Produced and released in between the first two installments of “The Godfather,” director Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation” is arguably one of his finest efforts and easily his most overlooked and underappreciated.
Repeat and Repeat Again
The movie opens with an aerial shot of Union Square in San Francisco which, at the time, was an oval-shaped walking area surrounded inside and out with park benches. As the camera creeps oh so slowly downward, we are also shown juxtaposing perspectives from different locations and start to hear a fractured conversation between Ann (Cindy Williams) and Mark (Frederic Forrest).
Showing up in the margins is Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), a balding, spectacled man wearing a transparent raincoat which is odd as the weather is crisply ideal and sunny.
This scene is repeated close to a dozen times over the course of the movie and in each instance, we learn a little bit more about Anne and Mark. Even at first listen and view, it’s clear they’re lovers and one, if not both are married to someone else. Because of their constant movement, guarded body language, and awareness of their surroundings, at least one of them suspects they’re being watched.
The first hint we get that Harry isn’t particularly good at his job is when he quasi-answers a question from his squirrely employee, Stan (John Cazale, Fredo in the “Godfather” films). Stan wants to know who they’re working for and why, and Harry can’t fully answer. Through an intermediary (Harrison Ford as Martin), someone known only as “the Director” has hired Caul to surreptitiously record Mark and Ann.
Mystery Cast Member
It is worth mentioning the identity of the actor playing the Director isn’t revealed in the opening credit sequence, and the character isn’t first seen until late in the third act. I’m going to follow Mr. Coppola’s lead and opt not to reveal the actor’s name here.A “movie star” known more for his action flicks than his limited thespian range, Mr. Ford delivers the best acting performance of his career playing a smarmy, full of himself, highly unlikeable bagman.
There are other things in Harry’s life that don’t quite add up. His triple-bolted apartment door isn’t as impenetrable as he thinks, and more than one person knows the number to his home phone, which he claims doesn’t exist.
For a guy supposedly so guarded and observant, Harry lets people he barely knows into his fenced-in warehouse workplace strewn with his equipment for an impromptu, late-night party—something he’ll quickly regret. Present at the party is Bernie (Allen Garfield), a backslapping, disingenuous competitor of Harry’s who is at once charmingly ingratiating and coarsely brutish.
Bernie turns the heat up under Harry by bringing up the rather dark reason he recently relocated from New York to San Francisco. Bernie insinuates Harry stumbled upon something that led to the deaths of multiple people in a gruesome fashion.
Harry has a dream after the party where he warns Ann of a plan to murder her but, as it is a dream, we’re unsure about its validity. We are sure of one thing: Harry still feels guilty about New York and doesn’t want to be responsible for something similar in San Francisco.
The final 30 or so minutes of the film tie together all of the sub-plot threads Mr. Coppola introduced in the first 80. While a few viewers found this stretch to be contradicting to what preceded it, it makes complete sense in hindsight, both on symbolic and narrative levels. Not liking an ending is one thing. Disagreeing with its storytelling effectiveness is another.Spy 2.0
Twenty-four years after “The Conversation,” Mr. Hackman starred with Will Smith in Tony Scott’s “Enemy of the State” where he played Edward Lyle, a far smarter, savvier, and even more paranoid version of Harry Caul. Replete with the same black horn-rimmed glasses and transparent raincoat, Edward also works out of a warehouse and on multiple occasions saves the Smith character’s hide. Mr. Scott even appropriated a still image of the Harry character which is shown in Lyle’s hard copy C.I.A. file.Also similar and worth checking out: Brian DePalma’s 1981 “Blow Out” starring John Travolta as a movie sound effects specialist who fortuitously records the assassination of a politician.
If an aloof man such as Harry operating in the early 1970s can still manage to get his job done, think of what far more talented spy folk can achieve in the 2020s. Whether it be via a smartphone, a “secured” laptop Wi-Fi connection, or that omnipresent Alexa device sitting on your kitchen counter, unearthing every minute detail of your private life is easy and just a mere tap, hack, ping, or fleeting keystroke away.
