The Conversation Is Francis Ford Coppola’s Most Prescient Masterpiece.
The name Francis Ford Coppola has become synonymous with cinema as high art. The Godfather trilogy, especially the first two, are widely considered two of the greatest films of all time, as is his Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now. These movies epitomize the New Hollywood era of the 1970s, considered by many to be the greatest era of all American film. And while nearly anyone who knows anything about film knows about those first four, during that era Coppola contributed a fourth entry to the canon of American cinema.
In the shadow of these classics, The Conversation often goes overlooked, but is every bit worthy of inclusion among the canon of the all time greats as the rest of Coppola’s 1970s oeuvre. Starring Gene Hackman as a reclusive surveillance expert who becomes trapped in a web of lies, deceit, and high-stakes corporate intrigue, not only is it a classic example of one of the 1970s’ most iconic genres- the paranoia thriller, it predicts much of the omnipresent surveillance societies of today.
The film opens with a shot that, to those who know of it, is recognized as one of the greats in all of cinema. A team of surveillance experts tails a young couple, watching them as they walk back and forth through San Francisco’s Union Square. The camera follows them too, taking in all of the packed square in a bird’s eye view, all in one shot. This shot conveys so much, both the thrill of watching the target, and also the difficulty of keeping track of two people in a sea of humanity, birds and dogs. It takes a true expert hunter to pursue this quarry.
And who is the expert hunter in this story? That would be Harry Caul, portrayed in one of the best turns of his career by the legendary Gene Hackman. Hackman’s performance is a masterclass in conveying a great deal about his character with so little- to start with, only that he does not like to reveal details about his life. As more and more about him does become revealed, and he begins to gradually break down under the prospect of himself being put under surveillance, we understand just who Harry is.
What Harry is, is a very complicated man, in the vein of classic noir antiheroes. He takes tremendous pride in his craft as a surveillance expert, but is reluctant to promote himself, in contrast to other characters we meet in the surveillance field, who are presented as hucksters and used car salesman in comparison to Harry, who considers himself a kind of artist. He considers himself a faithful Catholic, but carries on a relationship with a woman that is little more than sexual, as he cannot bring himself to open up to her and tell her more about his life. He is most himself when, a one in his apartment, he takes out his saxophone and plays old jazz standards, with no one else around to hear.
The tension grows over the course of the film between Caul’s mounting paranoia and his desire to communicate something about his life to someone, anyone. When we finally learn about the childhood trauma that made him into the person that he is, it has the feeling of solving a narrative puzzle that unlocks the mystery of Harry Caul. At the end of the film, we see him broken down to the core of who he is- suspecting his apartment of being bugged, he tears apart the walls, furniture, everything. With almost everything he has in the world destroyed, all he can do is play his saxophone all by himself, tears filling his eyes.
At the beginning of the film, we see that a defining aspect of Caul’s character was that he went to enormous length to limit his vulnerabilities in life, even berating his landlord over the phone for sending him a birthday card. This closed off nature takes its toll, costing him his relationships with friends, coworkers and lovers in order to do so. At the end, we see that all of that effort was in vain. It is a turn of events worthy of a Greek tragedy.
Aside from The Conversation’s brilliance as a character study, it ties into broader issues that would become more and more important as the western world moved from the late 20th century into the 21st. In a key sequence, Caul visits a trade show for surveillance professionals, where his peers show off a variety of ways to implant listening devices and other gadgets into everyday household appliances, boasting of their ability to remove their targets’ privacy when they are at their most vulnerable.
As privacy became such a hot button issue (and remains so to this day), especially when it comes to the surveillance implications of the “internet of things,” this scene touches a nerve. The 1970s had a number of film scenes with surprising predictive ability for how the world would evolve in the future, and along with the scenes from Network that predicted the rise of reality television, this is one of the most spiritually accurate of them all.
One could go on and on about the different compelling elements of this film. The incredible supporting cast deserves mention, loaded with heavy hitters such as John Cazale as Caul’s coworker in surveillance, a young Harrison Ford playing against what would become his type as a scheming corporate ladder-climber, and an extended cameo from the great Robert Duvall.
Ultimately, what makes the film is the fact that all of these elements mesh together perfectly, from the cinematography, to the performances, to the writing and how it touches on themes that remain evergreen. Francis Ford Coppola’s status as a legendary filmmaker has been cemented by the Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now. However, The Conversation deserves to be mentioned by every cinephile in the same breath as those three, as it holds up just as well as any of them as a classic of cinema.
