Retro Review - "The Conversation" (1974)

Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation is a masterpiece and for the life of me I don't understand how this is not better known. Coppola had been trying to get the film made for four years, first trying after doing his work on the screenplay for Patton. Even after Coppola won the screenplay Oscar he couldn't get anyone interested. Then came The Godfather and the rest, as they say, is history.

Still it wasn't easy for Coppola to get this film made until Paramount approached Coppola about doing The Godfather Part II. Coppola knew he held all of the cards then and offered Paramount a deal - if they let him make The Conversation he would do the Godfather sequel. Paramount tried playing hardball at first by balking at the deal but changed their tune when Coppola seemed unfazed by their stubborn tactics. Paramount then came back and increased their monetary offer to Coppola if he would forget about his "small" picture and concentrate on the continuing saga of the Corleone family. Again Coppola balked. Paramount finally gave in and Coppola would make both movies back to back, seeing both of them released in 1974.

Both films would end up being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture (though Academy rules prevented Coppola from being nominated for both movies - he was recognized for The Godfather Part II) while this film also got nods for Sound and Coppola's screenplay and Coppola came out smelling like a rose having made two incredible films in one year.

This article is about the first of those two. Obviously The Godfather Part II is better known and won several Academy Awards (including Director, Screenplay and Picture for Coppola) but, frankly, as terrific as I think that film is, I have always had problems with the story structure of it. It never fails that as soon as I get caught up in the flashback story of the young Vito Corleone (Robert DeNiro) or the current story of the Corleone family, the film shifts its focus to the other story whose feel is different from the other and you have to re-boot yourself over and over to stay with it. The Conversation, on the other hand, is a flat out winner with a lead performance by the great Gene Hackman (shockingly overlooked for a nomination) that even the actor himself has called his favorite.

The Conversation was released during the Watergate era but I think its themes are even more relevant today in a world of Facebook, My Space, Internet and identity theft. Its paranoia is just as potent now as it was in 1974. In the film Hackman plays Harry Caul, a devout Catholic, lover of jazz music and top surveillance man who can record a conversation from any distance under any circumstance. He is a sad, paranoid man who keeps several locks on his apartment door after discovering his landlady has entered his apartment to leave him a birthday present. The apartment has few furnishings and is a lonely place fit for a man who wants to be alone. He has a telephone but keeps it stored in a drawer for he has little use for it and seems to keep one only because everyone else has one. His social life consists of a woman he is sleeping with but even she can't get too close to him because his paranoia (brought on no doubt by his years of eavesdropping) is so great that when he visits her he rushes in her apartment as if he is going to catch her doing something. Harry's sole hobby is playing his saxophone and it may be his sole enjoyment in life. When he works he is the best but does he really enjoy what he does? It seems to have ruined his social world completely as personal contact with most people seems almost painful to him. He keeps everything private including his work methods and tries to instill this paranoia into his right hand man, Stan (John Cazale, Fredo from the Godfather films).

Harry's latest assignment is a tough one. He goes to meet with a man in a SanFrancisco office building who is known only as the director. The director (played by one of the best actors of the last 40 years whom I will not reveal) is not in so Harry is instructed what needs to be done by who seems to be the director's right hand man (played by the youthful looking Harrison Ford). The job is to record a conversation between two people (then unknowns Cindy Williams and Fredrick Forrest) in a park during lunch hour. Harry knows this is no problem and, in a brilliantly edited scene, we see how Harry (and Coppola) gets into the private moments of a couple as they consistently move amongst dozens of people all carrying on conversations of their own. With the task complete Harry goes about trying to decipher the conversation the couple has and, when he does, to figure out what it all means because something said on the tape is most interesting but its meaning is ambiguous at best. Harry becomes more obsessed the more he listens to the tape as each listen brings a new and different (and sometimes startling) meaning that could be dangerous to the couple and to himself.

The Conversation is an intricate thriller that is slow paced but fascinating with every scene as it unspools itself to reveal certain things while other things are left unrevealed. Harry is one of those left unrevealed. He once recorded a conversation where, according to Harry's chief rival (played superbly by 1970's character actor Allen Garfield), it was simply impossible to catch a recording. But Harry did it and it led to a violent conclusion that haunts Harry. What happened? How did Harry get the conversation recorded? Those answers are never revealed by Coppola. It's enough we know this man his haunted by his work and the same thing seems to be happening all over again.

The Conversation is not a perfect film. Two scenes seem oddly out of place. One involves Harry having a nightmare about the woman he has recorded and the other is when Harry invites a woman (along with Stan and his rival and a few co-workers) back to his work loft to see his outfit. I never bought that Harry would allow anyone into this space that he didn't know or trust even if it does lead to a moment when Harry is taught a good lesson.

That scene aside the film is riveting. The final act, as Harry first sees the director and whose life is then obviously threatened, goes to a hotel and tries to put all the pieces together and prevent what could be a vicious crime is brilliantly edited and directed but can be frustrating to the viewer the way Coppola shoots it. There are certain things Coppola insists upon having the viewer use their imagination and if you are one that wants everything explained to you than maybe this is not the film for you. Coppola simply refuses to make it that easy. Hey, you tell me what was in the toilet.

The film ends, like most films of that era, unhappily. Coppola's final haunting shot has a camera simply moving back and forth through a room watching someone who has nothing left but what he is holding and even that may not be safe anymore. If the film were made today no doubt the studio would have insisted on Harry solving the case, saving the day and no one getting hurt. He would go back to his barren apartment, play his sax and live happily ever after (or has happily as Harry could live). Not in 1974. Back then the filmmakers had the guts to end a movie where people didn't necessarily walk out of the theater smiling or laughing. Studios stood by their young directors and masterpieces like this film are what came of that trust between studio and filmmaker.

The Conversation is one of my all time favorite films. It is certainly one of the best films of the 1970's and deserves to be seen by any fan of thrillers or, hell, film. The performances are all terrific and the script is fascinating. David Shire contributes a haunting piano-only musical score.

In this world of text messaging and emails try to imagine a time when you could hear something with your own ears and still not get the meaning of it correct. That's what happened to Harry Caul as he unraveled his latest assignment and it leads us on an enthralling mystery.