Watergate yielded some amazing movies, will Russia-gate?

Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor

The current White House's 'struggles' to explain its actions as of late, especially when it pertains to the various investigations into its ties to Russia and potential collusion in an effort to influence our country's presidential election last year, has led a lot of pundits and political observers to draw comparisons to the Watergate scandal.

That is perhaps unsurprising. Pretty much every major political scandal of the last 40 years has been compared to the 1972 break-in into the Democratic Party's headquarters, which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in disgrace, two years later.

It's too soon to tell which direction the ongoing scandal enveloping the Trump administration will go. Certainly, what is being alleged -- treason -- is a far more serious crime than burglary, bribery and obstruction of justice. But with a Republican majority in both the House and Senate, the FBI's director unceremoniously fired and Trump appointees running the show at Justice, as well as the CIA, it seems unlikely that we'll see the president booted out of office anytime soon.

In the meantime, I am curious as to whether the current toxic political climate will start the effect the movies -- the medium that is often the most telling pop cultural temperature taker.

The Parallax View

The paranoia and mistrust of the Watergate era definitely had an impact on Hollywood and produced some of the most memorable and compelling films of that or any era. Between 1973 and 1976, really prior to the debut of Star Wars, there were several big hit films that trafficked in moral ambiguity and cast shady conglomerates and political operatives as the villains in an notable nod to Watergate.

Obviously, All the President's Men, which detailed the reporting on the saga itself is the probably the most famous of these films, but Robert Redford's other thriller Three Days of the Condor has a similar -- 'no one can be trusted' ethos. I'd also strongly recommend the terrific, under-seen Warren Beatty political assassination drama, The Parallax View.

Even though its set decades earlier, Chinatown's portrayal of bureaucratic corruption and literal incest is hard to separate from the events of the year of its release -- 1974 -- the same year Nixon finally stepped down. The masterful Godfather Part II shows Michael Corleone morphing into a Nixonian type figure himself, humorless and scheming, while alienating everyone he supposedly cares about.

Even sci-fi started to reflect a certain moral ambivalence. Films like Soylent Green and Logan's Run set up seemingly benign totalitarian regimes which are revealed to have sinister plans for the masses, it's hard to believe that either of these films would have take such cynical stances had it not been for national Watergate fatigue.

So far, only Get Out -- which went into production long before the November election -- has felt like a movie that feels emblematic of the times in which we are currently living. But if this administration continues to chug along and amid this much turmoil, Hollywood would be derelict in its duty not to reflect that. I for one am fascinated to see what brooding movies the Trump era inspires.