Written by: Kevin Berge
Trust me, this is a thriller. There are thrills. I know it doesn't look like it. Just believe me. (Image Courtesy of: indiewire.com)
Quick Take: The Conversation captures the paranoia of its lead character in every scene, exploring how terrifyingly personal surveillance can become. It moves at a slow and repetitive pace with an aloof lead which can make it hard to enjoy, but its themes steadily build to a visually memorable conclusion.
***This is an analyzed review on The Conversation, looking at its plot and themes in detail. Those who have not seen the movie before will be spoiled on events. Read ahead at your own risk if you have not watched the film before.***
Despite being considered one of the greatest directors of all time, the only movies I have seen that were made by Francis Ford Coppola are the first two Godfather films and Apocalypse Now. To even name myself a critic, that seems extremely shortsighted. As I attempt to expand my film knowledge, it only seems right to begin rectifying that oversight.
Released in the same year as The Godfather: Part II, The Conversation has often fallen under the radar despite earning three Academy Award nominations and a Palme d'Or. The movie follows surveillance expert Henry Caul (Gene Hackman) as he takes on the assignment from the mysterious Martin Stett (Harrison Ford) of tailing a young couple and must weigh the consequences of revealing the information he has collected.
Best labelled a thriller, this movie does not feel or look like anything filmed today. The camera begins aloof and remains so throughout the movie. This is a character study focused on a paranoid man who wants to keep his distance from everyone, and the director obliges him by keeping the viewer apart, never watching directly from his perspective.
This can also keep the thrills tempered. Caul does not want anyone to relate to him, and he is neither very likable or engaging. The threat of the film focuses on how a single tape, the conversation that the title references, could lead to the death of two supposed innocents, but their characters are never fleshed out, making it hard to invest in the danger.
I mention this as a forewarning because these are the primary issues a viewer will run into when watching the movie. This is a fantastic movie that is driven by a two focused themes relating to information, its power and its threat.
Caul is considered one of the best in his field, a great bugger. This gives him power over most, but it establishes the threat to him just as clearly. He isolates himself so much that he has failed in protecting himself. He does not understand other people well enough to know how others can get his number or get into his apartment.
As the movie's tension rises, Caul not only allows himself to be bugged by a competitor William Moran (Allen Garfield) and be tricked into letting others into his office with a woman seducing him and stealing the tapes. He may have power over others, but he lacks the power to protect himself even as knowledgeable as he is of the threat.
Despite being considered one of the greatest directors of all time, the only movies I have seen that were made by Francis Ford Coppola are the first two Godfather films and Apocalypse Now. To even name myself a critic, that seems extremely shortsighted. As I attempt to expand my film knowledge, it only seems right to begin rectifying that oversight.
Released in the same year as The Godfather: Part II, The Conversation has often fallen under the radar despite earning three Academy Award nominations and a Palme d'Or. The movie follows surveillance expert Henry Caul (Gene Hackman) as he takes on the assignment from the mysterious Martin Stett (Harrison Ford) of tailing a young couple and must weigh the consequences of revealing the information he has collected.
Best labelled a thriller, this movie does not feel or look like anything filmed today. The camera begins aloof and remains so throughout the movie. This is a character study focused on a paranoid man who wants to keep his distance from everyone, and the director obliges him by keeping the viewer apart, never watching directly from his perspective.
This can also keep the thrills tempered. Caul does not want anyone to relate to him, and he is neither very likable or engaging. The threat of the film focuses on how a single tape, the conversation that the title references, could lead to the death of two supposed innocents, but their characters are never fleshed out, making it hard to invest in the danger.
I mention this as a forewarning because these are the primary issues a viewer will run into when watching the movie. This is a fantastic movie that is driven by a two focused themes relating to information, its power and its threat.
Caul is considered one of the best in his field, a great bugger. This gives him power over most, but it establishes the threat to him just as clearly. He isolates himself so much that he has failed in protecting himself. He does not understand other people well enough to know how others can get his number or get into his apartment.
As the movie's tension rises, Caul not only allows himself to be bugged by a competitor William Moran (Allen Garfield) and be tricked into letting others into his office with a woman seducing him and stealing the tapes. He may have power over others, but he lacks the power to protect himself even as knowledgeable as he is of the threat.
Nothing says old movie like trying to be secure by using a payphone. (Image Courtesy of: blu-ray.com)
How could he not know the threat behind his actions? It is established early on that Caul is just a man doing a job that he is good at but has already gotten two others killed with his work. As he pieces together the tapes and finds what they are saying, he realizes once more that these words could get both the man and woman killed.
Where Caul becomes most interesting is in his attempts to balance his work and morality. The movie uses his Catholicism as a window into his viewpoint. His sad confession to a priest after realizing what is on the tapes focuses on how he sees his work. He is sorry for the damage he has caused, but he takes no responsibility. He tries to distance himself from even that weight.
Ultimately, the film is most brilliant in its conclusion, capturing this balance of themes in a surreal mix of what is heard and what is imagined. Caul takes up a room next to the hotel room where he expects the man and woman to be murdered, and he listens in. He hears cries and eventually believes he sees a bloody frame on the window.
When he finally works up the nerve to enter the room, it is clean, but blood rushes out from the toilet when flushed, a real yet also symbolic moment that states that murder has happened but nothing more is clear. The rest of the film leaves the viewer with one last theme to ponder: the limitation of information.
Caul never truly knows what happened in that room. In the end, it is revealed the director who he believed he was working for was the man who died, and the man and woman escaped unharmed. He listens to the tape again and hears new inflection in the man's voice, the threat of killing rather than the threat of death.
The movie ends with Caul completely trapped by his own paranoia. He is stuck in an apartment he believes to be bugged after a threatening call from Stett. He tears apart the place but finds nothing. Perhaps there is no bug. Perhaps he will never find it. We have no idea just as he has no idea.
It is a brilliant meditation on just how scary information can be. It is both intensely powerful and limited, and the threat of it has only broken a man in the world rather than protected him. It is led by a fantastic performance from Gene Hackman (The French Connection), one of his best, and directed with precision by Francis Ford Coppola.
In addressing the issues it faces, the movie is perfect though it did not capture me as a viewing experience as much as a thought experiment. It is masterpiece of theme but not quite a masterpiece of experience. I am glad to have watched it, but I don't know that I would ever need to again.
Where Caul becomes most interesting is in his attempts to balance his work and morality. The movie uses his Catholicism as a window into his viewpoint. His sad confession to a priest after realizing what is on the tapes focuses on how he sees his work. He is sorry for the damage he has caused, but he takes no responsibility. He tries to distance himself from even that weight.
Ultimately, the film is most brilliant in its conclusion, capturing this balance of themes in a surreal mix of what is heard and what is imagined. Caul takes up a room next to the hotel room where he expects the man and woman to be murdered, and he listens in. He hears cries and eventually believes he sees a bloody frame on the window.
When he finally works up the nerve to enter the room, it is clean, but blood rushes out from the toilet when flushed, a real yet also symbolic moment that states that murder has happened but nothing more is clear. The rest of the film leaves the viewer with one last theme to ponder: the limitation of information.
Caul never truly knows what happened in that room. In the end, it is revealed the director who he believed he was working for was the man who died, and the man and woman escaped unharmed. He listens to the tape again and hears new inflection in the man's voice, the threat of killing rather than the threat of death.
The movie ends with Caul completely trapped by his own paranoia. He is stuck in an apartment he believes to be bugged after a threatening call from Stett. He tears apart the place but finds nothing. Perhaps there is no bug. Perhaps he will never find it. We have no idea just as he has no idea.
It is a brilliant meditation on just how scary information can be. It is both intensely powerful and limited, and the threat of it has only broken a man in the world rather than protected him. It is led by a fantastic performance from Gene Hackman (The French Connection), one of his best, and directed with precision by Francis Ford Coppola.
In addressing the issues it faces, the movie is perfect though it did not capture me as a viewing experience as much as a thought experiment. It is masterpiece of theme but not quite a masterpiece of experience. I am glad to have watched it, but I don't know that I would ever need to again.