The Conversation

I watched this film because of all the recommendations people had made about it and also because of Francis Ford Coppola and Gene Hackman. The thing that marks this film out from other thrillers is the level of realism in it. 'Harry Caul', Gene Hackman's character, makes for a complex hero. He's emotionally disciplined and brilliant at what he does. He's a man who eavesdrops on others for a living yet values his own privacy to a self-stifling fault. He also lives with regrets. As the film progresses the plot almost takes a backseat to the closely guarded world of Harry, who is impressively brought to life by Gene Hackman. It's perhaps the kind of role we rarely see him in and yet he gives one of his best ever celluloid performances and an understated one at that. The film also makes great use of sound as a tension-creating device. We, the viewer are invited to eavesdrop with Harry and his assistant 'Stan' (played wonderfully by John Cazale - The Godfather, The Deer Hunter), and participate in the films central theme. This device is effective in gaining sympathy as when Harry is eventually faced with a dilemma, his problem is one the viewers can identify with. Yet he isn't the gung-ho grit-bearer that we wish him to be. He crumbles when faced the truth he reluctantly seeks and he takes money from the very people that he suspects of a possible murder. All these traits make him a frustrating man to side with. A lot of credit has to be given to Francis Ford Coppola for the film's suitably subtle pace. This isn't a car-chase type of movie so don't expect 'The French Connection'. But if you want a plausible plot and a challenging, vulnerable performance by Gene Hackman then see this. One of the best thrillers I've ever seen.

Coppola is a cerebral filmmaker hampered by his heritage in Italian storytelling. The clash of his notions of introspection and layering with the Latin focus on character has resulted in some rather complex constructions. It is my impression that we marvel more at the complexities attempted in 'Godfather' and 'Apocalypse' than how well they were managed. Here is a project that elegantly combines the two notions in a simple way and as a result -- for probably the only time -- Coppola completely surrounds and masters the ideas. This is a voyeuristic artifact about a voyeuristic artifact. We suppose we know what we are doing in casually sitting down to spy on Hackman's character. We suppose we know what is to happen, just as he supposes, both of us relying on our history. In our case, it is a history of films. All films are about other films. The dumb ones follow, the smarter ones comment and tweak and sometimes contradict, as here. And as with Caul, we are surprised to have our expectations turned inside out without completely understanding why. This was back when Hackman actually tried. I wish Coppola still did. Oh well, we have his kids. Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

GENE HACKMAN gives a virtuoso performance as a loner, a weird one at that whose character is never fleshed out because he can't bare to reveal himself to anyone--not even the viewer. At least that's the limitation imposed upon him by the dull script. What could have been an extraordinarily fine suspenser, is turned into a slow-paced character study that only skims the surface of its protagonist who is an expert in surveillance but unable to connect with any of the rather boring individuals around him. The script fails to inject any of the other characters with life, so that we never get to know what makes anyone tick. Annoying? Yes. Frustrating? Yes. Enigmatic? Too enigmatic for comfort. After nearly two hours of watching Hackman spy on a young couple and teasing us with the one sentence he is sure means they are afraid of being murdered, the script takes a different turn at the last moment and the audience at least gets a bit of a twist if it is still awake to face the denouement. Maddeningly slow with scenes that aren't even needed to fill in some awkward gaps in the screenplay, this could have been a tremendously suspenseful film under a director like Alfred Hitchcock with a writer like Ernest Lehman (who did "North by Northwest"). But Coppola has skipped all of the conventional ways of building suspense in favor of a semi-documentary approach that falls flat and fails to register in a gripping enough way to keep the story taut and interesting. Instead, his departure from the usual way of filming, is an exercise in tedium. This is the sort of film-making that became common in the '70s, a sort of audio version of Brian De Palma's BLOW UP, but not nearly as effective. What might have made an interesting story never reaches its full potential.

The Conversation sees an almost young Gene Hackman play Harry Caul, an unlikable, neurotic surveillance technician whose paranoid tendencies and religious beliefs eventually overpower him as his work contributes to the death of a seemingly innocent cheated husband, played by Robert Duvall. I seem to have a problem with old, or old-ish films. Judging from the high ranking in the IMDb top 250, the cast, the director, and even the action movie-esquire front cover, I was tricked into believing that I would be watching an entertaining and maybe even an exciting film. Unfortunately, I wasn't. The Conversation appears to be widely regarded as a "psychological thriller" that demands your full attention, and judging from some reviews, a second viewing to pick up everything and understand what's going on, but if you're honest, that just means that it is dull and uneventful the first time round. You switch it on, and you're not entirely sure what's going on, and two hours later, when you switch it off, you're even more confused. While this is a formula that often works (David Lynch), and deals with an interesting moral dilemma, I find that in this case it falls down. I don't want to watch it again, ever, and I think it's because of the characters. While Hackman puts in a very good if somewhat understated performance, his character is so boring that I found I didn't care at the end as he is outsmarted and eventually falls apart. At least Harrison Ford, who isn't really in it for long and is on the opposite team, has a sort of energy to him, a brief injection of life into an otherwise flat film. Interesting but not entertaining. But I did like that little piano bit.

Everybody who stays awake until the end of this picture deserves a prize. It has no plot, no dialog, no interesting characters. It's like an entire film made from the discards that hit the cutting room floor from another, more interesting movie.

This movies sucks. I just finished watching it. I could hardly finish it. In fact, for the last 10 minutes of it I was reading the reviews on here -- I was happy to see that some people agreed with me that this is a seriously overrated bore of a film. I called it during the credits to my girlfriend --- "Oh man, this is going to suck." And boy was I right. It was so boringly slow. What is the point of such a plodding pace? This director has no taste. The conversation of the title was so uninteresting, and yet we heard it over and over again. There was nothing to it, and it never got interesting. I found none of the characters interesting except Gene Hackman's character, who was only mildly interesting because of his paranoid ways. But speaking of his paranoia, some aspects of the plot itself were wildly improbable. Would a man who's so secretive, and who thinks he's being followed, invite his competitors in the surveillance business up to his secret workshop? So preposterous, and yet it formed a critical element of the plot. This movie is like a short story stuffed full of filler to make it long enough to be a novel. Dull, dull, dull. It should have been only 20 minutes, and even then it would have been only mildly interesting. In fact, it would be an interesting exercise to edit this movie down to 20 minutes... I didn't appreciate the camera-work, the music, the acting, or the plot. The music was an unsuccessful choice. The plot was simple and far too slowly presented. The movie that came to mind to compare the pace of this movie to was Tarkovsky's "Stalker". I found nothing of redeeming value in this movie. I'm a jazz buff, too, and didn't even like the music.

Harry Caul: `I'm not afraid of death, but I am afraid of murder.' Two weeks ago I wrote a review of `The Silence of the Lambs' I said I thought that it was one of the greatest suspense films of all time. Well Francis Ford Coppola's ingenious and frightening film isn't one of the best suspense films of all time; it simply is the greatest suspense film of all time. It follows professional ease dropper Harry Caul's job on a conversation that goes way beyond anything that he ever could expect. This film is truly something else in its own right. Coppola is such a master, such a brilliant mind. This film is him at his best, after `The Godfather' and before part two. He makes this film so brilliantly and so knowing of what emotions the audience will feel, every pause and every silence is direct and timed. The film is completely intentional. It is constructed off of films like Michelangelo Antonioni's `Blow-up' or most Hitchcock films. Coppola takes these aspects brought by most of the great filmmakers and takes them to a whole new level of personal texture. He puts so much more into it. Making him (I can't say this enough) one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, and most misunderstood. His films are like pie, they look good, they taste good, heck they even smell good, but you never really know what they are made of. All his films are deeper then they seem, it takes a true (TRUE!) film lover to respect what influences the man has made. Look at it like this, the greatest Hollywood film of all time, `The Godfather,' the greatest War film of all time `Apocalypse Now,' The greatest Sequel of all time `The Godfather Part II,' and the greatest Independent/Suspense film of all time `The Conversation.' What else is there to conquer? Science Fiction? His next film `Megalopolis' will tackle that void. Who cares about his slips, he has made some of the greatest films of all time. In this film his talent is at its best with an involving, brilliantly executed screenplay and flawless direction. He makes cookies into Danish, if any other man ever made this film it would be good no doubt, but the greatest suspense film of all time? I think not. Harry Caul's (Hackman) character is so deep and so magnified. He is such a character's character; this film is a pure and simple character study. Not to mention the flawless cinematography and music. The little jazz piano riff fits the film perfectly and the cinematography is so mechanical like a piece of surveillance equipment. The dialogue in the first few minutes is so perfectly written it makes the viewer cringe wanting to know what it is the couple is saying so when we find out it is more of a gift. The conversation that the film is based on is set up so well all threw out the film, the more we hear the more we think, it is repetition at its perfection. The repetition is a true part of the film, the more the viewer hears something they ask themselves why am I hearing this again, what does it mean? Then the conversation tears at the viewer until they fall apart, just like Harry. The viewer understands his motivations, they see his reasons. We are set up and moved around this maze of murder and mayhem, we are Harry (J). This is just one of many brilliant aspects of the film. It never dives down or falls off it always stays paranoid like the main character. `The Conversation' is a haunting and well constructed masterpiece that molds great acting with brilliant storytelling. This is what films in this day and age should try to do. But they won't, they never will, and `The Conversation' will hold its ground as the most thoughtful and suspenseful film of all time. Mark: He'd kill us if he got the chance.

To me The Conversation is one of most underrated movies ever. The movie carries on so quietly throughout that the suspense of the movie keeps on building up to one of the best endings in movie history. The directing of this film was among one of the best I have ever seen. Coppola is able to craft his way through another one of his classics. The movie is just perfectly edited together and is so gripping throughout. His directing really takes the audiene to another world that most to almost all of us do not know about. That world is the world of security surveillance and spies. This though is not an ordinary spy movie, it is a very realistic psychological portrayal and the affects of knowing the real truth. Instead of this movie becoming a complete flop it becomes better and better as it carries on. Along with the cinematography and music he makes the audience feel how remote and controlled our society is. Coppola did not just show it he gave you the actual feeling of it. Coppola deserves much of the credit for this. The writing was very good too. Once again Coppola uses his writing to keep the audience very much engaged into the movie. The writing in this movie ranks up their with his other screenplays such as The Godfather series, Apocalypse Now and Patton. The acting was a bit of surprise to me. It was better than I expected. This film convinced me that Gene Hackman is prime talent. He is not just a man who plays the man always involved in a shouting match but in fact he is a versatile actor who has really limited himself rather than his abilities limiting him. He was perfect for this movie. The supporting cast was great as well. Robert Duvall who always gives the best cameos was good in here too. Harrison Ford who I wish actually had some more screen time was very convincing as a manipulative high ranking executive. The ending in this movie to me is one of the best ever. It shows how or fears can consume us and alter our live. It displays how if our fears consume us we lose the feeling of life itself. That is at least my take of it. This is Coppola's hidden masterpiece that should be seen by all. It will definitely make you think.

It's a mystery to me why so many people think this is a great movie. Apart from being mind-numbingly slow and tedious (like, gasp, the Godfather), the worst thing is that the film insults the audience by cheating at the end. SPOILER: Early in the film we hear the line from the 'conversation' which goes 'he'd kill us if he got the chance'. This is spoken with the emphasis on 'kill'. At the end of the film it is changed so that the emphasis is on 'us'. So 'he'd *kill* us if he got the chance' changes to 'he'd kill *us* if he got the chance'. What a con! If we, the audience had heard the latter version early on, we'd know that the couple planned the murder and there would be no 'twist' (yawn) at the end. Terribly overrated movie, which never gets going and never goes anywhere.

Ingenious and mesmerizing little art film from producer-writer-director Francis Ford Coppola, just off "The Godfather Part II" and doing astounding, fluid work. Gene Hackman gives a superbly controlled performance as a wire-tapper who gets too involved in one of his cases, leaving him in the center of a macabre swirl of events. One of those quiet movies that fans of today's blockbusters probably won't appreciate; it tells us quite a lot about the main character without actually saying much at all, so assured are the visuals. It ends on a chilling note that leaves the protagonist alienated from his life, but Coppola is careful never to alienate his audience. Coppola received Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Screenplay; Hackman deserved a nod as Best Actor but was shamefully overlooked. Their film is a winner. ***1/2 from ****