The Conversation (1974)

In 1974, between his landmark Godfather I and II films, director Francis Ford Coppola wrote and directed The Conversation. It’s a thriller about clandestine surveillance experts, starring the inimitable Gene Hackman (Hoosiers, the Royal Tenenbaums, Heist, Mississippi Burning, No Way Out, Unforgiven, etc...)

Hackman plays the nerdy Harry Caul. He’s a freelancer, whose got his own hi-tech shop in an impossibly cool warehouse. It’s filled with reel-to-reel players, sound-wave readers, oversize speakers, and several other gadgets with too many knobs and dials.

Knowing how easily conversations can be intercepted, Caul is wary to the point of paranoid about his privacy. He’s got several locks on his front door, doesn’t engage in small talk at his office, and doesn’t own a home phone (using only public payphones). 

Caul takes freelance jobs without knowing his bosses motivations. He simply records people talking, and provides the tapes to paying customers. To his mind, his is merely a small part of a bigger picture.

However, because of something that went wrong in his past (left intentionally ambiguous by the film makers), he begins to grow suspicious about the intentions of his current bosses. Their offices are in a modern building, that would be suitable for the CIA. When he tries to meet directly with the man he’s working for, he can’t get past an intermediary (a very young, pre-Han Solo Harrison Ford) So what might happen with the tapes he records? Could they be used for nefarious purposes? Where does this all lead? Could someone perhaps get hurt as a result?

I have no idea what the secretive world of surveillance professionals might be like, but Coppola’s is a believable version. The Conversation follows these men around a conference where they shop for the latest spy paraphernalia. They brag about their greatest jobs, trying to outdo each other. At the start, we see Caul’s team trying to record a couple (“Laverne and Shirley’s” Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest) circling San Francisco’s Union Square Park. From there, events happen that cause Caul (and the viewer) to wonder who he’s working for. Among this cast of characters, who can be trusted? Is anything as it seems to be?

Given his resume, Coppola is a legend in cinema. Here he allows the story to unfold slowly and deliberately. But it’s also entertaining. The film builds and simmers with energy and suspense. As the twitchy Caul, Hackman is his usual, reliable self. The sound design on scratchy recordings is creative, especially given that the film’s 40 years old. The Conversation has certain earmarks of 70s films (bad hair, clothes, washed-out look) which could have made it feel dated. Yet it feels surprisingly vibrant and fresh. Sure, it has some superfluous characters and scenes. And it feels somewhat low-budget, compared to the Godfather films. But it’s also unpredictable, gritty and ominous, in all the right ways. 

As we’ve learned from recent NSA revelations, be careful what you say. Someone (maybe Harry Caul?) is always listening.