Conversation Starter

The Conversation is a movie that gets discussed quite a bit in film buff circles -- the 1974 Francis Ford Coppola movie that's so good it deserved the Best Picture Oscar... had Francis Ford Coppola not also made the winning The Godfather Part II in the same year. It's the story of Henry Caul, paranoid surveillance expert who is drawn into compromising his principles when he records a young couple, seemingly in fear for their lives from the client who contracted him to make the recording.

Perhaps I shouldn't have even bothered watching the film. I've never "met a film" from Coppola that I've truly liked, and I'm especially down on the Godfather films that most of the world holds in high esteem. Yet The Conversation increasingly felt like something of a "blind spot" in my film credentials. And I've always enjoyed star Gene Hackman in pretty much everything (and some have said this is his greatest performance).

So I gave The Conversation a chance... and found it pretty "meh." Which, in terms adjusted for me might well mean that some of my readers would love it.

I did truly enjoy the "frozen in time" state of surveillance in the mid-1970s. Not only is it fun to think of how the main character would react in utter horror to our modern age of cell phones and social media, it's also fun to watch modern CSI-style tropes ("enhance") play out using half-century-old technology. The opening act of the film is surprisingly strong and fast-moving for a movie of the time (in my experience), throwing you right into the heart of the story.

But there is a distinct and deliberate pacing to 70s thrillers, and "slow burn" is a generous way of describing it. The Conversation is more interested in the psychological hang-ups of its protagonist than the specifics of his case. While on paper, that sounds the right emphasis to me, the fact is that in this story, I found the case far more interesting than the character. The movie strongly tells us who he is, but does almost nothing to justify why he compromises so much about who he is, right now, in this situation. The movie is sort of "too plotty" for the character study, but too languid to be truly suspenseful.

I don't know that I would have called this an all-time great Gene Hackman performance. But, paradoxically, it certainly showcases why Gene Hackman is great. He's one of the most soft-spoken and naturalistic film actors of all time, and that's especially remarkable when you consider the era he worked in most, the 1970s and 1980s. He was working steadily in a time when grandstanding actors with outsized egos, "Method" excesses, and booming voices were on a rapid rise. There is nothing standout to me about Hackman in this movie... and that's kind of the point. He's doing his best to give us a real person, not a performance.

Many people have more affection for movies of the 1970s (and earlier) than I do, so factor that in when I say I'd give The Conversation a C. Also, because I also dissed The Godfather movies here, factor that in when I say would much sooner have awarded Best Picture to this over The Godfather Part II (or Chinatown, the other lauded nominee from 1974). I can't personally endorse The Conversation, but I'm quite sure that one or two people reading this have never seen it and would probably love it. I hope I've given enough clues here for you to know if that's you.