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The Conversation

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The Conversation (1974)

April. 07,1974
|
7.7
|
PG
| Drama Crime Mystery
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Surveillance expert Harry Caul is hired by a mysterious client's brusque aide to tail a young couple. Tracking the pair through San Francisco's Union Square, Caul and his associate Stan manage to record a cryptic conversation between them. Tormented by memories of a previous case that ended badly, Caul becomes obsessed with the resulting tape, trying to determine if the couple is in danger.

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Mjeteconer
1974/04/07

Just perfect...

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Allison Davies
1974/04/08

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

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Raymond Sierra
1974/04/09

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

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Dana
1974/04/10

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

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shakercoola
1974/04/11

A mystery thriller with a moral dilemma at its centre. The film has good use of subtext: an obsession with privacy; striving to know everything in a way that impedes participation of others. It's a film very resonant today with all the advancement in surveillance technology. The sound design has big impact on the mood of the film. The screenplay puts the one who bugs others at the centre of the story and this creates tension throughout. Hackman's performance is a career best - his social awkwardness is superbly played.

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ypandalove
1974/04/12

This film started to depict usual park.  It was so funny day.  There were some couples, parents and children and performers.  But one couple was tapped by some men.  I thought this couple was just main character in this film, because they looked victim indeed and this seemed to center around this couple.  So I had no idea about Harry Caul who was the real main character and the incident waiting for him at first. I think this film has multiple theme. One of the theme is the fear of surveillance.  We go several places and live in everyday life.  There are some surveillance camera everywhere of town.  Then, does one might say that our privacy is protected?  The answer is no.  Our privacy is infringed unconsciously.  This film might want to say about that.

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sukhib
1974/04/13

The most overrated movie I have ever watched,complete garbage. Gene Hackman may be a great actor,but this movie sucked.Stay away,save your money.I have no idea,why this dreadful movie is so highly rated and considered a classic.The boredom of watching for almost 2 hours and seeing nothing interesting happen,is a reason to give this a miss.I will not bother going into the story too much,as there is not much to say.

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Wuchak
1974/04/14

Released in 1974 and written/directed by Francis Ford Coppola, "The Conversation" is a potential crime drama starring Gene Hackman as a freelance surveillance technician in San Francisco whose team records a conversation by a man and woman (Cindy Williams & Frederic Forrest) as they walk through crowded Union Square. Using three different recordings of the event he expertly pieces together the conversation and tries to figure out its meaning. He fears that someone might be murdered over it, which haunts him from a past gig. Robert Duvall plays the client, a mogul of some sort, while Harrison Ford plays his dour assistant. Teri Garr has a small role.While the movie was released after Watergate, the story was written in the mid-60s and the movie was completed several months before the scandal broke out. It was sorta prescient in that it used the very same surveillance and wire-tapping equipment that members of the Nixon Administration used to spy on their opponents. This is a slow drama focused on the psychology of the privacy-obsessed protagonist and the meaning of a phrase on the recording, depending on which word is stressed. It's surprisingly engaging for being so uneventful (until the final act, that is). The way the revelations are depicted at the end show that this movie influenced others 25 years later, like 1999's "The Sixth Sense." But that film is more cogent with its revelations whereas "The Conversation" keeps everything somewhat ambiguous. Unfortunately, I didn't find Hackman's character interesting, like his characters in other films, e.g. 1972's "The Poseidon Adventure" and 1969's "Downhill Racer." Nor did I find his acting convincing when he would stutter. And, as expert of a surveillance technician he is, he's blatantly bumbling in numerous others. I guess he's a metaphor for America, which was a technically rich superpower, but utterly stoo-pid in many ways (e.g. the Vietnam fiasco).The film runs 113 minutes and was shot in San Francisco. GRADE: B-

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