Directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Starring Gene Hackman and John Cazale.
In a Nutshell: An introvert surveillance expert becomes involved in a murder conspiracy.
Made between Godfathers, The Conversation is an incredibly tense and quiet thriller from a man whose later career would include grand exercises in cinema bombast (with quality ranging from Apocalypse Now greatness to One from the Heart garishness). Gene Hackman gives the most tightly wound performance of his career as Harry Caul, a man haunted by the responsibility placed upon him by his job as a wiretapper. He lives in solitude, valuing his privacy, and finding his only interaction through the people he spies on. Information he bugged led to the death of three people, and Caul lives in agony of trying to remove himself from the guilt. He should be a professional, detached from whatever his work brings to others (his colleagues are proficient as well, but carry on normal social lives and carry a derisive air about their jobs). Hackman is brilliantly restrained and shines in the scenes where Caul’s bubble of security it broken; which it often is. Caul may value privacy to the point where he complains to his landlord for delivering a birthday present in his apartment, but too often he lets his guard down or deceived. Hackman brings us Caul’s tormented embarrassment excellently and helps makes the movie as compelling a character study as the thriller portion.
Made between Godfathers, The Conversation is an incredibly tense and quiet thriller from a man whose later career would include grand exercises in cinema bombast (with quality ranging from Apocalypse Now greatness to One from the Heart garishness). Gene Hackman gives the most tightly wound performance of his career as Harry Caul, a man haunted by the responsibility placed upon him by his job as a wiretapper. He lives in solitude, valuing his privacy, and finding his only interaction through the people he spies on. Information he bugged led to the death of three people, and Caul lives in agony of trying to remove himself from the guilt. He should be a professional, detached from whatever his work brings to others (his colleagues are proficient as well, but carry on normal social lives and carry a derisive air about their jobs). Hackman is brilliantly restrained and shines in the scenes where Caul’s bubble of security it broken; which it often is. Caul may value privacy to the point where he complains to his landlord for delivering a birthday present in his apartment, but too often he lets his guard down or deceived. Hackman brings us Caul’s tormented embarrassment excellently and helps makes the movie as compelling a character study as the thriller portion.
The Conversation has been compared to Blowup often enough that its tough not to bring up similarities. Both films involve characters involving themselves in murder plots (in the case of The Conversation, Caul does so intentionally, in Blowup the involvement comes about much more by accident) and holding what may be the evidence to blow the cases wide open. But a perception over the (seemingly) concrete evidence doesn’t always lead to the right conclusion, particularly from observers who have no business of being involved. Coppola starts off the film with a snipers-eye view of a plaza, giving us a shot where we see all, but never clearly. After all, it is Caul who can hear the taped conversations from his buggings but can never deduce what it really means. And the wrong interpretation could mean death.
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