I saw this classic last two days ago...It was only ok for me...
But here are the studies I did on them.
Genre:
I would say that The Conversation, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, was a mystery thriller, despite many other genres listed on IMDB. I felt this way because from what I saw the first time (I plan on watching it once more), those two were what I knew more about and was more familiar with their story formulas, scene convention, and iconic shots. The story consisted of one main character that was secretive from the inner point of view in the world which the story took place but clearly known from audience’s eyes, and many other characters you didn’t know too much about until the last few minutes of the movie. The way Coppola created the scenes was quite identical to other films in these genres. One good example of the scene convention in The Conversation would be the murder that took place in a hotel room next to the main character’s own. The iconic shots were almost everywhere in the film. The surveillance tools were the symbol of secrets, deception, and the encounter to a violation of the secrets.
Binary Oppositions (Dualism):
The dualism in The Conversation was displayed by two very different groups of people-the secret keepers and the secret seekers. Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) was the top secret seeker in his world and his work had once directly led to the murder of three people. Cindy Williams, the secret keeper was the employee of a company whose leader was planned to be murdered by her character, Ann. Harry was once a killer in the past as he considered himself in the story but later played a life saver in the story. Oppositely, Ann was portrayed as a nice-looking, nice girl in the beginning of the film but later on she was the murder of her boss. There were some very strong and clear contrasts between characters.
Mimicry and Catharsis:
In the movie The Conversation, there were also several social controversies but the one that was the most emphasized was the surveillance industry. Back when the movie was made in 1974, the industry began to sprout. Director then showed us how far the technology might go in the future, what moralities that came with it were, and the most important of all: the possible criminal use of it. He also made it seem so mysterious by using many unusual artificial sound effects when the tools were operated that made me think he was trying to convey a negative image of surveillance. Francis Coppola indeed had become a pioneer to show these to his audience and made them think about it when they headed home from theaters.
Auteurism:
Not having seen many of the Coppola collection, I have seen the possibly most important one- Apocalypse Now (1979). Although now I am going backwards, meaning that The Conversation (1974) was made before Apocalypse Now, I might be wrong but I now think that Francis Coppola displayed his favor of a mixture of sound and images in his films, especially the well-reviewed ones. In the famous opening scene of Apocalypse Now, he mixed the sound of helicopter and the fan on the ceiling and in The Conversation, he mixed the flushing toilet with the sound of Harry’s surveillance advices. He used our ability to understand multiple meanings of a mixture of image and sound very well.
Marxism:
The script of The Conversation also discussed about Marxism. The story told us about two employees rebelled against their boss of the same company. It implied the central philosophy of Marxism that encouraged the weaker, or the less-powered to rise against the stronger and the powered. Being made in the 70s, an era in which American public was still taught to fight communism in many ways, the film set an image of “the bad guys” on those who planned to murder their employer instead of setting Harry as the sneaker, or even an ID thief. However, if this film was made nowadays, it would be totally different as we think differently. But yes, Marxism was implemented in the script and well countered.
