Movie Review - The Conversation

Lost amidst the greatness created by the release of both "The Godfather Part II" and "Chinatown" the same year, Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation" is an equally fascinating piece of cinema that showcases the dangers of surveillance and the threat to privacy, even if we are unaware of it. For this reason alone the film still finds a place in today's society. Not to mention that it is an excellent movie.

The film centers on Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), a surveillance expert assigned to a job involving two young people meeting in a park. Caul is the best in the business, but this comes with a price: his profession has stripped him of any true socialization. His secrets have become his life, and as such his connections have become limited. In the act of reviewing the tapes that he is reluctant to turn over to their intended party, Caul believes that the young people he taped may be in danger of being murdered. Increasingly paranoid, he does not give up the tapes until he himself is watched. However, he still fears for the safety of the couple due to a past event that still haunts him, and his growing paranoia culminates in the tense climax.

In a film where sound is a dominant theme, "The Conversation" contains a wonderfully constructed collection of sounds. Sound quality in the film is excellent, and there are many instances of Caul's surveillance equipment being heard as it would be if we were there ourselves reviewing the tapes. The tension created through superb editing adds more emphasis on the sounds we do hear. The phone ringingly mysteriously in Caul's apartment, the tapes rewinding furiously, songs being played in a park - all add to the life and ultimately increasing confusion that Caul must face on the job. The score, nothing more than a piano, is simple yet eerily disconcerting. It plays brilliantly to the isolation that we see Caul in during the beginning of the film, but adds to the sense that something may in fact be awry as the film progresses.

As for the editing, Coppola creates an atmosphere of tension brought upon by uncertainty. Like, Caul, we do not know the truth, and by prying deeper in the matter we begin to feel uncertain about whether things will end up OK. The camera work is well done, visually reminding us of the distance that Caul has put between himself and the people he refuses to get close to. The opening scene itself is a masterwork: slowly zooming in on a crowd in the park, we only see Caul minutes after the film has started, a small figure seemingly undifferentiated from any other, just as he wants to be.

The acting in the film is dominated by the central performance of Gene Hackman. Showing off the versatility that has garnered him the label of one of his generation's best actors, Hackman strips himself of the machismo that won him an Oscar three years prior for "The French Connection". He is quiet, secretive, and reluctant to let others in on his life. His strength comes from his work, and when that is thrown into question Hackman's paranoia and vulnerability are put on full display. It is an excellent bit of underplaying by a very talented actor.

"The Conversation" is a taut, intelligent thriller that leaves its viewers guessing both during and after the film. It is engaging and suspenseful and was rightly nominated for Best Picture in 1974. Definitely a film worth seeing.