The Conversation (1974)

Francis Ford Coppola’s quiet yet unbearably tense espionage thriller, The Conversation is a masterwork of character study. Slowly becoming my favorite Coppola film (blasphemy, I know), The Conversation is a psychological thriller masquerading as a slowly-burning drama.

Opening with a beautiful aerial shot of a well-manicured city park, The Conversation begins with just that, a conversation. Quiet at first, but building slowly, an anonymous couple circumnavigates the park discussing a broken and incoherent subject. Oddly broken up by electrical noise, and the jovial street music that surrounds them, their discussion is only observed bits at a time. As they talk, we soon see that the couple is being recorded by a team of surveillance experts, positioned around the square. We soon come to know the leader of this charade as Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) – an expert in the field of recording the conversations of others. Caul has been hired by an unknown employer, to record a conversation of unknown importance, and the only thing that matters to him is the “big, fat recording.” When he returns to his workshop, he sets to work mixing the audio from his three sources, until a clear and concise master is complete. Slowly becoming overcome with paranoia, Caul is quickly embroiled in a plot that – he believes – will end with the couple’s murder.

Coppola focuses his entire film on Caul. Meticulously following him as he commutes anonymously around the city of San Francisco. An extremely private man, Caul fastidiously covers his tracks, and guards against any and all outsiders. Being an expert in the world of surveillance, Caul has developed an intense fear of being surveilled. He does not own a telephone, nor a car, and his workshop is on the top floor of a dilapidated warehouse in a seedy part of town. He keeps three locks on his apartment door, and an alarm system at the ready. He never speaks about himself, or his past, even to a girlfriend or to his colleague. Making all of his own equipment, Caul has shut himself off from the seemingly close-knit community of fellow phone buggers and security experts. He only relies on people for help with complex jobs (and sexual gratification in the case of his secret girlfriend), and never allows anyone to get truly close to him. His only concern is the job, and this most recent job, appears to have wholly consumed him.

Coppola has a practiced and methodical eye for camera movement and cinematography. Certainly a major factor in his prior film, The Godfather (not many people have seen this one), Coppola’s eye for the perfect shot to aid in his storytelling is unparalleled. Released the same year as The Godfather: Part II, The Conversation was overshadowed by the director’s famous, and perhaps even better, sequel to the breakout masterpiece. Coppola follows Caul very closely, using a range of mid to close up shots, only ever breaking form when Caul is entering a new area, or more scenery must be exposed. Leaving the audience in a state of claustrophobia, Coppola records all of Caul’s quirks and invited us to be a part of his paranoid delusions. Further enhancing the uneasy tone, Coppola uses a bizarre score of garbled jazz, electronic distortion and highlights of the recorded conversation. Never allowing his audience to get comfortable with a theory on the unfolding mystery, nor relaxed enough to unclench their teeth, Coppola pushes Caul’s anxiety onto the viewer.

Hackman is at his near best playing the slowly-slipping Caul. Constantly under the ever-watchful eye of the camera, Hackman is able to fully inhabit the mind of his character, never letting his performance slip. His hands fumble with his precious keys, his gentle tweaking of electronic equipment for a better audio signal, his swings from calm dignity to enraged indignation; Hackman shows with minute detail that Caul is beginning to loosen at the seams. As the film progresses, and Caul falls further into deranged paranoia, it is impossible to tell with absolute certainty what is transgressing on screen. Does what he is seeing exist in the cinematic world, or is it simply another figment? It is in Hackman’s panic-stricken face that the seemingly impossible details become real.

The Conversation is an incredibly complex and thought-provoking piece of cinema. Coppola begins his film with indistinguishable conversation, yet the information he continually provides only offers more uncertainty. Continuing to its lucid conclusion, Coppola sends his audience on a journey alongside Harry Caul, only to find more tragedy, panic, and bewilderment.