-interest lawyer working for unpopular and then-little-known causes (the young environmentalist movement, civil rights for Latinos, integration through busing) and strong opinions on all issues into a construct of his campaign, dominated by idiotic little slogans (most notably "Bill McKay: the better way") and a road-weary nervous wreck, to boot.The titular candidate is politically disaffected. It is revealed that he has not registered to vote and does not have a clear political message to communicate. But there are issues he is interested in (‘saved some trees and got a clinic open’ as Lucas badly explains) and this opportunity presents a public platform and the facility to be in a position to communicate his ideas. In agreeing to run, after Lucas guarantees that he’ll lose, he makes what Ian Scott describes as a ‘Faustian pact’, which will inevitably lead to his ideology being submerged during the process of campaigning.
McKay naively believes that Lucas will let him, to paraphrase, go where he wants, do what he wants and say what he pleases. As the narrative progresses this promised freedom evaporates, his ideology becomes eroded and he is compromised. His ‘straightforward stands on issues’ are blanded out in interview rehearsals – he is revealed to be pro-choice on abortion but advised to say that he is considering what his position should be. When he does go off message, and presents his own ideas, particular at the end of a television debate with his rival, it is treated with the same collective horror as a basketball player dropping the ball at a crucial moment of a game. Despite some early scenes in which the candidate strolls onto a beach to talk off the cuff to youngsters about environmental issues and doing walkabouts in Watts
Watts, Los Angeles, California
Watts is a mostly residential neighborhood in South Los Angeles, California.-History:The area now known as Watts is located on the Rancho La Tajauta Mexican land grant...
(recorded footage of which are used in television commercials throughout the campaign), by the end of the film he’s standing on soap boxes working a pre-prepared speech in front of middle class garden parties and factory workers. McKay changes his message to suit the social classes he talks to in order to win votes. He is even quoting the campaign slogan in the stump speech.
McKay becomes corrupted, but it is largely his own choice. In a key scene, he is called into Lucas’ war room and shown the results of a poll in which he is losing badly, he asks why that is so important since he was going to lose anyway. ‘Lucas asks him if he really wants to be humiliated. McKay answers, “That wasn’t part of the deal.”’ Even when he makes attempts to distance himself from the process -- he ‘collapses into helpless laughter while trying to tape a television statement; he mocks his own stump speech.’ and sits in the back of the campaign car mocking his stump speech (‘this country cannot house its houseless’) – it is clear that he cares for his own image, especially in the eyes of the voting public. When a rumour suggests that his father, whom he has hitherto kept out of the campaign, is backing Jarman, his rival, he immediately pays him a visit in order to get a statement released. Indeed his descent into politics becomes a cliché – it is visually hinted that he is going to be late for an important meeting with a labour leader after a brief romantic tryst with a campaign worker. ‘There is a sexual compromise for the candidate and an association between sex and power’. In the closing moments he is chaste. ‘I wonder if anybody understood what I was trying to do’, to which is father replies, "Don’t worry, son, it won’t make any difference."
Unusually, in a film so steeped in political and electoral process, the iconography usually associated with a campaign, and in particular the stars and stripes, only appear at certain key moments in order to demonstrate the corruption of the candidate. Unlike Tim Robbins
Tim Robbins
Timothy Francis "Tim" Robbins is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist and musician. He is the former longtime partner of actress Susan Sarandon...
’s Bob Roberts
Bob Roberts
Bob Roberts is a 1992 film written and directed by Tim Robbins. It is a satirical mockumentary, chronicling the rise of Bob Roberts, a conservative politician who is a candidate for an upcoming United States Senate election...
(1992) in which the American flag is fetishised to the point of parody with the titular Roberts in one key image standing naked but for a flag wrapped about his form, McKay is distanced from even the colors through much of the film. It is worth noting that the poster for the film has Robert Redford front and center with the U.S. flag in the background, which is an odd choice considering its lack of an appearance throughout much of the film.
His campaign banner is in green and yellow and at the rallies organized by his own campaign team, red, white, and blue are nowhere to be seen. The only deployment of the flag itself in the film happens almost subliminally during an archive television commercial for his Republican competitor. When the colors do finally appear, draped over a car during a tickertape parade with McKay standing in the center, it emphasises that the candidate’s approach has utterly changed – in these late successful stages he has embraced the standard iconography of a political campaign and is aligning himself with expectation.
One central message of the film is that the business of campaigning has overridden the condition of taking office. At the end of the film rather than being ‘triumphant in victory: Bill McKay is only confused’. The weakness is that the spectator does not clearly see the consequences of the campaign. As Scott describes ‘The dilemma for the director was to answer these charges of media power and sound bite manipulation, not simply pointedly to allow campaign guru Lucas to fly off to his next candidate as if going to a sales meeting.’ just after the oft-quoted line from McKay ‘What do I do now?’ Monaco agrees that it is not ‘enough to excuse the film by explaining that it works in a Brechtian way, to ask questions rather than to answer them. Brecht always implied answers.’
It has been reported that upon viewing the film, Dan Quayle
Dan Quayle
James Danforth "Dan" Quayle served as the 44th Vice President of the United States, serving with President George H. W. Bush . He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from the state of Indiana....
came to the conclusion that he was more handsome than Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
, and that he would be well equipped to win a campaign to enter the White House. Ironically, the future vice-president of the United States, perhaps inadvertently, highlights one of the themes of the piece – that no matter the ideology or interests of the candidate, the business of political campaigning is driven by image.
Reception
N.Y. Times (June 30, 1972) reviewer Vincent CanbyVincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
applauded Redford's performance and commented that: "The Candidate is serious, but its tone is coldly comic, as if it had been put together by people who had given up hope."Christopher Null
Christopher Null
Christopher Null is a film critic, columnist and former blogger for Yahoo! Tech, editor of Drinkhacker.com, and is the founder and editor in chief of Filmcritic.com.-Publications:...
from filmcritic.com gave the film 4.5/5 and said: "... this satire on an American institution continues to gain relevance instead of lose it."
Awards
The film won a Best Writing Oscar for Larner and was also nominated for Best Sound (Richard PortmanRichard Portman
Richard Portman is an American sound engineer. He won an Academy Award for Best Sound and has been nominated for ten more in the same category...
, Gene Cantamessa
Gene Cantamessa
Gene Cantamessa was an American sound engineer. He won an Academy Award for Best Sound for his work on the 1982 Stephen Spielberg film, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial...
).