The Conversation | | Cast : | Gene Hackman, John Cazale | | Director : | Francis Ford Coppola | | Studio : | Paramount Studio | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | January 01, 1974 | | DVD Released Date : | June 24, 2003 | | Language : | French (Dubbed), English (Dubbed), English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 06, 2005 | | Summary | "We'll be listening." | Content
 | The dreadfully real technology revealed during the Watergate investigations lent a special relevance to Francis Ford Coppola's film about wiretapping. However, the film's astonishingly prophetic script was written five years before the film was made and the Watergate scandal broke. It is Coppola's most successfully realized work to date. In "The Conversation", Coppola combines the technological monsters we know are real with those we suspect to be real and focuses finally and most ruthlessly on one person no one thinks much about: the man doing the listening.
Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), is a security specialist who performs wiretapping and eavesdropping operations for powerful clients. A requirement of the job is a profound personal detachment. A professional, he is a solitary soul; he relates most actively to the world via the technology at his disposal. Even his hobby, playing the saxophone along with jazz records, relies on his interaction with impersonal strangers. He evinces a neurotic fear of precisely what he does to others; he is absolutely phobic about his privacy, keeps an unlisted phone number and shuns all social contact, the exception being his girlfriend (Teri Garr). Throughout the film, regardless of the weather, he wears a transparent raincoat, as if to sanitize himself from his environment. At confession, he admits to stealing newspapers. Only a virtuoso performance by Gene Hackman incorporates these striking contradictions within a plausible character; Harry's career forces him to maintain an elaborate and at times ridiculous system of repressed instincts, rather like Maupassant, who disliked the Eiffel Tower so much that he ate lunch in its observation deck every day so he wouldn't have to look at it.
As a thriller plain and simple, the film is without peer. It has a slow and careful pace at first that accelerates to moments of indescribable fright. There is a bathroom scene that will make you afraid ever to use indoor plumbing again and a twist ending so completely surprising and convincing as to change the meaning of every scene in the film and make the denouement of "Psycho" seem predictable in comparison. Coppola was not the first filmmaker to present a nightmare world of humans without humanity or human rights. But his nightmare is the most convincing because it is the world in which we live. [filmfactsman] |
| Rating | | | Date | July 31, 2005 | | Summary | A Timely Film For Today | Content
| Have you ever noticed that some movies become more relevent with time? Take Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation" for example. Gene Hackman plays Harry Caul, an expert bug man who is assigned to electronicly eaves drop on a pair of lovers and record their conversation. But he is very worried when he goes to turn it in to his client and then finds out it might be dangerous; someone may get murdered. But it is more than a mystery, it is also a character study of a man whos career defines him, and then finally destroys him.
Harry Caul is a barly functional recluse. He has no personality, just his work. Harry has become so detatched from humans because of having to be objective in his work that he has no idea how to relate to real people anymore. Just look at his relationship with his friends; he can only keep his assistant Stan (John Cazal) around with a promise to teach him more about the buisness. I think of all these computer wizs and internet chat room experts who do not go out into the real world much anymore.
Now lets look at the advancement of technology. This movie was made for the Watergate-era audience, but look at what it is about. It is voyurism; and think about how common place hidden cameras have gotten. Invasion of privacy; think about just exactly how many people could have access to your credit card number if they try hard enough. Surveillance is taken to an unbeleivable level these days; your teenaged next door neighbor could be watching you shower. It is scary how much some of this movie is relevent today.
It is also a great mystery with a switch ending that I didn't see coming. Hackman, a young Harrison Ford, and especially Allen Garfeild do outstanding jobs at their roles. Coppola is a master director. I liked how they used the same bit of conversation over and over again in the movie; but every time you hear it something new is added, so it never gets old or stale. The last scene in the film is very sad and powerful. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 20, 2005 | | Summary | An appropriate movie for the post-Watergate era of `70s America. | Content
| This review is for the 2000 Paramount Widescreen DVD release.
The basic story line involves a free-lance surveillance expert name Harry Caul (played by Gene Hackman) who with the help of a high-tech field team records a conversation between a man and a woman in an open plaza in San Francisco. The recording is made for a director of a private company (played by Robert Duvall). While piecing segments of the conversation together from at least three surveillance tapes, Harry is greatly disturbed because he believes from the dialogue that foul play is inevitable.
I won't go into the rest of the plot or the ending because I'd hate to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the movie. In my opinion the film ended a little flat and arguably flawed and therefore I think there were better ways to end it. Gene Hackman does deliver another great performance. This movie in some ways reminds me of a later Hackman film entitled "Enemy of the State" which in my opinion is a much better film than this movie. This movie also showcases a very young Harrison Ford. The pace is slow and deliberate, but is well acted and the technology holds up well, even for being 30 years old. Another strength of the movie is that it seems like a coldwar spy film, yet it deals with ominous people within the confines of the American borders that you or I could deal with on a daily basis. Overall, it's a very good movie, but not a great one for me.
The DVD transfer is sharp and flawless with vivid color. You won't be disappointed with the look of the movie.
Movie: B+
DVD Quality: A |
| Rating | | | Date | May 25, 2005 | | Summary | Great Hackman; annoying movie | Content
| Sorry, but with all due deference to those who liked this film, I found it slow, boring, and at times irritating (the constant replaying of the same tape segment, over and over, and over; Alan Garfield going on much too long with his annoying pestering of Hackman). The plot wasn't all that big a deal, nor was the contrived "twist" ending a terribly big surprise.
Nonetheless, Hackman is terrific (as always) and the thing is well written and acted. Coppola is clearly using the film as a device to make a statement about privacy, but neither as entertainment nor suspense did it work for me.
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| Rating | | | Date | April 25, 2005 | | Summary | Can We Talk? | Content
| The Coversation was made in between The Godfather and its sequel Godfather Part II, as a way for director Francis Ford Coppola to offset any burnout that may have occurred. The film is quite an achievement, masterfully constructed as a portrait of one man's descent into an uncontrolled paranoia. Gene Hackman, who has always been a favorite of mine, gives yet a another fantastic performance that rivals his turns as Popeye Doyle, Reverend Scott, and Lex Luthor, in some other famous 70's films
Harry Caul (Hackman) is a surveillance expert who gets paid to invade the privacy of strangers. The film opens as Mark (Frederic Forrest) and Ann (Cindy Williams), are having what seems like an otherwise mundane conversation. However, when it is revealed that Harry and his assistant Stanley (John Cazale) are eavesdropping from a nearby van, it becomes clear that something more serious is happening. Later, after Harry painstakingly reconstructs the conversation from several different audio sources, he uncovers a snippet of dialogue that unsettles him. Suspicious of his client's motives for wanting the tape, Harry becomes uncharacteristically worried about the people he may have endangered, sending him into a dangerous mental tailspin.
The film is an exellent thriller that was not all that appreciated when it was first released in 1974, but has since gained the respect it deserves. What was everyone expecting at first? Another Mob film? I digress...Coppola decided to make this film an intimate study, while infusing innovative (for the time) camera moves. Hackman has a great supporting cast that also includes Teri Garr, Harrison Ford, and Allen Garfield in supporting roles, but he owns the film as a man who appears to be in control on the outside but who is, in fact, falling into a dark abyss on the inside. The script, penned by Coppola takes the uncertain feelings of the time over Vietnam and Watergate and manifests them in Caul. Given the times in which we find ourselves now--the film has relevence in a very topsy turvy world.
As a Paramount DVD release from 2000, I was stunned to find as much bonus material on the disc, if any at all...and an older film at that. The Conversation features two commentary tracks. The first is from writer/director Francis Ford Coppola. As he did on The Godfather tracks, Coppola has an amazing recall about this film. He comes across as engaged and makes for an interesting look back. He never lags and rarely repeats himself The second track features Walter Murch, who served both as film editor and sound mixer for the film. As a multple Oscar nominee and winner, Murch knows his craft. His commentary is focused much more on the technical side of the film. Like Coppola though, he never bores the listener, and is quite chatty about the project. The disc also features a vintage featurette, called Close-Up on "The Conversation". Made at the same time as the fim's release, by Coppola's American Zoetrope Productions, it features on-set footage as well as a running dialogue with Coppola and Hackman. I only wish Hackman could have offered some fresh persprctive about the experience as Coppola and Murch did. The original theatrical trailer tops off the DVD.
The Conversation makes for great cinema. Both Hackman and Coppola are in top form. A must see any way you slice it. |
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