The Conversation (1974)

I would hope that most of us follow global news, and if that is true then it is probably safe to assume that we know at least a little bit about the Patriot Act, Wikileaks and Julian Assange, not to mention the phone-hacking scandal of Rupert Murdoch. As technology plays a greater role in all of our lives ethical questions begin to emerge about when, where and how the power it gives us can be used. Francis Ford Coppola's subdued thriller tackles these issues and does it nearly 40 years before these questions would reemerge with voracity.

Gene Hackman does amazing work as Harry Caul, an independent wiretapper who must ask himself these questions when he fears a conversation he has recorded might put two people's lives in jeopardy. Harry is almost painfully reclusive. He has friends and a woman he sees from time to time, but his life is an enigma to those closest to him. Extra padlocks, alarms and no phone keep the outside world from entering his life. All he does is listen to people speak, but work is work and he never hears anything.

One tape, however, catches his attention, and the ramifications of it are immense. In broken clips we hear this dialogue he recorded of two people in a public square. They don't say much of anything, talking about Christmas and a homeless man on a park bench. But in their conversation there is something more, something hidden whose repercussions, if they're made known might kill them. When the smooth-talking and dangerous secretary to Harry's employer (Harrison Ford) helps bolster his suspicions Harry takes the tapes and runs.

Coppola has fashioned here something that is both quiet and extremely tense. As Harry puzzles his way through these two mysterious people's lives he must contend with the fact that his own personal well-being is at risk. Not only that, does he remain a morally sound Catholic if he relinquishes the tapes, or is he one if he does not? His soul, then, is also put on the line by a young couple which he has never met.

This film is full of beautifully written and directed scenes about a world unknown to us without the microphones. Our lives feel much smaller when watching this movie as there is no telling who knows that we are watching it. It is a frightening look at the power granted to some when a locked door and private conversation mean nothing anymore. Although I suspect that much of the technology employed in the film was science fiction at the time, there is no doubt in my mind that that it is now reality.

Harry's world is one of false faces and unseen ears. He isolates himself because he has entered a profession of duplicitous people each out for that next great scoop. Money makes the world go round and nobody is off limits in this circle.

There are those of you who will figure out the motives and therefore the ending, but this does not diminish the film's ability to horrify and to absorb. These shadowy figures hover just outside of the light of Harry's knowledge and we are left guessing in the dark with him. This is by far my favorite Coppola film not only because it is such a well-crafted movie, but its acute relevance today is something extraordinary.

4/4