The Conversation (1974)
Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola turned out this comparatively small film between doing The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, and while it's probably not as "great" as those films, it's the one I'd be more likely to sit down and watch at any given time. A character piece masquerading as a psychological thriller, it stars Gene Hackman in probably his best performance as surveillance expert Harry Caul, who becomes emotionally frazzled when one of his jobs appears to result in someone being killed.

It takes a slow pace, unfolding little by little through repetition like the tapes Harry must review, over and over, trying to get the perfect representation of what he's recorded. Never before or since have reel-to-reel tape decks featured so importantly in a feature film, except for maybe the movie I made for my grad school thesis, The Hilarious Adventures of the Akai GX-625, which was just as misguided as my whole higher education experience.

Hackman here shows why he's one of the best, and supporting turns by Harrison Ford, John Cazale, Cindy Williams (!), and an uncredited Robert Duvall help to make this one of those films that you see and you're like "Oh wow, this movie is so cool!" The piano score from David Shire is haunting and memorable—much cooler than the more famous music from The Godfather, probably because it's less well-known.

No need to go on and on about the film—certainly any capable film-history teacher can bring you up to speed on all the "bla bla bla" of it. What you need to know is that The Conversation is Coppola in his prime, a great film, still underrated, and well worth getting to know: classic in the way that films just aren't anymore.

The DVD has a 9-minute "behind the scenes" featurette that appears to have been made in 1974, as it features that deep, boomy narrator voice that graced virtually every film I saw in elementary school, and which is just never used nowadays. It's not especially revelatory, but as anything from 1974 has a built-in coolness factor, it's also worth a look.

Review by Swoozie Curse