Vice is a much more in tune movie-wise with the premise of this blog, however the reason I am not writing about it, is this: It's thematically and stylistically similar to Lucio Fulci's The Black Cat, it's a Edgar Allen Poe short story, it's a giallo, filmed by Sergio Martino, and if that doesn't tell you it's a very average 4 star movie, I don't know what would. Doesn't need a review in other words.
Instead, I feel like giving a big applauding clap to The Conversation. I watched this last night, in the mood for a character piece. I had seen The Conversation in film study in high school- I remember so many of those movies still. It is amazing, because when you are tuned in to movies the way I am, when that's your focus, when you're a cinefile, you just get a memory for these things. I saw this movie about 16 years ago, and I still remembered it being amazing and different, and upon rewatch I found I hadn't even liked it enough.
Gene Hackman stars in The Conversation. He spins out a character who is a mid 40's detective. This is a bit of a throwback character, the detective, and director Francis Ford Coppola does a fantastic job of giving this character and indeed this whole idea a retro, but necessary feel. He is a man from a different era, holding on by sheer wile and smarts. Any other man in his shoes would have been swept up by the changing times, but he's the best of the best, and he taps a conversation in the beginning of the film. Shot in a intriguing, slow building way, we see the genius of Hackman's character Harry Caul's eavesdropping methods, and we record a couple's conversation.
As Harry deconstructs the conversation, we learn more about him. Harry begins to have an obsession with the conversation as he slowly reveals to us his desperation, his loneliness, his inner struggle, and the nature of himself. Throughout the film, we see many examples of the ways he is different from others. He dresses a bit off, always wearing an opaque raincoat and large glasses. He's a person whose career has taken over his life, and he lives a high tension, suspicious lifestyle.
This is a movie where the pacing is everything. This is masterful filmmaking because it's a movie where it is long, at about 2 hours, not much happens, and it doesn't move quickly, yet it never once feels uninteresting or overstaying. It keeps you intrigued, whether in the character, in the plot, in the side characters, or simply to see how it will all turn out. The reveals at the end are not too rushed, they're not too clunky, and they are simple and apparent. This is the type of film which likes to knock at it's main character, wringing them out again and again, and in the end I really wondered what was next for poor ol' Harry Caul.
Nominated for multiple Academy Awards, it was passed up in favor of The Godfather Part II. Which is fine I guess, since it was still Coppola, but where was the win for Gene Hackman? This is a type of acting which you just don't see anymore. His character is bubbling out everything imaginable at all times. He's charismatic yet withdrawn, a master yet fragile, he's scared and paranoid but always in control, he's dynamic as all get out, and it's such a minimally verbal part as well. He isn't quiet, but not outspoken, he's both everything and nothing, and it's a work of absolute genius.
This is a well known great movie, on many top lists, and it's obvious why.
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