Year: 1974
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Country: US
Language: English
Gene Hackman stars as a paranoid, secretive surveillance expert named Harry Caul who has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that a couple he is spying on will be murdered.
Caul's colleagues in the surveillance industry think of him as an innovative genius, but little do they know the trauma that the job has caused him. After not being able to stop a murder that happened years ago, Caul's grief has taken over his life, it is on is mind so much that it stops him from thinking rationally. The character is a representation of America at the time; Full of moral men in immoral jobs, haunted by their work. His mindset is similar to the fractured minds of most Vietnam War soldiers who were returning home.
"He’d kill us if he had the chance," says Mark to Ann, a couple Harry has been spying on for quite some time. Who would kill them? and why? and where? These are questions both the viewer and the main character ask throughout the picture. The film works very well as a pure thriller, it grips us in our seat and unfolds slowly into a rather satisfying but dark climax. The cinematography is a deliberate voyeuristic point of view that has us as cautious observers, always walking into the action. It is unlike many of the thrillers we see today.
In conclusion, though The Conversation isn't the best Coppola picture to come out of the 70's. I give that award to The Godfather Part II, it still is a remarkable picture that grabs the viewer by the throat and pulls us into a world of spying an uncertainty. It's an observant character study and a stunning analysis on the nature of truth. Praise it! 5/5
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