The Conversation

I tend to forget The Conversation. That doesn't mean I think the film is bad. I forget lots of things.

Actually, this DVD is a recent pickup for me. While browsing in Half Price Books a month or so ago, I saw a copy and decided to include this film in the project. I haven't seen this in years — probably not since film school.

Re-buying and re-watching films is a necessity for me. I forget things. I forget lines of dialogue, pivotal scenes, frightening moments, and entire plots. I'd forgotten just about everything about The Conversation. That's not right.

I'd forgotten about Harry Caul's paranoia, his distrust of everyone, and his loneliness. He has no friends, no lovers, and doesn't even get involved with his clients' affairs. He just records conversations. He keeps this cool distance from everyone. I'd forgotten about Coppola's masterful direction and Gene Hackman's brilliant portrayal.

I'd forgotten about the long and meandering post-convention party in Caul's loft, during which he has a side conversation with a woman and actually opens up, really makes himself vulnerable, and finds out a few minutes later that one of his surveillance buddies, also at the party, had him bugged the whole time. He rages as the intimate conversation is played back for everyone to laugh at — look at Harry Caul, so vulnerable. No wonder he has trust issues.

I'd mostly forgotten the entire plot — something about a conversation Harry recorded, and how that opened doors and sucked him into a world of shady dealing and murder or something.

I'd forgotten about the masterful, jarring editing, and the sound editing, unlike anything I've heard in any other film, splicing bits of the conversation throughout the film.

I'd forgotten about the twist at the end, and the reveal as Caul figures out what happened in room 773. (Ang Lee uses a similar editing technique to show how Ennis Del Mar figures out what happened to Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain.)

I'd forgotten about the toilet. How? No idea.

Oh, yeah. Gene Hackman more or less reprises his role in Tony Scott's Enemy of the State, although in the latter, his character goes under a different name. Whether that is Caul's choice to remain anonymous or Scott's choice to keep from getting sued, I'm not sure.

Some say Scott's film is a sequel in spirit only, and Hackman's character is just an echo of Caul. I tend to agree. I like that Scott put the references to The Conversation in his own film, and just left them there for people to catch or not catch. Let the audience be smart or not notice. The movie works either way.

However, Enemy of the State is not nearly the film as The Conversation. Coppola uses these long, quiet takes to build tension and dread, and with the entire film told from Harry Caul's perspective, we're limited to what he knows and what he figures out. Scott likes to cut every .03 seconds and he loves him some flash editing. The two films are completely different in tone, style, and substance.

Lastly, I forgot that the most important scene of this film — the actual conversation — takes place in Union Square in San Francisco. Tonight the wife and I put on The Conversation, and within minutes she said, "We've been there."

We spent part of our honeymoon at the Grand Hyatt, which is right there. Admittedly, I had to look at a map to put all of this together. Conveniently, there is a map drawn on a blackboard at about the one-hour mark in the film. So imagine my wife, standing in front of the television, using the map from the film as a reference to show me where we were in San Francisco. "There's the Grand Hyatt, there's Rasputin, and if you go that way, you get to Chinatown..."

I can't remember anything. We were out shopping today and I suggested I get some gingko. Clearer, younger, more female minds prevailed. I'll probably buy some when she's not looking. That is assuming I remember.