Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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39 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Slow-burn genius, 25 Feb 2004
Forget the fact that The Conversation didn't get the headlines or awards of the Godfather. No flashy razamatazz, just quality writing, directing and acting, not least the finest performance of a glittering career by Gene Hackman as the intensely private and paranoid sound recording expert Harry Caul, who uncovers a plot, but finds himself digging too deep and losing control. The subtlety of Hackman is evident from the spare dialogue - he says little, but expresses his character's thoughts and emotions as though you could read his mind. This is an intense, smouldering character study with a brilliant twist, fully deserving its place in my personal top 10 films of all time. As with all the best films, it stands repeated watching to appreciate the hidden depths within its apparently simple architecture. Furthermore, at this price it is an absolute bargain. Buy and enjoy!
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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Coppola's finest - a masterful film of suspense and paranoia, 3 Jan 2001
By A Customer
'The Conversation' concerns Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), a saxophone playing surveillance expert, who records a conversation between two people in a busy San Francisco square. It should have been a routine job for him but its contents haunt him and he gradually descends into paranoia.The film appears to be a classic 70s thriller in the vein of 'The Parallax View' or 'The French Connection' but is, in many ways, more similar to European art films, particularly Antonioni's 'Blow Up'. It is a consideration of the morality of surveillance and a study of the crippling of a man overcome with guilt and fear. The film deserves considerable re-viewing not only because of the elaborate growth of Coppola's screenplay but also to consider his sparse images of despair that constantly enforce the invasion of privacy. Gene Hackman delves so deeply into Harry's character that it is almost stifling while David Shire's score is constantly unsettling. Walter Murch provides the innovative sound design and also helps to create the film's atmosphere with his beautiful editing. The film was the basis for the recent Tony Scott film 'Enemy of the State' and even features Gene Hackman as a Harry Caul like character but the Hollywood update pales in comparison with the original. This is a considered, intelligent and crafted film and seems more personal than the other, more familiar Coppola classics.
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39 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
George Orwell warned us...., 26 Sep 2005
Most of us know at least one person who can compartmentalize her or his life, separating business from pleasure, career from family, etc. Such people have exceptional focus and determination. Brilliantly portrayed by Gene Hackman, Harry Caul is such a person. (Even his girlfriend Amy, played by Teri Garr, does not know where he lives.) Harry is an expert technician who is retained to conduct electronic surveillance of those identified by his clients. In effect, he is a high-tech private investigator. What he records becomes evidence of illegal, unethical, or immoral behavior. Harry has no personal interest in the private lives he invades surreptitiously. But then he accepts an assignment and begins to suspect that the subjects of his surveillance will be murdered. The "compartments" in his life which Harry has so carefully separated begin to merge (albeit gradually) and he begins to have second thoughts about how he earns a living. Of course, he is better qualified than any other character in the film to understand (if not yet fully appreciate) the implications of an invasion of privacy. Under Francis Ford Coppola's brilliant direction, Harry begins to feel paranoid.
I view The Conversation as a dark film because its raises so many questions which seem even more relevant today than they were in 1974. How secure can any life be? Who is accumulating personal as well as professional data about whom? Why? Satellites convey camneras thast can take photographs of a license plate. All of the data on computer hard drives can be recovered. DNA tests can determine whether or not a monarch was poisoned hundreds of years ago. In so many ways, "there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide" from modern technologies. What intrigues me most about Harry Caul is his growing sense of dislocation and vulnerability as the conflict between his personal conscience and professional objectivity intensifies. The assignment for The Director (Robert Duvall) to conduct surveillance on Ann (Cindy Williams) and Mark (Frederic Forest) serves as a trigger that activates self-doubts and insecurities which Harry has presumably suppressed and denied for many years.
For me, the final scene is most memorable because it's so ambiguous. To what extent has Harry invaded his own privacy? What has he learned? How will he now proceed with his personal life and career? For whatever reasons, only in recent years has this film received the praise it deserves but was denied when it first appeared almost 20 years ago. It seems to get even better each time it is seen again, especially in the DVD format which offers clearer image and sound as well as several excellent supplementary items such as commentaries by Coppola and his supervising editor Walter Murch as well as a "Close-Up on the Conversation" featurette.
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