by Ryan Lewellen
In 1974, Francis Ford Coppola followed up the game-changing blockbuster that was The Godfather with one of his finest masterpieces… The Godfather Part II. However, it is the film which “lost” the Best Picture Oscar to Coppola’s own sequel which I find far more interesting. That same year, at the height of the 70s Paranoia Thriller, the hottest talent in Hollywood wrote, directed and produced Palme D’Or winner, The Conversation, a transnational remake of Antonioni’s Blow-Up. Gene Hackman brilliantly portrays surveillance master Harry Caul, a tragically solitary and paranoid fellow, whose current eavesdrop has him convinced he is leading two innocent people to their collective doom. The more he meticulously studies his cryptic recording, the more certain he is of its volatility.
The roster of Coppola’s wonderful picture reads like a retrospective of the era’s greatest young talents. Roles of every size and significance are filled by the likes of John Cazale (who was famously only cast in films nominated for Best Picture before he died), Cindy Williams, Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall and Terry Garr. Behind the camera, the film boasts Bill Butler as Director of Photography, Walter Murch as Editor, and David Shire contributed a terrific, lonely piano score. If you are unfamiliar with any of these artists, they each deserve your immediate Googling.
The resulting film is one of unforgettable emotional and intellectual depth. Subtle, unpredictable, and perfectly simple, it’s the kind character piece I so long to see more often: one primarily told through the formal elements than through dialogue or plot. The screenplay meanders, and rather than solving the recording’s mystery piece by piece, the story gives us clues to the mystery of Harry Caul through a patchwork of his disseminating interactions with friends, enemies, and his own environment.
Mr. Caul’s reclusive secrecy is more important than anything, and his quiet demeanor becomes almost psychotically anxious when too many questions are asked, or worse, too many answers are found. Yet, his notoriety in his field is a source of pride and fear in equal amounts. He’s an endlessly fascinating character, who begs your empathy without ever asking for it. With every restrained expression, you can see his longing for comfort and security trying to claw its way out. Even with his girlfriend (or call girl?), no personal details are divulged, and at confessional (we are occasionally given some scope of his Catholic faith), even the priest isn’t privy to Harry’s career. He drives away the few friends he has with his stalwart furtiveness, and he is driven further into confidentiality by the routine betrayal of his trust by every person who comes to know about the haunting conversation which has consumed him. Through that infidelity, we come to know what might have made him this way. I don’t mean to make this film sound too somber, however. This movie isn’t only about the gloom. Practically every other moment is charged with a natural intensity which drives the unconventional story forward.
Visually, the film reinforces the solitude created by the forlorn music and oblique script with thoughtful shooting. The widest shot is its first. In keeping with the film’s themes, it begins with raw information, and forces us to contextualize as it moves along. An extra-long zoom lens slowly and deliberately searches through San Francisco’s Union Square lunch hour crowd until it finds Harry Caul trying to shake the irritating mimic of a mime. This omnipotent voyeuristic perspective is the perfect opening to a film about surveillance, and it’s the most comfort allotted to the viewer for the remainder of the running time. From the first cut, especially when Harry is in the shot, no frame is able to breathe. Mirroring the protagonist’s life, the shots are all composed tightly around their subjects. Harry is always shown in little rectangles: just above his head, and just below his feet. He has so little freedom in the world he has created, and what freedom he has left is quickly being drained by the way the camera moves.
He often leaves the frame, only to be ominously recaptured by it after a beat, as though the camera were being operated autonomously, or perhaps, by someone not staunchly manning its controls. In other scenes, the camera repeats short scanning progressions from a fixed point or range of motion. These crafty movements fuel the tension of Harry’s insecurities and create a curious and unsettling effect. This man, driven to arming his apartment with an alarm system and triple-locked door by the nature of his own livelihood, isn’t so secure as he might think. Despite his best efforts, the watcher is being watched.
The movie comes to a satisfying conclusion, after horrifying climactic nightmare visions, brought on by Harry confronting the source of his suspicions. One particular scare, which I won’t fully detail here, is something completely universal, and private, bent by a sadistic twist so unnerving it makes my skin crawl every time I see it. It’s upsetting in a way many horror films fail to achieve, and The Conversation is merely a simple little psychological thriller. It’s a damn near perfect film, as rich in humanity as it is in cinematic art, and with a dark side just grim enough to remind you the world demands a certain level of security. In a way, it investigates how surveillance, at a personal level, is poised in a defensive position, but at a public level, it is on the attack. That is a fine line walked by the lonely Harry Caul, and when he reaches the end, there doesn’t seem to be much of a life left to protect.
