THE CONVERSATION
Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Starring Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Cindy Williams
Released in 1974
Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Starring Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Cindy Williams
Released in 1974
The Conversation (1974) is a very good movie that falls just a wee bit short of being a great one. I'm not certain that it is necessarily the fault of anyone that this film stops just a bit shy. Certainly, it is not the fault of director Francis Ford Coppola. Indeed, the production company Coppola worked with enabled the film to be made at a time when it otherwise might have been impossible. What had happened was that Gulf+Western head Charlie Bluhdorn managed to consolidate directors Coppola, Peter Bogdonavich and William Friedkin into forming a group called The Directors Company. The rules were simple: The guys could make any movie they wanted without consulting the studio--in this case Paramount--as long as the cost was under three million dollars. Coppola had had the idea forThe Conversation going on in his mind since 1966, but had been unable to sell any major studio on the concept of a surveillance specialist who, against his own will, gets caught up in protecting the interests of the people upon whom he is spying. Neither Bogdonavich nor Friedkin much liked the idea, but the beauty of the arrangement was that none of the three directors had the power to veto any one director's concept. Coppola brought the film in for $1.6 million and it ended up grossing nearly triple that amount.
The film stars Gene Hackman as Harry Caul, the surveillance chief assisted by Stan, played well enough by John Cazale. Their job is to record a lunchtime conversation between Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest, a conversation replayed many times throughout the movie. On the surface, the talk feels almost suspiciously unimportant. But Harry doesn't care about that. All he wants is to make the recording and get paid. Nagging questions about who the hell would want such a stupid exercise in "conversating" recorded and for what purpose are anathema to him. He is a craftsman, albeit, one with a not very well deserved reputation for being the best in the business. Stan can't quite understand why Harry doesn't care. That's because he doesn't know that years earlier, Harry's work was used by political forces to get a family of three brutally murdered.
This movie is all about Harry, the guy who wears the roll-up transparent rain slicker rain or shine, the guy who lives in an apartment that he pretends is far more secure than it actually is, the guy who spies on his mistress, who keeps his telephone in a desk drawer, who falls for some pretty obvious pranks, a Roman Catholic sinner, a man whose job reinforces his alienation and whose alienation drives him deeper and deeper into his own obsession with his work. Everyone with whom Harry interacts is merely fluff for getting the job done.
Except that these people steadily reveal themselves to be a bit more than mere fluff.
A downright spooky Harrison Ford plays the assistant to a corporate director (an uncredited Robert Duvall). Ford doesn't necessarily reveal it, but this is far and away the most emotionally complex character he has ever played. At first we assume that he is just a somewhat sneaky and ambitious underling charged with separating the director from a hired contractor. Then we interpret him to be an accomplice to some vile nastiness. And eventually it occurs that he may have been on the side of the angels. And then--well, perhaps not.
Ford's character is only one example of a litany of people who march through this film in the guise of people with roles and sub-roles of hidden behavior, the true intents of which we can often only speculate. Is Cindy Williams an innocent victim of a jealous husband's psychotic rage? Is Bernie Moran (played by Allen Garfield) just a bag of gas on legs, or is he a despicable rival who will stop at nothing? Can we trust Stan, the assistant? Whatever happened to Teri Garr, the mistress? Why can't Hackman remember the age of the character he plays? The unraveling of technological details will remind viewers who've reached a certain maturity of Antonioni's Blow Up, and rightly so. But despite the magnificent opening shot, The Conversation is not an art film. It is a psychological drama. It is one hell of a psych-drama, I'll grant you, but ultimately it does not make the leap we keep expecting. Sensitized as we are since the days of at least Watergate, we continue to anticipate some larger societal connection to the presence of this spy's work upon the world at large and that connection just never comes. Again, this is no one's fault. Coppola wasn't trying to make a movie that linked his protagonist's paranoia with that of the people in the audience. But that is what would have been required if this movie were to be in the same category of the director's best work, which is to say, the best movies of his generation. Incidentally, Harrison Ford has enlisted someone to hide a listening device that Hackman never finds. The astute viewer (very astute) may discover what Harry Caul never does.
The film stars Gene Hackman as Harry Caul, the surveillance chief assisted by Stan, played well enough by John Cazale. Their job is to record a lunchtime conversation between Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest, a conversation replayed many times throughout the movie. On the surface, the talk feels almost suspiciously unimportant. But Harry doesn't care about that. All he wants is to make the recording and get paid. Nagging questions about who the hell would want such a stupid exercise in "conversating" recorded and for what purpose are anathema to him. He is a craftsman, albeit, one with a not very well deserved reputation for being the best in the business. Stan can't quite understand why Harry doesn't care. That's because he doesn't know that years earlier, Harry's work was used by political forces to get a family of three brutally murdered.
This movie is all about Harry, the guy who wears the roll-up transparent rain slicker rain or shine, the guy who lives in an apartment that he pretends is far more secure than it actually is, the guy who spies on his mistress, who keeps his telephone in a desk drawer, who falls for some pretty obvious pranks, a Roman Catholic sinner, a man whose job reinforces his alienation and whose alienation drives him deeper and deeper into his own obsession with his work. Everyone with whom Harry interacts is merely fluff for getting the job done.
Except that these people steadily reveal themselves to be a bit more than mere fluff.
A downright spooky Harrison Ford plays the assistant to a corporate director (an uncredited Robert Duvall). Ford doesn't necessarily reveal it, but this is far and away the most emotionally complex character he has ever played. At first we assume that he is just a somewhat sneaky and ambitious underling charged with separating the director from a hired contractor. Then we interpret him to be an accomplice to some vile nastiness. And eventually it occurs that he may have been on the side of the angels. And then--well, perhaps not.
Ford's character is only one example of a litany of people who march through this film in the guise of people with roles and sub-roles of hidden behavior, the true intents of which we can often only speculate. Is Cindy Williams an innocent victim of a jealous husband's psychotic rage? Is Bernie Moran (played by Allen Garfield) just a bag of gas on legs, or is he a despicable rival who will stop at nothing? Can we trust Stan, the assistant? Whatever happened to Teri Garr, the mistress? Why can't Hackman remember the age of the character he plays? The unraveling of technological details will remind viewers who've reached a certain maturity of Antonioni's Blow Up, and rightly so. But despite the magnificent opening shot, The Conversation is not an art film. It is a psychological drama. It is one hell of a psych-drama, I'll grant you, but ultimately it does not make the leap we keep expecting. Sensitized as we are since the days of at least Watergate, we continue to anticipate some larger societal connection to the presence of this spy's work upon the world at large and that connection just never comes. Again, this is no one's fault. Coppola wasn't trying to make a movie that linked his protagonist's paranoia with that of the people in the audience. But that is what would have been required if this movie were to be in the same category of the director's best work, which is to say, the best movies of his generation. Incidentally, Harrison Ford has enlisted someone to hide a listening device that Hackman never finds. The astute viewer (very astute) may discover what Harry Caul never does.
