“Alan Pakula: Going for Truth,” by the director Matthew Miele, is suffused with mourning. The documentary about the titular filmmaker opens with actors — Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Dustin Hoffman and Kevin Kline among them — recalling how news of his death affected them. In November 1998, Alan Pakula was driving on the Long Island Expressway when a metal pole crashed through his windshield. Piano notes sound beneath Harrison Ford’s especially affecting speechlessness.
Even so, what comes as a surprise is how much this documentary honoring Pakula, the director of that dark triumvirate of 1970s films — “Klute,” “The Parallax View” and “All the President’s Men” — has the feel of a memorial service. A lovely one, a deserved one, but more a collection of beloveds gathered to share in who was lost than a rigorous reckoning with a filmmaker who had a sense of what bedeviled this country when he produced “To Kill a Mockingbird,” released in 1962, and whose insights had become even keener by the time he directed his “paranoia trilogy.”
There are hints of depth. Robert Redford cites their shared sense of political paranoia. Jane Fonda (“Klute”) says that “he had an affinity for women.” Recollections from Streep (“Sophie’s Choice”), Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Bonnie Bedelia echo that sense of Pakula’s empathy. (Clips from Liza Minnelli’s performance in “The Sterile Cuckoo” offer further support.)
Pakula’s work with actors or the resurgent meaning of his trilogy could have been documentaries unto themselves. But the viewer might not have gotten an adjacent set of insights from his family, particularly Hannah Pakula, his second wife. Her tender, incisive regard creates an ache even as it offers solace.
Alan Pakula: Going for Truth
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. Rent or buy on most major platforms.
Lisa Kennedy
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