The Conversation (1974)
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A surveillance expert becomes entangled in a dangerous web of conspiracy after his recordings reveal a potential murder.
The story
Harry Caul, a surveillance expert in San Francisco, specializes in audio recordings. He and his team are hired by a client known as "the Director" to eavesdrop on a couple, whom they record walking in circles in Union Square. Despite the background noise, Harry filters and merges the tapes to create a clear recording with ambiguous meaning. Harry is intensely private, obsessively guarding his personal life; though he insists that he is not responsible for how his clients use the surveillance he creates, he is haunted by guilt from a past job that resulted in three deaths. When he discovers a potentially dangerous phrase in the recording, Harry becomes increasingly anxious as he attempts to deliver the tapes.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
Harry Caul, a surveillance expert in San Francisco, is hired by 'the Director' to record a couple in Union Square. After filtering the audio, he hears the phrase, 'He'd kill us if he got the chance.' When he meets with the Director's assistant, Martin Stett, he is warned about the tape's contents. After the tapes are stolen and he is followed, Harry eventually meets the Director and learns the woman in the recording is the Director's wife. Suspecting murder, Harry monitors a nearby hotel room and witnesses a bloody altercation. He breaks in and finds a room filled with blood. He later learns the couple actually murdered the Director, having misunderstood the meaning of 'us' in the recording. Finally, Stett warns Harry not to investigate, and Harry is left alone in his apartment, destroyed by the realization that he is being bugged, playing his saxophone in the wreckage.
- First release year
- 1974
- Runtime (minutes)
- 113
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Francis Ford Coppola
- Writers
- Francis Ford Coppola · writer
- Cast and characters
- Gene Hackman · Harry Caul; John Cazale; Allen Garfield; Cindy Williams; Frederic Forrest; Harrison Ford; Teri Garr
- Genres
- mystery; thriller
- Themes
- surveillance versus participation
- Tone and mood
- tense; paranoid
- Premise and plot tags
- neo-noir; mystery; thriller
- Reception
- The film was received to critical acclaim, with a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a weighted average of 88 out of 100 on Metacritic. It was also praised by Roger Ebert, who gave it four out of four stars.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 94% · review count: 141; Metacritic · score: 88 · scale: 100 · review count: 17
- Awards and nominations
- Palme d'Or · Cannes Film Festival · 1974 · win; National Board of Review Award · Best Film · win
- Production trivia
- The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1995.; The film used the same surveillance and wire-tapping equipment that members of the Nixon Administration used to spy on political opponents prior to the Watergate scandal.; The character of Harry Caul was inspired by the protagonist of Herman Hesse's 1927 novel Steppenwolf.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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