‘The Conversation’ 50th anniversary: Remembering Francis Ford Coppola’s intimate and most relevant film

There was perhaps no movie director more in demand in the 1970s than Francis Ford Coppola, who was leading the New Hollywood film movement with epics like “The Godfather” (1972), “The Godfather Part II” (1974) and “Apocalypse Now” (1979). But fewer viewers remember his quiet neo-noir drama “The Conversation,” a complete turnaround in production scale and arguably his only intimate, simple dramatic film. While it was not as financially successful as the previously aforementioned grander classics, the mystery thriller was just as acclaimed and lauded, earning three Oscar nominations and winning the Palme d’Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. Now on its 50th anniversary, let’s look back at one of Coppola’s overlooked films, “The Conversation,” which was released on April 7, 1974.

The picture stars Gene Hackman as Harry Caul, a top surveillance expert who stumbles upon an ambiguous comment – that may lead to a potential murder – while recording for one of his clients and works to decipher the meaning of it, while grappling with his own moral principles. Also starring John Cazale, Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall, Cindy Williams, Frederic Forrest and Allen Garfield, this film is an intimate character study on Caul, who battles Catholic guilt over his previous wiretapping assignment that resulted in deaths and is a very lonely distant man, wanting no one to know any details about him personally and immensely cautious of his own privacy.

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This particular job makes Caul thoroughly investigate the situation behind the comment, resulting in him becoming more paranoid and at risk for danger, culminating in an ending scene that is fitting for his character and the themes in “The Conversation,” depressing and bleak as it is. The character of Harry Caul and what makes him the best at his job requires him not to get personally attached, but this time he feels the weight of the responsibility and the role he plays in it which affects him psychologically and causes him to go against his principles, ironically leading to his eventual downfall.

Interestingly enough, “The Conversation” was released at the height of the Watergate scandal – four months before Richard Nixon’s resignation from the presidency where his administration spied on and wiretapped political opponents in the Democratic National Committee. However, production on the film was completed before the scandal became mainstream knowledge in the press, and Coppola had an outline for “The Conversation” in the mid-1960s, inspired by the 1966 psychological mystery film “Blowup,” directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, also exploring similar themes and the suspense of murder through the lens of photography. Though he was unable to secure studio financing until the success of “The Godfather,” putting production right in the middle between the two-part pictures.

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It was due to the timing of the release that “The Conversation” was seen as secondary in the 1974 awards circuit, to Coppola’s more anticipated, broader-appealing sequel “The Godfather Part II,” which came out December 20 and was fresh on the minds of Academy Award voters. Despite “The Conversation” doing well at the precursor and critics’ awards – sweeping the National Board of Review, and getting four bids at the Golden Globe Awards and five at the BAFTA Awards – it only managed to muster three Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay for Coppola, and Best Sound for Walter Murch and Arthur Rochester. For Best Director due to Oscar ruling, Coppola could not be nominated twice in the same year and instead was recognized in the category for “The Godfather Part II” (which he later won), despite being double-cited with “The Conversation” at all the aforementioned award shows (with the exception of BAFTA as he was not nominated for the crime epic due to ineligibility), including the Directors Guild of America Award. However, Hackman’s miss in Best Actor was more noticeable as he also made all the precursors and was a recent winner three years prior for “The French Connection.” It additionally had significant snubs in Best Score for David Shire and Best Editing for Murch and David Chew.

Yet despite its low Oscar tally, it can be argued that “The Conversation” has become one of the most relevant films in Coppola’s filmography with its themes of loneliness, paranoia, security and reality versus perception. Those are most particular in the present moment when technology continues to become more advanced and proves how it has not only become more intrusive and hard-hitting but also affects humans’ abilities to communicate and be vulnerable. While “The Conversation” may not be the first picture one thinks of when remembering Francis Ford Coppola, it is one that has certainly cemented his auteur status and is consistently being rediscovered by generations – having been selected for preservation by the US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1995 – with an understated but career-best performance by Hackman, and a creative use of sound and music (with its simple but ominous jazz piano score). With Coppola mounting a comeback this year with another grand scale epic in “Megalopolis,” it is a good reminder that a director of his stature can also handle the smaller, simpler, yet complex pieces of storytelling in “The Conversation” and have it be just as impactful.

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