73) The Conversation
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Year: 1974
Plot Summary: A paranoid and secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that a couple he is spying on will be murdered.
There are very few movies from 40 years ago that you can say are still relevant and important in modern society. However, The Conversation is one of them.A film about the increasingly dominant role of technology in our lives and how, because of this technology, it's almost impossible to have any form of privacy, The Conversation almost feels like a foreshadowing of the post-9/11 world. Harry Caul's paranoia throughout the movie as he feels he is always being listened to and watched is something that we all, in some shape or form, experience in our every day lives. However, as important as The Conversation still is today, it's also a great study of the Watergate era - it was in production when the scandal happened - as the aforementioned main character struggles with a crisis of conscience over whether eavesdropping is an important and necessary thing or whether it's, in fact, an immoral act.
It's already blatantly clear from this review that underneath the bleak, tense and complex surface of The Conversation, Francis Ford Coppola has created an intricate and unsettlingly subtle character study here. A huge step away from the epic, grand scale of the Godfather saga which Coppola was in between filming at the time, The Conversation shows his true gift for directing.
The entire film's mystery centres around a two minute conversation that Harry catches on tape in which one of the speakers utters the phrase: "He'd kill us if he had the chance." For the next hour and a half, we slowly uncover the meaning behind this conversation and what may actually be happening in the character's lives to cause a huge private company to hire Harry to eavesdrop on them. As simple as it sounds though, The Conversation actually makes for a riveting watch as we start to piece together a picture of what occurred before this conversation and what could be happening as a result of Harry's acceptance to record it.
A minor masterpiece from Francis Ford Coppola who was created a brilliantly unconventional thriller with The Conversation that is anchored by a subtly brilliant character study and continues to resonate with modern times.
5/5
1 comments:
I really gotta rewatch it, I only remember a few scenes, but I did like it a lot.
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