• The Conversation

12/15/24 (Sat)

In Coppola’s 1974 film, free-lance wiretapper Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), a gruff loner considered the best in his field, is charged with tapping the conversations of a normal-looking couple. His intricate work involves several mikes and cameras placed in various spots, and his golden rule is to know as little as possible and never get personally involved in any information he acquires. The couple, aware that they could be under surveillance, wander around San Francisco’s Union Square speaking quietly to each other, but their words are all picked up by Harry. The problem comes when he hears remarks suggesting that they may be in danger, particularly the line, “He’d kill us if he got the chance” – or is it “He’d kill us if he got the chance,” implying something very different?

As he pieces together bits from his various recordings to figure it out, he finds himself increasingly concerned about their fate, breaking his own rule. When he goes to hand the tapes to the boss, he is welcomed instead by the assistant (a menacing Harrison Ford), who passes him the money and demands the tapes. Harry becomes suspicious and refuses to pass the recordings to anyone but the boss himself. The assistant warns him not to get involved, but Harry becomes obsessed with what he may or may not have found.

He gradually finds his world collapsing: he is bugged by a friend as a joke when he has his guard down, his building manager has entered his multi-locked apartment to deliver a package (when did she get the spare key? how did she know it was his birthday?), a woman seduces him only to steal a copy of the recording. He delivers the recording to the boss and receives the money, where he spots a photo of the boss with the female from the couple he had been spying. Having learned from the tape that an assignation is due in a certain hotel room, he reserves the room next door and tries to listen in. He overhears an argument, which he assumes is the murder. He later breaks into the room and finds everything clean and unused. When he flushes the toilet, however, a rush of blood emerges.

He finally discovers the truth of the murder, but that only raises more questions. Having heard too much, Harry receives a phone call revealing to his shock that he himself is being tapped. In an astonishing sequence, he tears his room apart in an effort to find the mechanism but to no avail. We last see him sitting haplessly in his destroyed home playing his saxophone in accompaniment of a jazz record.

The director has noted explicitly that he was inspired by Blow Up, where a photographer senses that he might have inadvertently caught a murder on camera. In Coppola’s story, the murder is yet to take place, making for a more suspenseful ride. Though he only doles out pieces of the story over time, this film is much more coherent and easier to follow than Antonioni’s work. It drags a bit at first, but picks up quickly once we figure out what’s happening and never lets up thereafter. It’s not always clear what is real and what is Harry’s imagination, an ambiguity that is never fully resolved. That could be frustrating in some cases, but it fits here with Harry’s paranoia of not knowing what is truly happening around him. I doubt a remake is possible since people nowadays willingly carry devices that allow their every move to be followed and put their entire lives on social media. Paranoia isn’t what it used to be. Still, the movie is a chilling dystopian look at a world of no escape, especially in that final scene.

Hackman plays against type as a reserved, anti-social type who prefers the company of his tapes and overheard dialogues to real people. This is the best work of his that I’ve ever seen. The acting overall is exceptionally fine, but it is his performance that dominates.

I never imagined that Coppola could work on such an intimate scale. He makes everything feel ominous, even the confession with the priest, where Harry still can’t give voice to his real concerns. Harry’s paranoia builds slowly, surely and adeptly as the film proceeds. For all its creepiness, the plot is totally credible throughout, which makes it all the more frightening. The obvious parallel is the great The Lives of Others. I’ll have to see it again to make sure I caught all the details, but a very fine film by any measure.