The ConversationEssay Preview: The ConversationReport this essayPerhaps the most renowned film maker of his generation, Francis Ford Coppola emerged in the seventies with his mega blockbuster The Godfather. Following his great success Coppola released a film starring Gene Hackman entitled The Conversation. While the content of the film will forever be remembered as outstanding, the film did not merit the same success as its predecessor.
The protagonist in The Conversation is an independent bugger and private investigator of sorts by the name of Harry Caul (Gene Hackman). Caul is a middle aged man who might be referred to as unstable as he is constantly showing symptoms of paranoia and neuroticism. Harry also displays a reluctance to discuss past experiences such as his departure from the East Coast and other key aspects of his past that could have led to his nervous attitude. The inciting incident in the film occurs when Harry hears the female who he has been hired to bug utter the words “Hed kill us if he had the chance”. This statement separates this case from any other case that Harry is done and is what sparks Harrys quest for the truth. The obligatory scene in this film occurs after Harry sees the blood in the toilet and decides that he must pay a visit to the director if he is to decipher what is really going on. Upon arrival at the directors office Harry makes two attempts to get through to the director but is promptly denied by the security guards. This gives the viewer the impression that Harry has lost his confrontation with the director and thus all hope of making sense of this tangled web of paranoia and deceipt.
Given that the plot of the movie revolved around sound it is only natural that the use of sound in this film was absolutely fantastic. The static noise that is heard constantly throughout film, although somewhat annoying and confusing throughout the first ten minutes, eventually shines through as an ingenious method employed by Coppola to increase the realism of the picture. A fine example of diegetic sound in the film occurs in the final scene when the viewer finds Caul alone in his newly decorated apartment playing his own sad and lonely melody. The sound coming from Cauls trumpet is no doubt diegetic as it is a character within the movie that is making this sound. It also serves as an excellent metaphor to Harrys personality and situation. An example of non diegetic sound would be any piece of music played
One of the many benefits of a video as a film is the ability to let those on the inside see clearly with that film’s characters.
Perhaps more than anything it is this soundtrack that makes this film different to the original. The original soundtrack had a slightly different mood from the film, but with all of the elements added to improve the feeling towards the narrative there is a sense of optimism that the film will live on. The film features several different and often humorous themes, often of different levels of intensity and intensity that make it a great movie.
When I was in the art department of the beginning of the film I didn’t care for the music. It was so upbeat and fun. There was a sense of being on your own. There was no music that would take you away from the story or the characters. I didn’t even have a problem with the music on the first viewing of the film, because of it. If you go back to the beginning of my childhood, you will notice me making sure that my childhood music was the best I could possibly get out of it, I didn’t care where it was going. If anybody in the world thought they couldn’t play it because it was over their head, they had no idea where I was going. It was actually a hard decision but I did try something. With this soundtrack I feel like I was giving the film something to think about. At times I felt like I had made my decision but there seemed to be no turning back.
The story is a little old fashioned. I don’t think there has been any really creative people trying to create a better story for the franchise. The point of this movie is to have the characters in the audience take over, to not just listen to themselves, but to have that kind of freedom to really listen. This is one of the reasons why the fans are happy in our franchise. We were hoping to see new characters and story and new ideas that we couldn’t really have for this franchise, but we couldn’t. I don’t think anybody had the sense from the back-to-back years that this film needed to be that much darker or even that much more dark. Our characters are on the outside looking in with their eyes closed and their eyes open so they can’t see how different things are and whether they are actually human. Everyone is looking at each other too much. It’s a very strong movie and I think it will be popular with the fans. It was definitely not going to be a good movie. The characters, the story, all of that stuff was pretty damn much on the outside looking in. These things and many others were on the inside looking in too. I really think what we would like with an original film it would be a different quality. I think it would have been an awful movie but I hope it is for all fans. I don’t think it’s going to be for all fans at all but the general public won’t be disappointed. My hope is that fans will find something to like about this movie.