The Conversation (USA, 1974) 113 min color DIR-SCR: Francis Ford Coppola. PROD: Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Roos. MUSIC: David Shire. DOP: Bill Butler. CAST: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Frederic Forrest, Cindy Williams, Teri Garr, Harrison Ford. (Paramount)
For my money, the greatest achievement of Francis Ford Coppola is this outstanding character-driven thriller, released in between his two Godfather films, and one of the decade’s best films. The Conversation shares an interesting approach with Night Moves in that they both feature Gene Hackman as Everymen whose attempts to do something extraordinary result in tragedy. In this film, Hackman plays Harry Caul, a surveillance expert who pries into other people’s lives for a living, but is extremely guarded about his own life. At one point, he gets freaked out that his landlady somehow got into his apartment without setting off the alarm system! Caul is so protective of his privacy that he lets no one in his world, not even his girlfriend (played by Teri Garr). She ends the relationship precisely because he is so aloof. After this scene, we witness a single shot of Caul riding home on the bus- this moment plays out for longer than we would expect, and perhaps it is the single most important shot of the film. We see Harry Caul for all that he is (or is not)- a blank, lonely person in a directionless life. Interestingly enough, we see him at his most extroverted during the film’s loosest, almost improvisational scene: when he is at a convention for surveillance experts, talking to other socially displaced techno-nerds just like him! (Allen Garfield, God bless him, plays one of these swarthy characters.) Early in the film, his partner (John Cazale) asks Harry if he ever wonders what the people they “bug” are talking about. He replies, “I don’t care what they’re talking about… all I care about is a good recording.” However, the moment when he does invest some interest into why he is paid to wiretap the conversations of an adulterous couple (played by Frederic Forrest and Cindy Williams), he realizes he is hearing about a prelude to murder. As he delves further in the case, he learns that the corporation who hired him to bug the couple is involved, and then he begins to jeopardize the cocoon of a world he has made for himself. Suddenly, the wiretapper extraordinaire is also being watched! In the film’s final moment, we see Harry Caul playing the sax in his shambles of an apartment, which he has just torn apart, trying to find the bugs that the corporation has planted. Although Caul has vindicated himself, he is still not truly free.
Originally presented in Vol. #1, Issue #14, (“Back to the 70s”), as part of the article, “The Paranoia Machine”.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.