Harry Caul ( Gene Hackman) has helped create a monster, and now that he realizes the extent of his folly, he’s terrified that he might be its next victim. The monster is high-tech surveillance – high-tech by the standards of the early 1970s. The folly is Harry’s use and advancement of the technology without regard for what it can do to people.
In The Conversation’s brilliant opening scene – including a trademark Francis Ford Coppola long shot – we witness this technology at work. Harry and his team record a conversation between a young woman and a young man in San Francisco’s Union Square. Two men point shotgun microphones from buildings high above the square. Another wanders around the square carrying a microphone in a package, following the couple. Harry supervises, keeping an eye on things. When this master of surveillance gets back to his lab, he pieces together the recordings to make the whole thing into a single audible conversation.
After Harry turns his handiwork over to his client, it dawns on him that he might be having a hand in the demise of innocent people. He doesn’t know why ‘The Director’ ( Robert Duvall in a tiny, uncredited role) wants the tape, but he does know that it appears to implicate the man and woman in a scandal. And he fears for their well-being.
The Conversation is a fascinating and chilling mystery/thriller that chronicles Harry’s unravelling, as he becomes obsessed with the possibility that his tools may be turned on him. Coppola has created a Spartan production that builds tension gradually. Inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blowup, this movie repeatedly plays-back snippets of the conversation Harry has recorded, slowly helping us gain a clearer idea of what’s actually going on, just as Harry’s sense of security begins to evaporate.
Hackman is fabulous in a performance that might be the best of his career. Harry says relatively little, but we understand his loneliness, the pride he takes in his expertise, and his terror at the thought that his techniques are being turned on him. Harry has snapped, and while we don’t know exactly why this has happened now, Hackman makes it easy for us to believe that Harry is in deep crisis.
Coppola’s production gets all the details right. Harry’s apartment is virtually barren; through the window, we see a neighbouring building being demolished – its walls torn down literally, just as Harry’s work tears walls down figuratively. Harry is a private, solitary man, who’s constantly concerned about maintaining his own privacy, while he invades that of others.
Although most of the film is low-key – an intense dream sequence being a major exception – this is gripping cinema and a wonderfully intelligent experience. Ultimately, we learn that there’s much more going on than we – and Harry—first thought. For all the technology and expertise that’s gone into snooping on this young couple in Union Square, the irony is that the eavesdropper doesn’t always get it right.
