Search - The Conversation on DVD

MPAA Rating: PG Content Advisory: Adult Situations, Questionable for Children, Adult Language Movie Release: 1974 DVD Release: 12/12/2000 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV Audio Tracks: English, French Subtitles: English SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 53 mins Studio: Paramount Members Wishing: 2 Genres: Thriller, Psychological Thriller, Paranoid Thriller

Made between The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), and in part an homage to Michelangelo Antonioni's art-movie classic Blow-Up (1966), The Conversation was a return to small-scale art films for Francis Ford Coppola. Sound surveillance expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is hired to track a young couple (Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest), taping their conversation as they walk through San Francisco's crowded Union Square. Knowing full well how technology can invade privacy, Harry obsessively keeps to himself, separating business from his personal life, even refusing to discuss what he does or where he lives with his girlfriend, Amy (Teri Garr). Harry's work starts to trouble him, however, as he comes to believe that the conversation he pieced together reveals a plot by the mysterious corporate "Director" who hired him to murder the couple. After he allows himself to be seduced by a call girl, who then steals the tapes, Harry is all the more convinced that a killing will occur, and he can no longer separate his job from his conscience. Coppola, cinematographer Bill Butler, and Oscar-nominated sound editor Walter Murch convey the narrative through Harry's aural and visual experience, beginning with the slow opening zoom of Union Square accompanied by the alternately muddled and clear sound of the couple's conversation caught by Harry's microphones. The Godfather Part II and The Conversation earned Coppola a rare pair of Oscar nominations for Best Picture, as well as two nominations for Best Screenplay (The Godfather Part II won both). Praised by critics, The Conversation was not a popular hit, but it has since come to be seen as one of the artistic high points of the decade, as well as of Coppola's career. Its atmosphere of paranoia and suspicion, combined with its obsessive loner antihero, made it prototypical of the darker "American art movies" of the early '70s, as its audiotape storyline also made it seem eerily appropriate for the era of the Watergate scandal. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Gene Hackman - Harry Caul
John Cazale - Stanley
Allen Garfield - William P. "Bernie" Moran
Frederic Forrest - Mark
Cindy Williams - Ann

One of the defining movies of the 1970s, Paramount gives The Conversation the kind of excellent DVD release that it merits. The widescreen anamorphic transfer is excellent and showcases Bill Butler's moody, naturalistic camerawork. Walter Murch remixed his highly creative sound design for the DVD, and the resulting Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track is excellent. The multi-talented Murch and writer/director Francis Ford Coppola also contribute interesting and always-engaging commentary tracks for the DVD. While movie fans will enjoy these commentaries, they also really allow filmmakers and students deep insight into multiple levels of creative choices that were made during all stages of the movie. The Conversation is a brilliant movie and it receives the stellar treatment it deserves on this DVD. ~ Nick Dedina, All Movie Guide