The Conversation

Apres "The Godfather," Francis Ford Coppola decided to indulge his artistic urges and this is what he produced. It's arty alright, but it's also very boring. Gene Hackman is wasted. A very young Harrison Ford is a hoot to see, though. There's a limited jazz soundtrack. It's primarily interesting as a film to look back at the very dated early '70s styles.

There are some works of art that are obviously derivative of others, and obviously inferior, because they simply ape the earlier work, tweak a few minor things, and try to pass off their theft as `homage'. The Conversation (1974), written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is not one of those minor works. It has a manifest endebtedness to Michelangelo Antonioni's brilliant 1966 film, Blowup, yet it does not merely ape that film's existential dilemma of an accidental photograph possibly cluing its lead character into murder. Instead, The Conversation probes far more deeply into its lead character Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) and his life, to see what might cause a man to misinterpret reality to suit his own psychic needs.
Another major difference is that the tale in Blowup is one that is wholly accidental, whereas the story The Conversation is built upon is an outgrowth of the deliberate and paid for actions of Caul, the leading West Coast surveillance expert, who has been hired by the mysterious Director (Robert Duvall) of a giant corporation to spy on his wife Ann (Cindy Williams) and her lover Mark (Frederick Forrest). The film opens, around Christmastime, with Caul and his entourage tailing and listening in to the conversation of the two lovers as they stroll in Union Square, an open air park in downtown San Francisco. The fragmented bits of conversation he pieces together only later, and comes to feel that the couple is being set up for murder by his employer. The opening zoom down from a sniper's eye level, focuses on a mime (Robert Shields) who is annoying people in the square. Eventually he sidles up to and mimics Caul, who walks away. The opening scene was filmed by Haskell Wexler, and the rest of the film by Bill Butler, who took over after Wexler and Coppola had a falling out.
It is a shame that in the nearly thirty years since the 1970s, Coppola has never made a film that comes close to the power of his films from that era. Despite its debt to Blowup, The Conversation is a far more realistic and multi-layered film. That does not mean it's better nor worse than Blowup, just not a ripoff. It is far more internalized, even if a little less subjective, than the earlier film. This seeming disconnect between the objective and that witnessed by the audience only deepens the desire to rewatch the film. Especially great is the fact that the film's lead is the sort of character other films ignore, to focus on one of the players in the love triangle, or perhaps Martin Stett. Caul is a functionary, an apparatchik- yet he's real, and his struggle is every bit as interesting as the `sexier characters'. Yet Coppola heeds Juvenal's query from his sixth Satire: `Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?' (`Who watches the watchmen?') There are many watchers in this film, yet the final watcher is the audience, and what they watch is greatness, simple in its complexity.
The Conversation is a great, simple, and small film, never too long at an hour and fifty-three minutes, and it may be Coppola's best. It was very timely, considering the milieu of Watergate, but the idea came to him in 1967. It started filming in late 1972, and wrapped shortly before Watergate came to light, yet it has been lost between the three other titanic films he made in the 1970s: The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II, and Apocalypse Now. Whereas those three films were operatic, this film is a chamber piece, and apropos of that, the piano only soundtrack by Coppola's brother in law David Shire, so reminiscent of Erik Satie piano pieces, is perfect, for, as Coppola says in his commentary, the piano is a lonely instrument; lonely as Harry Caul, or an unanswered question.

Another great F. F. Coppola movie. With Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, Cindy Williams and Terri Garr, how could it be anything but? Spooky and chilling, as electronic evesdropping and photographic surveilance is taken to depressing levels. You will be left wondering throughout most of the movie. Great and thought-provoking.

We loved "Enemy of the State" and this was recommended as the movie that led up to it. BORING! This movie is NOTHING like Enemy of the State, it was slow, predictable and a total sleeper. The only reason we watched to the end was that we were SURE it had to get better....it did not.

A bona fide film fanatic, in my nearly sixty years I've seen literally thousands of movies. This one has easily been in my top ten since I saw it for the first time thirty some years ago; it will always remain there. Coppola's brilliance is astonishing. This is a perfect movie, certainly one of the greatest movies ever made. Why? It deals with a deeply flawed but brilliant man who makes the mistake of beginning to care about people, which, in a sense, could become his redemption. But we don't really know. The movie is wonderfully enigmatic, understated, documentary-like at times. You have to listen carefully and to think; Coppola resists hitting you over the head to make a point. Gene Hackman in his greatest role, by far. The late John Cazale in a typically riveting performance (how's that for a filmography for John C: The Deerhunter, The Godfather Saga, The Conversation)! The great Alan Garfield (now Gurwitz) as the "best bugger on the east coast". Robert Duvall as the auto exec, with his creepy aide, Harrison Ford.
I won't attempt to summarize the film; I wouldn't do it justice. You may not like it, but it truly and eloquently spoke to me, and it continues to haunt me to this day.