The Conversation (1974)
Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Harrison Ford; d. Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola is best known for his adaption of Mario Puzo's The Godfather, but most who know him only for those three movies will be taken aback by The Conversation, which is very different from The Godfather and its following sequels. Made between The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, The Conversation was nominated for three Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Sound, Best Original Screenplay). The film went up against The Godfather Part II, which was released in the same year as The Conversation. Even though it walked home empty-handed, The Conversation didn't need an Academy Award to show people that it was excellent in all three areas for which it was nominated for, and in other places not nominated. The Conversation is a superb character study, a quiet, bleak look at the private life of Harry Caul (Gene Hackman).

The actual focus of The Conversation is not its plot but the main character, Harry. However, the movie does base itself on one assignment that Harry is given before the film actualy starts and is seein being done at the start of the film. Harry is assigned by a man who is only known in the film as the director (Robert Duvall) to wiretap a young couple (Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest) during lunchtime in San Fransisco's Union Square. The assignment would be mind-boggling for many wiretappers: The couple's clothes can't be bugged because it's impossible to know which clothes the two are going to wear. You have to be wary of the girl because she's been bugged before. And you can't get too close to them, or they'll be suspicious. On top of all of that, you've got to make sure you get the entire conversation in crystal clear perfection. Harry, the expert wiretapper, is able to do that by having a collegue (Michael Higgins) trail them in the park with a recording device conceiled in a paper bag. Then, he has two snipers on opposite sides of the building follow them around with what are really microphones and not guns. And his friend, Stan (John Cazale), is sitting in a van across the street listening to it all and getting terribly bored. We hear the conversation at the begenning of the film, but it weaves in and out of coherency and electronic blips. From what we hear, it is a pretty boring and innocouos conversation. But as Harry peices it together, and alters a peice of the conversation that is hidden under loud drums, the conversation turns out to be more significant and even hints a murder.

The character study of Harry Caul is a very rich, informative, and sometimes hard to watch one. Harry Caul is a man who spends his life trying to prevent people from trying to do to him what he does to other people. He's distant, sometimes uninentionally cruel, all because he is trying to protect himself from being spied on. Harry lives alone, and has five (count 'em, five) locks on his door. He also has a girlfriend, Amy (Teri Garr), whom nobody knows about. She stays in her appartment waiting for Harry to come slipping silently through her door, which he does. But what she waits most for is for him to tell her and show her that he loves her (eventually she is so fed up with Harry's distance that she tells him good-bye and dissapears compleatly). He protects himself from nature as he always wears a translucent raincoat wherever he goes. Harry is also a devout Catholic, but this is mainly because he's trying to protect himself again, this time from being guilty. But Harry is indeed a very guilty man, especially after one of his cases in New York City resulted in a brutal murder of an entire family, and that his newest case might yet again cause the same kind of massicare. And just like he can't fully protect himself from guilt, he can not fully do anything else. His landlady not only finds out it is his birthday but is able to put a present in his supposedly high-security home. On top of that, she, and the director's assistant (Harrison Ford), are able to call him on his supposedly unlisted and non-existant phone (he rarely uses his phone, he typicall calls someone from a pay phone). He finds an important peice of information in the conversation underneith a peice of music. He, being the keen wiretapper, is bugged by a cross-country rival (Allen Garfield) with a pin he so calmy slipped into Harry's breast pocket. Even the protection from his rain coat isn't complete, as it is translucent. It may not let everything be seen through it but at least light can get through.

The Conversation not only succeeds as a character study but as a terrifying psychological thriller. As Harry unravels the spools of the potential murder at hand, the tension rises. Even when it seems that the tension has released, another incident happens to shake up your nerves once again. The brilliant the thing about it is that it doesn't result in obvious techniques to scare you. The film has often been called Hitchcockian, and while I think that term is thrown around like an old football, The Conversation is worthy of the title. The film relies on visuals and unusual sound (electronic noises were used superbly in The Birds) to excell the suspense as well as the story. Also, the fact that the most important clue to the mystery is discovered in the bathroom also adds to the Hitchcockain level (important and revealing events in Psycho, Marnie, North By Northwest, and Vertigo take place in or involve the bathroom).

Francis Ford Coppola shows us that he can be more than just a director of leignthy crime epics with the abstract, and short, The Conversation. The film is without a flaw, nor a single plot hole, and is a perfect combination of horror, murder mystery, and psychological drama. It's a shame that this film might be overlooked for Coppola's most popular films, for it is just as good as any of them. There is not a poor performance to be seen, the best coming from Gene Hackman. Reportedly, Harry Caul was his favorite role, but it's a shame he wasn't nominated for Best Actor for his performance. It's also a shame that sound man Walter Murich did not win an Oscar for his brilliant use of sound. That, and the excellent piano/jazz score written by David Shire (then husband of Talia Shire, Coppola's sister and Connie Corleone in The Godfather), help move the film's plot along. I would reccomend this film to everyone, it's a brilliant, exciting thriller. But, you must give this film all of your attention and patience or you will not enjoy it at all.

© Vert A Go Go Reviews 2001