More relevant than ever: THE CONVERSATION (Francis Ford Coppola) - Review & Analysis

What does a film have to say to us that is exactly 40 years old and, what's more, is about the surveillance of people? Wrong question: What do we have to say to a classic like "The Dialogue" by Francis Ford Coppola, who gratefully buy every new surveillance gadget, i.e. smartphone, and dutifully pay for everything with our personal data? We should look at the lonely main character Harry Caul, unforgettably played by Gene Hackman, in an identificatory way. His tragedy is ours, even if we have not yet noticed the tragedy and continue to perform our comedies à la Dick & Doof with ice water via social media. Francis Ford Coppola has created a timeless masterpiece; while the wiretapping technology in this existentialist thriller may be long antiquated, the allegory Coppola finds for total surveillance remains highly relevant. Harry Caul is a privately operating wiretap specialist with an ordinary assignment: to tail a pair of lovers on behalf of a jealous husband. The first scene of the film is famous and we should always think of it when we currently walk through public places where we are monitored by cameras. From a bird's eye view we see colorful urban hustle and bustle, the camera zooms in, suddenly we hear individual phrases of seemingly everyday communication. Caul will tinker with these scraps in the editing room, like a filmmaker, until they make sense. Coppola emphasizes the craft side of filmmaking here. It will not remain the only reflection on the medium of film. But it is primarily the depiction of public and private life in the age of surveillance, a distinction long understood to be obsolete, that makes film so urgent at present. Indeed, Harry Caul, surely one of the saddest characters in film history, no longer has a private life as a consequence of ubiquitous surveillance. He lives without secrets; only his saxophone playing alone in his apartment still indicates something like inwardness. We, on the other hand, no longer have a public life, because we have long since sold our most private and intimate things on the digital web. See more in the film analysis!
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Wolfgang M. Schmitt
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IBAN: DE29 5745 0120 0130 7858 43
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[@Ohnonono123]

Thank you for doing these videos. Every analysis you do surprises me and brings ideas I haven't thought of, and I'm genuinely excited whenever I see a new video drop.

[@elias325]

I love this movie, thank you very much for this very interesting analysis.

[@JCT1926]

Right on, man. Right on. This is a fantastic film and as you say more pertinent than ever.

[@haydenwalton2766]

great stuff wolfgang.
I only rewatched this the other day - a real gem of a film.
so heartachingly pouient.
perhaps we are all implicit in the ills of the world

[@Chrobotka]

Bin dabei 😊

[@Johnconno]

Now everyone's Harry Caul.

[@carstenkoloc5226]

Toppp movie.

[@yazanasad7811]

The answer is saxophone - who are we? Lonely saxophones. (monster 2023 movie as well)
Corruption within the public square

[@knownpleasures]

It’s streaming on paramount plus and looks and sounds fantastic on high definition. One thing that doesn’t make sense . Why would the client (Duvall) pay 15 thousand dollars ( a fortune in 1974) for a muddled conversation as edited by Harry ?!? A lot of the final scenes are just in Harry ‘s paranoid mind or are they ?

[@lenkoroxo]

Personnally, I think he paid 15K because he knew that Harry would be the only one capable of getting those recordings. Its said somewhere in the movie that they have already been bugged and followed but it was a fail. Harry's reputation in the Surveillance "industry" surely made him pay this high price.