I Like to Watch: Voyeurism in Cinema
Francis Ford Coppola's paranoid thriller follows a secretive surveillance expert having a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered. 50th anniversary screening.
This tense, paranoid thriller presents Francis Ford Coppola at his finest—and makes some remarkably advanced arguments about technology's role in society that still resonate today. Surveillance expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is hired by a mysterious client's brusque aide (Harrison Ford) to tail a young couple, Mark (Frederic Forrest) and Ann (Cindy Williams). Tracking the pair through San Francisco's Union Square, Caul and his associate Stan (John Cazale) manage to record a cryptic conversation between them. Tormented by memories of a previous case that ended badly, Caul becomes obsessed with the resulting tape, trying to determine if the couple are in danger. [113 min; thriller, drama; English]
"As a thriller alone, The Conversation would be worth our attention. But as a thriller which also expresses our actual and collective nightmares, it absolutely demands it." — Joy Gould Boyum, Wall Street Journal
"The Conversation truly feels both timeless and of the moment." — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
"Set against a claustrophobic backdrop of post-Watergate paranoia, Coppola's favourite of his films hinges on the intonation of a single word." — Ed Potton, Times UK
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