The Conversation

The Conversation (1974) is about a man whose profession is listening to people, and who becomes frightened of his own recording. Harry Caul is a surveillance expert in San Francisco, considered the best in his field. A couple walk through a crowded square talking, and he records them with microphones from three directions. He combines and cleans the tapes and a sentence emerges. He listens to it over and over. As the emphasis shifts the meaning shifts, and at some point he believes it may be a plan for a murder. He does not want to hand the work over. The real subject is Harry himself. He gives nobody his telephone number, has three locks on his flat, and will not tell his girlfriend his name. The man who listens to everyone is terrified of being listened to. Walter Murch did the sound and it sits at the centre of the film. The same recording comes back slightly clearer each time and the audience learns to hear alongside him. Coppola made it between the two Godfathers as a small, personal film in between. It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Its timing was accidental: it opened while the Watergate investigation was under way and was watched during an argument about secret recordings. Coppola had written the screenplay years before the scandal. Gene Hackman gives the quietest performance of his career. The last scene ends with the man taking his own flat apart piece by piece. It runs 113 minutes. Good for: seventies American cinema, surveillance, and sound design. Less good for: the pace is very slow and the film answers nothing clearly.