Francis Ford Coppola’s unhinged conspiracy masterpiece The Conversation was first released in 1974.
The film was riding on the wave of the cultural Zeitgeist at the time, which was highly critical of government corruption after Watergate, The Pentagon Papers, and the failure of the Vietnam War.
Numerous films from the period captivated this critical and rebellious sentiment such as The Parallax View, Klute, All the Presidents Men, and Three Days of the Condor among others.
But none of these films illustrated the effects of surveillance on the individual as thoroughly as The Conversation.
This is a film about watching, and listening, and how that experience changes the protagonist.
Coppola’s film is a taut character study that focuses on the effects of surveillance on a surveillance expert.
This is Coppola at the absolute peak of his artistic powers, and every shot seems to pack a potent cinematic punch.
Coppola’s…
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