The Conversation (1974)Starring: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Frederic Forrest, Cindy Williams, Harrison Ford, Teri Garr, Robert Duvall
In my blog on Tucker: The Man and His Dream I made mention of the hot streak that Francis Coppola was on in the 1970s. The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Apocalypse Now. Four films, four best picture nominations for two wins, three best director nominations for one win, four best screenplay nominations for two wins. Not a shabby decade. The Conversation is easily the lowest profile of the four films Coppola made in the 1970s, but it is still an amazing film. It is the only one of the four which is based on an original story be Coppola, the others were all adapted screenplays, so for Coppola fans it is a must.
Harry Caul (Hackman) is a legend in the surveillance game. He is the best wiretapper and bugger in America. He and his team are hired by the director of a large corporation (Duvall) to record a conversation between his wife (Williams) and her lover (Forrest). Caul prepares the recordings and goes to deliver them and receive his payment, but the urgency with which his employers assistant (Ford) tries to get the tapes off him makes him wary and he decides to have another listen to these tapes. With a bit of work he manages to uncover a previously inaudible bit of dialogue, "He'd kill us if he had the chance", which leads him to believe his employer plans to murder the lovers. Haunted by a previous job of his which lead to the murder of three people, Harry doesn't know what to do.
While The Conversation came in the midst of that amazing streak for Francis Coppola, so the natural inclination is to look at it in terms of Coppola, a lot of credit for the success of this film has to go to editor and sound designer Walter Murch. Coppola had to get to work on pre-production for The Godfather Part II so much of the post-production for The Conversation was left in the capable hands of Walter Murch. Murch ended up changing the structure of the film, moving a few scenes around and adding one particular audio device which is key to the unraveling of the plot. What resulted is an absolute masterclass in the power of editing and sound engineering to contribute to narrative. In The Conversation the editing and sound design play a major role in the slow revealing of information. The conversation that is recorded at the beginning of the film is repeated over and over again throughout the film, with different details and pieces of information becoming apparent at different points. The way Murch structured the film puts us right in Harry Caul's head. We discover things as he discovers things. We are encouraged to interpret information the same way that he chooses to interpret things. We are mislead the same way he is mislead.
One of the defining features of the New Hollywood of the late 1960s and 1970s was the way in which American cinema was influenced by European art cinema. In the case of The Conversation this influence is very apparent. The central narrative device of The Conversation is a different take on the central device of Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up. While in Blow-Up we see Thomas exploring a series of photographs he took, enlarging and focusing them until it reveals a murder, The Conversation does the same thing but with a sound recording. Both films explore similar themes of perception, perspective and what is real. The Conversation is, however, a much more American picture. It uses a more conventional narrative form than Blow-Up, resulting in a much more accessible film experience.
One thing I have to mention in relation to The Conversation is John Cazale. This is an actor who's career I find to be simply amazing. He only made five feature films before his career was tragically cut short in 1978 when he lost his battle with bone cancer. Those five films were; The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter. That is an absolutely brilliant collection of films. All five of those films were nominated for best picture Oscars with three of them winning the award (The Conversation was, of course, beaten to the award by The Godfather Part II so really it was only possible to win four of the five). I doubt there are any other actors in history who can say that over half the films they appeared in won best picture Oscars. He was also engaged to Meryl Streep, so he did pretty well for himself there too. Apparently when the producers of The Deer Hunter found out he was dying of cancer they moved to have him replaced in the cast but Streep threatened to walk from the film if he was sacked. He was an absolutely brilliant supporting actor and it's a real shame we never got to see more of him.
Demonstrating a lot of the paranoia that was evident in 3 Days of the Condor and other films of the early 1970s, The Conversation is a really tense thriller which tackles issues of privacy, but is also an intriguing character study of a character who would regularly be peripheral. The Conversation is a must see for anyone interested in film editing or sound design, and a very worthwhile couple of hours for anyone else.
So that's 100 movies on the board for the year so far. It look a bit longer than I'd thought it would, but I suppose that is down to the fact that for every movie I've watched I've had to write up a blog which makes them each a little more time consuming.
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