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The Conversation
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Lions Gate Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Ethan Stevenson (7th January 2012). |
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The Film
 Although the topic of “bests” in film will always be hotly debated in most circles inhabited by those souls so inclined to talk about cinema, whether it’s specific or overly broad—arguments over the best actors, genres and decades—there’s little point in questioning certain truths. One of those truths is that the New Hollywood era—a time when a group of young American filmmakers rose to prominence and broke the molds of the old studio system and its censors in a fashion similar to the French New Wave, producing culturally critical, sometimes exceptionally violent, and unusually anti-establishment productions all while fully-funded by big brass at Columbia, Universal, Paramount and Warner Brothers—is one of the most important times in cinematic history. It just is, largely because of the directors who led the charge and how they changed movies forever. Although Arthur Penn, or more pointedly his breakout “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967), is credited with giving birth to the new era, filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, William Friedkin, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola (and a host of others, not the least of which includes Brian De Palma, Roman Polanski, Robert Altman, Sidney Pollack, Sidney Lumet and all those guys at Raybert/BBS Productions) were the one’s who really pushed the envelope, and gave moviegoers some of greatest movies of all time in the process. Scorsese, of course, had his “Mean Streets” (1973) and “Taxi Driver” (1976). Friedkin, “The French Connection” (1971). Lucas, “THX 1138” (1971), “American Graffiti” (1973), and ironically—because in retrospect, it launched the Blockbuster era, which killed the lower-budgeted, pseudo-independent spirit of the so-called American New Wave—the first “Star Wars” (1977). But it’s Francis Ford Coppola who, perhaps debatably, but in my eyes undoubtedly, reins supreme above all others of the era, with his quartet of perfection: “The Godfather” (1972), “The Godfather Part II” (1974), “Apocalypse Now” (1979), and his underrated masterpiece “The Conversation”. “He’d kill us if he got the chance” Gene Hackman, in his personal favorite, and probably his finest, performance plays Harry Caul. Caul is a surveillance expert. And he’s very good at his job. Obsessed with his own privacy, he lives locked behind a triple-locked door, and keeps even the most trivial information about himself from everyone, including his girlfriend (played by a young Teri Garr), who doesn’t know what he does for a living or even what his phone number is. An unassuming, but strange, figure, he wears unfashionable thick-framed glasses and a transparent raincoat nearly everywhere he goes. Middle-aged, balding and with a mustache, Caul is deeply religious, introverted and dreadfully antisocial, entirely disinterested in anything but his work. He plays along to old records on his sax to calm himself after particularly rough days on the job. He’s been that way every since he became too involved in a case many years ago, which lead to the death of three people, He has no friends. Even his close colleague, Stan (John Cazale) is a stranger to him. He’s extremely professional is his work, simply recording conversations for his clients and tailing the faceless people he’s paid to keep tabs on. Caul doesn’t really pay attention to what it is they’re saying or doing. And he gets angry with Stan for insisting that the two talk about these people’s day-to-day trials and tribulations. That is, until while cleaning up a particularly noisy tape, he hears something not meant to be heard by anyone but the couple (Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest) he’s been hired to follow. He’s particularly troubled by one phrase in their titular conversation: he’d kill us if he got the chance. Those words haunt Caul. Who’d kill them? And why? Conflicted, but determined to find out more, he investigates, learning through garbled snippets and hushed and hurried whispers that the man and woman—who work for an industrialist (Robert Duvall), the man who hired him—are having an affair. When confronted and asked to hand over the tapes by the businessman’s assistant (Harrison Ford), Caul is apprehensive and decides to keep the material for himself a while longer, digging deeper into the recording, uncovering more of the mystery, while increasingly becoming paranoid about his own safety. He’s certain that he’s being followed. And he fears that if he turns the tapes over now, neither he nor the couple will be safe. Somewhat unjustly overshadowed by the greatness of his other three films—and I mean to make no qualms, they are all very justly considered great—“The Conversation” will always be remembered as the other movie that Coppola made in 1974. But, it really is a brilliant film. The direction and cinematography, editing and sound design all give the film a paranoid atmosphere. The frequently repeated phrase, “he’s kill us if he got the chance” was recorded a number of times, with several different takes appearing throughout the film, each time conveying some new meaning, adding either greater mystery or clarity to the plot with the same words but an entirely different intonation. While watching the film, you often feel like a voyeur. Like Caul, only watching his life from a safe distance, outfit with the latest surveillance tech allowing you to see everything—even the most personal and guarded moments in this troubled man’s life. The story is suspenseful, if also a little creepy. The acting is exceptional, with none of the supporting cast—all relative newcomers when the film was made—overshadowing the real star, Hackman. Hackman gives his greatest performance in “The Conversation”, on that is so completely different than anything he’d played before—certainly a far cry from Popeye Doyle—and has played, with exception to his role in “Enemy of the State” (1998), which is an unofficial sequel to “The Conversation”, since. “The Conversation” is a masterful work from a master director, and one that remains (comparatively) little seen in contrast to Coppola’s other more celebrated films. Originally intended to be a horror film, produced by Roger Corman, starring Marlon Brando, Coppola’s script for “The Conversation” dates back to the middle-sixties when he was making things like “Dementia 13” (1963). The director has stated that Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Blow Up” (1966) served as an inspiration for the story—in its themes and surveillance-heavy plot most obviously. But, money troubles and a change in artistic direction left the script unproduced for years until, after the success of “The Godfather”, Coppola picked the project back up in 1973. And that turned out to be the perfect time to make the film, which he rewrote and more fittingly adapted into a tense psychological thriller. (Although, the project’s horror origins are still readily apparent in the vivid, mist-filled and blood-splattered nightmares of Caul as he worries for the couple—the woman in particular—and their safety). And the film was eerily prescient. Released right around the time of the Watergate scandal, the themes and subject matter were as timely as ever. Although Coppola insists that this is merely a coincidence, and that it’s impossible for Nixon’s shaming to have influenced the film in anyway due to filming schedules and release dates, it nonetheless remains a curious connection, made more curious by Nixon’s presence on a TV screen while an increasingly psychotic Caul watches the news in the film’s tense climax. Although it lost Best Picture Oscar—to Coppola’s own “The Godfather Part II” (1974)—the film was nominated for 3 Academy Awards, and “The Conversation” won the Palme d'Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. In 1995, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” “The Conversation” remains, to this day, a true masterpiece and is, without a doubt, the most underrated of Coppola’s impressive 70's output. “The Conversation” is certainly as good as either of the first two “Godfather” films or “Apocalypse Now”. You may not have seen it—or you have, and already know—but it’s definitely a film worth having in your collection, and this new Blu-ray from Lionsgate and Coppola’s own American Zoetrope make my recommendation all the easier. Read on to find out why…
Video
Don’t let the horrible, ugly and just plain SD-ish Paramount logo scare you away. “The Conversation” was remastered in 2006—quite a few years after the initial DVD release—by Coppola’s crew at American Zoetrope. That newer source is transferred to Blu-ray via a fairly faithful 1080p 24/fps AVC MPEG-4 high definition encode, framed at 1.78:1 widescreen (opened up slightly from the theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1). The disc accurately reflects the 40-year-old production and captures Bill Butler’s inherently grainy, muted-color cinematography capably. The image isn’t spotless—intermittent instances of dirt, white specks, and a few scratches appear scattered throughout—but the look is generally filmic. A handful of soft shots—most noticeably at about 13 minutes when Caul is playing his sax, and later during a medium shot of Robert Duvall at about 1:28:30—seem almost out of focus and unusually fuzzy, or as though they’re taken from a different print that was a few generations away from the negative, but most of the film is sharp and effectively detailed. Lionsgate and the Zoetrope team have kept unwanted digital tinkering like edge enhancement or noise reduction to an unnoticeable minimum, and the encode is stable with negligible amounts of noise, no noticeable artifacts, and only a few instances of aliasing. All things considered, “The Conversation” looks great.
Audio
Was it Spielberg, Lucas, Lynch, Coppola himself, or perhaps a nameless critic or academic who said the medium of film was at least 50 percent sound (and 50 percent picture)? Whoever it was, that truism is most definitely true of “The Conversation”. I might even say in this particular case, the ratio is more like 70-30 in favor of audio. Editor and sound supervisor Walter Murch’s sound effects tell a story all their own in this film, constantly putting the titular conversation in new and interesting contexts. And certain faults—subtle amounts of hiss, crackle and the occasionally excessive attenuation of dialogue—ingeniously add to the overall mystery of the plot. The Blu-ray offers a choice between a skillful surround remix supervised by Murch for the DVD in 2000 and the original theatrical mono, both in lossless. The purist in me says that the “theatrical” audio—which is crisp and defined—is the preferable choice, simply because it’s the way the film was original experienced in 1974. But the truth is, the differences between Murch’s remix, encoded in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/24-bit/~3.4 Mbps), and the mono, in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz/24-bit/~1.9 Mbps), are slight, if at all noticeable for the worse. The remix is exceptionally well done and remains faithful to front-focused nature of the film’s monaural origins, while expanding the scope of the soundtrack with greater dimensionality and an effectual spreading of David Shire’s jazz and piano score to the rears. Either mix reflects Murch’s incredibly unique design and both tracks sound great, so the choice is yours to make. Optional English and Spanish subtitles have also been included.
Extras
The new Blu-ray release of “The Conversation” includes all of the significant extras from the old Paramount DVD: two audio commentaries, a featurette and the theatrical trailer. Coppola and special features producer James Mockoski have also dug up a number of new—or, perhaps more correctly, old—treasures from the Zoetrope archives for the disc, including screen tests, a short film, archival material and more. This is a surprisingly thorough package, with really only one thing—an in-depth retrospective documentary—missing. All of the content is encoded in HD, in varying aspect ratios and resolution where noted, although a few are sourced from decidedly ragged elements. For the record, the disc includes optional bookmarks and is authored with the resume playback function. Of particular note are the disc’s two excellent audio commentaries. The first commentary track, with writer/director Francis Ford Coppola, is a thorough and enlightening listen. Coppola talks about the early days of his career, his writing process, where “The Conversation” fits in his personal history, the structure of the screenplay and the character of Harry Caul, before diving right into the gritty details of casting, directing, editing and producing the film. Of note are Coppola’s comments about Haskell Wexler—the film’s original cinematographer (who also served as a visual consultant on the Coppola-produced “American Graffiti” (1973)), and a disagreement Coppola had with him after completion of the elaborate opening sequence, which ultimately led to Wexler’s replacement by Bill Butler—as well as the vital contributions from editor and sound supervisor Walter Murch, Coppola’s thoughts on the finished product (it’s tied with “Rumble Fish” (1983) as the favorite of his own films), the difficulties in getting financing in Hollywood and the ultimate creative freedom one has after a huge success like he did with the “The Godfather” (1971). The second audio commentary with editor Walter Murch is a more subdued, if still interesting, discussion. Murch—who also served as sound supervisor on the film—created many of the distinct effects heard in the soundtrack from scratch, giving “The Conversation” one of the most unique “voices” in all of cinema. Murch talks about his contributions, thoughts on the importance of sound in telling a story, and the shaping of the final product in the edit room, where he and Coppola took a straightforwardly filmed screenplay and turned it into the brilliantly paranoid thriller on screen. “Close Up on ‘The Conversation’” (1.33:1 1080p, 8 minutes 39 seconds) is a vintage featurette, circa 1974, with on set interviews from Coppola and Hackman. The director talks about editing and the script; the actor talks about his character and taking direction. The piece also includes behind the scenes footage of filming several scenes. Two dusty, if interesting, screen tests from the Zoetrope vault have also been included. First, “Cindy Williams Screen Test” footage (1.33:1 1080p, 5 minutes 2 seconds) has the actress reading for the part of Harry’s girlfriend Amy, the character played by Teri Garr in the finished film. Second is “Harrison Ford Screen Test” footage (1.33:1 1080p, 6 minutes 45 seconds). Ford reads for the role of Mark, which eventually went to Frederic Forrest. Both 16mm reels are from November 1972 and, although technically encoded in HD, are in pretty rough shape. In a featurette filmed in 2011, Coppola discusses his earliest short film, “No Cigar” (1080i, 2 minutes 26 seconds). Excerpts from the short—which he shot in 1956 on 16mm when he was just 17—are shown as the director talks about the film, featuring his uncle Clarence as a lonely, introspective, single man (a character not unlike Harry Caul). Another featurette, titled “Harry Caul’s San Francisco: Then & Now” (2.00:1 widescreen 1080p, 3 minutes 43 seconds), is a comparison between several locations seen in the film—shot in 1973—and how they appear now, in 2011. What’s interesting isn’t how different, but rather unchanged many of the locations are. “David Shire Interviewed by Francis Ford Coppola” (1.78:1 1080p, 10 minutes 57 seconds) is a featurette with the composer and director talking about the score for “The Conversation”. Originally recorded in 1973, “Archival Gene Hackman Interview” (1.33:1 1080p, 4 minutes 4 seconds) is a featurette with Hackman discussing the character of Harry Caul, talking about little things he learned on set—like how to play a few riffs on the saxophone and how to pick a lock (or at least convincingly pretend)—and Coppola’s directing style. “A year before shooting began on ‘The Conversation’, Francis Ford Coppola sat with a recorder in the Café Trieste” in San Francisco and dictated the entire screenplay.” So reads the text that introduces what is undoubtedly the most surprising special feature on the entire disc, modestly called “Script Dictations From Francis Ford Coppola” (1080p, 49 minutes 23 seconds, play all). Far more than the plain audio-only feature I was expecting, this lengthy, multi-part documentary includes several excepts from Coppola’s tapes, played over production and location stills, pages from his completed script and even clips from the film. This extra is definitely worth spending some time with. It’s split into 6 chapters, or scenes, including: - "Opening Sequence" - "The Life of Harry Caul [Deleted Scene]" - "The Convention" - "Introduction to Frank Lovista" - "Jack Tar Hotel" - "Police Station Ending [Deleted Alternate Ending]" The film’s theatrical trailer (1.85:1 1080p, 2 minutes 50 seconds) is a tattered old relic with cheesy narration. Although the disc is delightfully free of pre-menu bonus trailers—more preferably loading directly to the main menu—a few bonus trailers from the American Zoetrope and Lionsgate Films catalogs can be found in a section of the menu called “Also from Lionsgate” (1080p). Trailers include: - “Apocalypse Now” on Blu-ray (2.35:1 1080p, 1 minute 30 seconds). - “Tetro” on Blu-ray (2.35:1 1080p, 2 minutes 38 seconds). - “The Conspirator” on Blu-ray and DVD (2.40:1 1080p, 2 minutes 34 seconds). - “Biutiful” on Blu-ray and DVD (2.35:1 1080p, 2 minute 3 seconds). - “Memento: 10th Anniversary Special Edition” on Blu-ray (2.35:1 1080p, 1 minute 50 seconds). - EPIX HD promo (1080i, 1 minute 57 seconds).
Packaging
“The Conversation” comes to Blu-ray from American Zoetrope and Lionsgate Home Entertainment. Contrary to some reports, the film is pressed onto a dual layer BD-50 and is Region A locked. The Blu-ray is packaged simply, in an Elite eco-case, with no frills and has attractive—if decidedly modern—cover and disc art.
Overall
“The Conversation” earns my highest recommendation. It’s really no more complex than that. The film is a masterpiece—an under-appreciated, overshadowed and comparatively rarely seen masterpiece—from the best year of writer/director Francis Ford Coppola’s most successful period. The Blu-ray from Zoetrope and Lionsgate is excellent, with faithful audio and video and a bounty of worthwhile extras. In my opinion, this is a must own release and the Blu-ray belongs in any true cinephile’s collection.
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