In- depth analysis, research, news and ideas from leading academics and researchers. Andy Price, Sheffield Hallam University. It's not disrespecting the result of the referendum to criticise the government . But this James Joyce expert is fully in support. Kevin Theakston, University of Leeds. We know what the politicians think about the experts . Gregory, Goldsmiths, University of London. Lie awake and you could be playing havoc with your amygdala. We are so happy to hear that you enjoyed the film! Here is another one of my. I have been having my own conversations. I logged on to Gaiam TV and the first thing that caught my attention was Conversations With God. My Conversation With a Deep State Whistleblower. Click here to listen to my conversation with Mike Lofgren. His first documentary film is Broke. Join me tonight on PBS for my conversation with award-winning filmmaker Robert Greenwald. He has exec-produced and/or directed more than 50 TV movies, miniseries and feature films. Through his company, Brave New Films, he also.
Lee Jones, Queen Mary University of London. Thailand's supposedly beloved king was a useful tool for some of his country's most unpleasant regimes. Emily Nordmann, University of Aberdeen. What research tells us about the ripest Anglo Saxon. Parental Advisory: explicit content. Ioannis Glinavos, University of Westminster. Here's what the law says. Anita Malhotra, Bangor University. We should be worried about the adder. The Conversation - Wikipedia. The Conversation is a 1. American psychologicalmysterythriller film written, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Gene Hackman with supporting roles by John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Cindy Williams, Frederic Forrest, Harrison Ford, Teri Garr and Robert Duvall. The plot revolves around a surveillance expert and the moral dilemma he faces when his recordings reveal a potential murder. Coppola cited the 1. Blowup as a key influence. However, since the film was released to theaters just a few months before Richard Nixon resigned as President, he felt that audiences interpreted the film to be a reaction to the Watergate scandal. The Conversation won the Palme d'Or at the 1. Cannes Film Festival. In 1. 99. 5, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being . Paramount retains American rights to this day but international rights are now held by Miramax Films and Studio. Canal in conjunction with American Zoetrope. Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is a surveillance expert who runs his own company in San Francisco. He is highly respected by others in the profession. Caul is obsessed with his own privacy; his apartment is almost bare behind its triple- locked door and burglar alarm, he uses pay phones to make calls, claims to have no home telephone and his office is enclosed in wire mesh in a corner of a much larger warehouse. Caul is utterly professional at work but finds personal contact extremely difficult because he is intensely secretive about even the most trivial aspects of his life. Dense crowds make him feel uncomfortable and he is withdrawn and taciturn in more intimate social situations. He is also reticent and obsessively secretive with colleagues. His appearance is nondescript, except for his habit of wearing a translucent grey plastic raincoat almost everywhere he goes, even when it is not raining. Despite Caul's insistence that his professional code means that he is not responsible for the actual content of the conversations he records or the use to which his clients put his surveillance activities, he is wracked by guilt over a past wiretap job which resulted in the murder of three people. This sense of guilt is amplified by his devout Catholicism. His one hobby is playing along to jazz records on a tenor saxophone in the privacy of his apartment. Caul, his colleague Stan (John Cazale) and some freelance associates have taken on the task of bugging the conversation of a couple (Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest) as they walk through crowded Union Square in San Francisco, surrounded by a cacophony of background noise. Amid the small- talk, the couple discuss fears that they are being watched, and mention a discreet meeting at a hotel room in a few days. The challenging task of recording this conversation is accomplished by multiple surveillance operatives located in different positions around the square. After Caul has worked his magic on merging and filtering different tapes, the final result is a sound recording in which the words themselves become crystal clear, but their actual meaning remains ambiguous. Although Caul cannot understand the true meaning of the conversation, he finds the cryptic nuances and emotional undercurrents contained within it deeply troubling. Sensing danger, Caul feels increasingly uneasy about what may happen to the couple once the client hears the tape. He plays the tape again and again throughout the movie, gradually refining its accuracy. He concentrates on one key phrase hidden under the sound of a street musician: . Caul constantly reinterprets the speakers' subtle emphasis on particular words in this phrase, trying to figure out their meaning in the light of what he suspects and subsequently discovers. Caul avoids handing in the tape to the aide (Harrison Ford) of the man who commissioned the surveillance (Robert Duvall). Afterwards, he finds himself under increasing pressure from the client's aide and is himself followed, tricked, and bugged. The tape of the conversation is eventually stolen from him in a moment when his guard is down. Tormented by guilt over what he fears will happen to the couple, Caul's desperate efforts to forestall tragedy fail. To Caul's surprise, it turns out that the conversation he had obsessed over might not mean what he thought it did: the tragedy he had anticipated is not the one which eventually occurs. He is led to believe that his own apartment has been bugged and goes on a frantic search for the listening device, tearing up walls and floorboards and destroying his apartment to no avail. He sits among the wreckage, playing the only thing in his apartment left intact: his saxophone. Production. Coppola has said this is the reason the film gained part of the recognition it has received, but that this is entirely coincidental. Not only was the script for The Conversation completed in the mid- 1. Nixon Administration came to power) but the spying equipment used in the film was discovered through research and the use of technical advisers and not, as many believed, by revelatory newspaper stories about the Watergate break- in. Coppola also noted that filming of The Conversation had been completed several months before the most revelatory Watergate stories broke in the press. Since the film was released to theaters just a few months before Richard Nixon resigned as President, Coppola felt that audiences interpreted the film to be a reaction to both the Watergate scandal and its fall- out. The original cinematographer of The Conversation was Haskell Wexler. Severe creative and personal differences with Coppola led to Wexler's firing shortly after production began and Coppola replaced him with Bill Butler. Wexler's footage on The Conversation was completely reshot, except for the technically complex surveillance scene in Union Square. Murch had more or less a free hand during the editing process, since Coppola was already working on The Godfather Part II at the time. Coppola says that Hackman was at the time an outgoing and approachable person who preferred casual clothes, whereas Caul was meant to be a socially awkward loner who wore a rain coat and out- of- style glasses. Coppola said that Hackman's efforts to tap into the character made the actor moody and irritable on- set but otherwise Coppola got along well with his leading man. Coppola also notes on the commentary that Hackman considers this one of his favorite performances. The Conversation features a piano score composed and performed by David Shire. The score was created before the film was shot. The score was released on CD by Intrada Records in 2. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards for 1. Gene Hackman has said it's his favorite of all the films he's made. Influence. Martin's notes for the CD stress that he used no audio samples from the film. According to film critic Kim Newman, the 1. Enemy of the State, which also stars Gene Hackman as co- protagonist, could be construed as a . Enemy of the State also includes a scene which is highly similar to The Conversation's opening surveillance scene in San Francisco's Union Square. Stafford, Jeff The Conversation (TCM article)^Townsend, Sylvia (1. December 2. 01. 4). Retrieved 2 March 2. Intrada Special Collection Volume 2^Movie Reviews Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes^Ebert, Roger (1. Retrieved 2 October 2. From Film: a critical introduction^. Retrieved 2. 0 June 2.
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