You are what you hear
There’s a wonderful moment in an interview extra with Walter Murch, editor and sound editor on Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 mind and ear bending classic The Conversation. Walter makes a key comment about someone once saying at a screening ‘they don’t make films like this anymore’, where Coppola replies ‘they don’t make films like this back then’. It’s this very uniqueness is what turns this film up to 11.
Coppola had just come off the back of the success of The Godfather (1972), and in the short respite till its sequel began filming, he had managed to get Paramount to support this idiosyncratic observation piece about an equally unique individual. Ultimately its a film written and directed by a craftsman, inspired by aspects of his own life, about a fellow craftsman, a master of his chosen art form, methodically composing, controlling various elements, and acting like a conductor to guide it towards the psychological crescendo that is The Conversation.
The conductor within the film is one Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), a socially awkward audio technology surveillance savant, who much like many great artists throughout history, has honed their excellence into a singular craft/mastery, at the expense of ‘normality’, or ability at rudimentary human interaction, and their chosen of expression is expressed via their work. As in the case of Harry, his communication has the extra level of distance in that it is constructed from the conversation of others, a freelance hacker, spying on and recording interactions between various individuals and groups, for private gain and without doubt, dark espionage.
In addition to the multiple track levels this beautiful analogue audio/videophile film works on is the internal dynamics of Caul, who’s discomfort at the world, is also battling within too. His devout religious Catholic beliefs, the comfort of a rigid doctrine supposedly bringing peace, but in reality brings raging guilt, completely at odds with the free form adaptive flow not only of his craft, but his monastic solace in playing jazz saxophone along to records in the sanctuary of austere apartment, effectively a monk’s cell.
From the opening frames of the film, we experience the audio dissonance of Harry’s mind, his interaction, understanding (or lack) of the world, and his quest to understand it, meticulously, anxiously, obsessively putting the pieces together into some sort of coherence, meaning, peace, and possibly penance for previous transgressions.
His services have been employed to record an event, which as that moment is painstakingly spliced together, garbled or suppressed audio slowly fine tuned in via a myriad of skills, tech and ceremonies to slightly tell Harry and us, what exactly is going on. The masterful thing is though, it’s that very confusion and lack of understanding that adds potency, anxiety and dread to the entire experience. We become Harry, we are desperate to understand the world around us, to find meaning, to finally be at peace.
The Conversation is one of those joyous events where I would be stunned if anyone could anticipate the path it will take. It’s celebrating its 50th anniversary, and is just as relevant, if not more so today. The instruments and reach have changed, artefacts of engineering reverence such as the gorgeous Nagra audio reel to reel equipment on display in the film have been replaced with today’s hidden code in phones, the singular focus of the target has been expanded to a spy on everyone approach by global state bodies, yet despite all the this captured information, there is no more clarity, understanding, or peace.
There is so much to praise about the film, as it reaches out far beyond the parameters of storytelling, it becomes an experience, especially with the expansion of the original mono soundtrack into a 5.1 mix in this just released newly restored 4K Collector’s Edition. Unbelievably immersive in a giddy exploration of the chaos of humanity, visually and aurally, to such an extent that it has directly inspired directors and sound editors ever since, winning two BAFTA’s and the Palme D’or at the time, but realistically it’s been winning for the past five decades.
I’ve deliberately not mentioned any other actors, as it is, as I often mention, best to go in as cold as possible. It’s a rare gem of a discovery that offers such a unique absorbing delight. It looks and sounds stunning, utterly captivating, mesmerising, enthralling, but in an intelligent, thoughtful, insightful and absolutely acute observational way, that few tales ever reach, never mind aspire to.
In addition to that attention to detail, there is a wondrous amount of extras, including interviews with cast and crew, separate commentary tracks by Coppola and Walter. All of course presented in a beautiful 2-Disc 4K UHD Collector’s Edition, with new original artwork by Laurent Durieux (Coppola’s preferred poster artist), a 64-page booklet with new essays and exclusive tape cassette soundtrack, plus much more that I implore you to discover, just like Harry. A very fitting collection for what has been reported to be Coppola’s favourite of his films. I completely understand why.
10/10
The Conversation special 2-Disc 4K UHD Collector’s Edition and digital version is available via STUDIOCANAL now.