Gene Hackman traps himself in a corner in Francis Ford Coppola’s gripping psychological thriller The Conversation
THE CONVERSATION (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
January 14-27
212-727-8110
filmforum.org
While changing the face of Hollywood cinema with The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, American auteur Francis Ford Coppola snuck in yet another 1970s masterpiece, the dark psychological thriller The Conversation, which will be screening January 14-27 at Film Forum in a new 35mm print supervised by Coppola himself for this engagement. Gene Hackman gives a riveting performance as Harry Caul, an audio surveillance expert who has been hired to record a meeting between two people (Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest) in Union Square in San Francisco. Thinking that he might have stumbled onto a murder plot, Caul soon finds himself in the middle of a dangerous conspiracy that threatens the lives of all those involved. The Conversation is a gripping, taut examination of obsession, paranoia, and loneliness as well as an exploration of language and communication. Caul might spend most of his time listening in on the intimate conversations of others, but he is an intensely private individual who is extremely uncomfortable in his own skin.
A recorded conversation between a mysterious couple (Talia Shire and Frederic Forrest) triggers a possible conspiracy in Coppola masterpiece
A deeply religious man who also plays the saxophone, Caul has trouble relating to other people; Hackman is particularly outstanding in a party scene where Caul is forced to talk shop with fellow surveillance expert Bernie Moran (Allen Garfield), who wants to know Caul’s secrets, but the always nervous Caul isn’t about to share everything. The film, winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes and nominated for three Oscars — Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound (Walter Murch and Art Rochester) — also examines how people hear what they want to hear and see what they want to see, and it takes on even more meaning in a twenty-first century dominated by public and private surveillance, from store security cameras and government monitoring to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The supporting cast, which also features Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall, Teri Garr, and John Cazale, is exceptional, as is Bill Butler’s cinematography, but this is Hackman’s show all the way, leading to one of the great endings in the history of cinema.
“I’ve always been especially proud of The Conversation, partly because it was from my own original story and screenplay,” Coppola said in February 2020. “I count it among the most personal of all my films and I’m happy the movie became the very thing it was about — invasion of privacy and its erosive impact on both victims and perpetrators. This was my goal when I conceived it almost fifty years ago, and to my surprise, the idea still resonates today.”