The Conversation

The Conversation (1974)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Writer: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Gene Hackman, shirley (from laverne and shirley), a very young harrison ford, terri garr has a line or two, fredo from the godfather, and robert duvall

Synopsis- a very paranoid surveillance guy records a conversation for a corporate "director". this brings up issues from his past. what will happen? what does this conversation mean? is someone going to be murdered? probably. should he break his rules and interfere? he already has by trying to figure out what the heck the conversation is about. downward spiral.

The Woman- this movie was on the good side of ok. there is an interpreted mental breakdown of the main character, which is always confusing without being stated outright. that's where things got confusing for me because, i, as the viewer was not sure what was real and what was hallucination, and was left with an open ending. but as a whole it was an interesting movie, with a twist in the end. a good character study, and a fascinating subject of surveillance, and privacy.

Moster- There were many things about this movie which I liked a lot.  Hackman's performance was quite good; and there were no bad apples in the rest of the bunch.  As we watch the plot unfolding, there are questions about what Harry (Hackman) will do with what he knows; and neither what he nor we saw played out in the expected fashion.

The movie does a good job of showing both sides of the people in the surveillance industry.  Many (or most, if this is to be believed) are on the cavalier side of it:  knowing how easy it is to watch someone they just live their lives and joke about watching and being watched.  The other side is the paranoid hypocrite:  knowing how easy it is to watch someone they wonder if they're being watched and try to work against something which may or may not happen.  This makes up the better, psychological aspect of the movie.  On one hand Harry is obtaining information and wondering if he should involve himself (and how).  On the other he slowly deteriorates as his reputation as the best has him looking over his shoulder.