The Conversation

Name: The Conversation
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Released: 1974-04-12T00:00:00+00:00
Rating: 7.5

1974 · TMDB 7.5

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.

Why it matters

Gene Hackman plays a surveillance expert whose obsession with a recording spirals into paranoia. A masterclass in using sound as a narrative device.

From The Art of Listening

Follow this film into “The Art of Listening”

Gene Hackman John Cazale Allen Garfield Frederic Forrest Cindy Williams Michael Higgins Elizabeth MacRae Teri Garr Harrison Ford Mark Wheeler Robert Shields Phoebe Alexander

Director · Francis Ford Coppola Producer · Francis Ford Coppola Writer · Francis Ford Coppola Cinematography · Bill Butler Cinematography · Haskell Wexler Composer · David Shire Editor · Richard Chew

Runtime: 115 min
Released: 1974-04-12
Studio: The Directors Company
Country: United States of America
Language: English
TMDB score: 7.5

Crime Mystery Drama

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The Art of Listening

Position 1 of 7

Gene Hackman plays a surveillance expert whose obsession with a recording spirals into paranoia. A masterclass in using sound as a narrative device.

Love in the Time of Espionage

Position 3 of 7

A surveillance expert becomes obsessed with a recording he made of a couple, convinced that his work will lead to their murder.

The Architecture of Obsession: Cinema of the Fixated Mind

Position 2 of 8

Coppola's surveillance thriller follows audio surveillance expert Harry Caul, whose obsessive need to control his environment and uncover a hidden truth unravels his sanity. The film's layered sound design, muffled dialogue, tape hiss, and reverb, becomes a direct conduit to Harr...