ViewGuide

Created Feb 10, 2015 09:39PM PST • Edited Mar 11, 2015 10:58PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   The Conversation was one of Francis Ford Coppola’s celebrated early Seventies movies, nominated for Best Picture and winner of the Palme d’Or. Deeply accomplished, occasionally fascinating, a time capsule of San Francisco from 1973, it nonetheless disappoints all these decades later.

   The minimalist plot simply lacks heft and is bizarrely unbelievable at a crucial juncture.

   Yet the movie has much to recommend it, including Gene Hackman’s tortured turn as a conflicted snoop, Coppola’s early exploration of electronic snooping, and the use of many San Francisco landmarks.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Gene Hackman’s twitchy performance as a profoundly awkward man never strikes a false note. He too was on a roll during this period, with The Conversation coming two years after he won the Best Actor Oscar for The French Connection.

   Harrison Ford is the most notable of the supporting players. Ford wasn’t yet a star, but certainly had a star’s presence as the nefarious aide-de-camp to a powerful man.

   Other Supporters

   • John Cazale only appeared in five movies before being struck down by cancer, including The Conversation, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, all three famously directed by Coppola.
   • Allen Garfield is perfectly overbearing as a commercial rival to Hackman
   • Cindy Williams – more known as a TV comedy star – is fine in a small but pivotal dramatic role.
   • Frederic Forrest has 83 IMDb acting credits, and counts The Conversation as one of his Known For’s, which is interesting since his role is pivotal but small and unremarkable.
   • Teri Garr is rather odd looking in her one scene, but then the whole movie is odd.
   • Robert Duvall is quietly powerful in a small but pivotal role. Of course.

   Some of the extras were poorly cast, including a silver-haired party girl who simply didn’t look the part.

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars OK 2.5

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    Francis Ford Coppola’s disquisition into urban ennui is jazzy and downbeat. What’s most interesting about it today is how it explores man and his electronic devices, anticipating today’s world of personal devices, with their attendant loss of privacy. Back then, reel-to-reel was the epitome of high tech.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Barely OK 2.0

    Amongst the screenplay’s deficiencies, its protagonist goes to great lengths to position himself near an incipient murder, succeeds, but then collapses in a nervous heap, a reaction that simply rings false.

13. Music Good 3.0

14. Visuals Great 4.0

    Terrific San Francisco settings

    • The famous opening scene spies down on Union Square.
    • The then new Embarcadero Center houses the fancy offices where much of the intrigue occurs.
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.0

17. Sex Innocent 1.2

18. Violence Brutal 2.6

19. Rudeness Salty 2.3

21. Reality

    Glib 1.5

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.4

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0