RETROSPECTIVE

50 Years Of Rewinding And Playing Back ‘The Conversation’

Screen shot from “The Conversation” (1974) | Fair use as it is included for the purpose of commentary and criticism.

At the end of “The Conversation,” surveillance technician Harry Caul has ripped apart the walls and floorboards of his apartment. He is unable to find the bug that was supposedly planted to spy on him.

The skill of invading others’ privacy undetected, which Harry had mastered and turned into a career, has now destroyed Harry. All he can do is wail on his tenor saxophone while sitting in a corner next to the shards of his apartment.

The audience has little reason to sympathize with how Harry ends up in this predicament. And yet, Gene Hackman brings such a vulnerability to Harry that it is impossible not to feel the character’s torment.

Director Francis Ford Coppola’s paranoia film is perhaps best known as the movie that Coppola made in between “The Godfather” (1972) and “The Godfather Part II” (1974). Coppola also considers “The Conversation” to be the “favorite of all his films,” and it premiered in New York on April 7, 1974.

Through Harry, Coppola and Hackman effectively create a character who demands privacy while simultaneously engaging in a business that strips others of their own privacy.

In the opening sequence, Harry leads a surveillance team that eavesdrops on a couple in San Francisco’s…