This is sort of the inverse of what Fassbinder did in his adaptation of Nabokov's Despair, where the main character thinks another character is his double, when we the viewers can see that they don't look especially similar. In the novel, their dissimilarity isn't revealed until the end, because we only have the main character's perception to rely on.
― Halfway there but for you, Sunday, 16 January 2022 02:47 (two years ago) link
...until that point.
― Halfway there but for you, Sunday, 16 January 2022 02:48 (two years ago) link
Didn’t other people in the film hear the tape the same “erroneous” way that Harry did?
That's a good question, and I'd have to check. (One of those films I've seen so many times, I basically stay away now; last time was 10 years ago or so, with David Shire speaking.) My guess is that we don't know how they're hearing it, but if you're right, there goes my theory.
Can you give me an example of a continuity error in one of the Godfathers, Josh? I can't think of one off-hand, but maybe you're right. ("The scene where they refer to him as 'Skinny Clemenza,' and Coppola forgot to fix that.")
― clemenza, Sunday, 16 January 2022 03:26 (two years ago) link
(Is there anyone other than Stan who hears the recording?)
― clemenza, Sunday, 16 January 2022 03:27 (two years ago) link
I stand corrected on The Godfather!
https://www.moviemistakes.com/film544
Favorite: "When Luca Brasi is practicing his speech he is wearing a square faced watch. When he gives his speech to the godfather he's wearing a round faced watch."
― clemenza, Sunday, 16 January 2022 03:34 (two years ago) link
Stan plays the tape to the whole roomful of people at the party at Harry’s workshop, though I’m not sure if he plays *that bit* of the tape before Harry angrily stops him
― Josefa, Sunday, 16 January 2022 04:02 (two years ago) link
Pretty sure I can answer that from memory: when it gets to the key line, Harry and Meredith are dancing in another room. She hears it, but pretty sure she doesn't comment.
Anyway, all our answers are here. Seems like the line reading was an accident, but it was definitely left in purposefully. (Love listening to Murch--he's like George Martin talking on the Beatles.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2RRaw08og8
― clemenza, Sunday, 16 January 2022 04:08 (two years ago) link
Dumbest reader comment, #6: "Idk man both sentences means the same thing."
― clemenza, Sunday, 16 January 2022 04:17 (two years ago) link
Interesting. The implications of Meredith hearing the line, which I didn’t notice (and which on a first viewing one would never consider), are intriguing.
― Josefa, Sunday, 16 January 2022 04:20 (two years ago) link
i think the only time I saw it in the theater (as opposed to numerous times on VHS or DVD) was a festival screening where Murch did a talk and Q&A at the end). His book on editing was required reading in grad school.
― sarahell, Sunday, 16 January 2022 06:52 (two years ago) link
This really has me interested right now, something I'd never thought about, so I'm going to give this another look. I think I messed up my recollection of the Meredith scene above, too ("Pretty sure I can answer that from memory..."--wrong), although what I'm remembering might happen during the night, after they've slept together but before she steals the tapes and leaves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_qJatkqdAo
― clemenza, Sunday, 16 January 2022 16:18 (two years ago) link
I’ll always welcome an excuse to see this again.
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 16 January 2022 17:00 (two years ago) link
So: You hear the key line four times in the film, the first three times as "us," the last as "us."
1) Harry alone in his workshop; Stan has just cleared out after their argument. (Stan never hears the key line.)
2) With Meredith, the night of the party. Not like I described above, when they're dancing; it's after everyone else has left, after Harry gets angry at Moran's pen-recording. Meredith is coaxing Harry into bed, agreeing with everything he says; there's nothing that indicates how she's hearing the line (if she's paying attention at all).
3) With the director and Martin Stett, when Harry picks up payment. Early on, the suggestion is that "us is how Stett and the director hear the line too--the director's "You want it to be true" only makes sense if he thinks he's the target--but when the line actually comes, and Harry asks what he's going to do to them, the director doesn't respond; he doesn't say anything that indicates he's hearing the line differently than Harry.
4) In Harry's mind, after the murder, as he pieces everything together.
I don't think there's anything that contradicts the interpretation I give above. I think that's the only logical interpretation, underscored by that Murch clip. I don't know why Coppola second-guessed himself; thematically, it'd be a less interesting film if the same inflection were used the whole way through.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 06:13 (two years ago) link
Plenty to chew on here!
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/540b22a1e4b0d0f549866135/t/58fe57799de4bb6494158e2d/1493063553867/The_Conversation_SCREENPLAY.pdf
― piscesx, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 08:03 (two years ago) link
my favourite part was
CLOSE VIEW OF THE MUSICIANS 4on!Q& hem puts down his instrumen and does a ?ro licb.ng tap dance. DllNGeK o« D1tNcG D itriEC rDlf ·
― Ste, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 11:25 (two years ago) link
Just skimmed that screenplay--looks like the order of things was radically changed.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 13:42 (two years ago) link
The American Zoetrope-related films had a real murderer's row of film editors!
― mh, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 15:09 (two years ago) link
Use to have a friend, or acquaintance at least, that worked there for a bit/pvmic
― Tapioca Tumbril (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 19 January 2022 15:19 (two years ago) link
No saxophone playing in the final shot of that screenplay!
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 15:24 (two years ago) link
I think there's a thread on ILM somewhere for movies with playing-records scenes; I can rattle off a dozen or two. Add The Conversation; first time Harry plays sax in his apartment, there's a shot of his turntable and the record he's playing along to.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 15:32 (two years ago) link
That scene does appear in the screenplay, it seems stranded without the "payoff" at the end.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 15:35 (two years ago) link
If only they'd had the technology back then Murch could've done a Yanni/Laurel thing with the key line
― Josefa, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 15:42 (two years ago) link
"He'd kill us if he had the chance... MACLUNKEY!"
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Wednesday, 19 January 2022 16:21 (two years ago) link
What was happening outside the window behind Caul, when he’s gotten home and is calling his landlady? This is near the beginning.
Saw this again on the big screen tonight.
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 14 April 2022 02:21 (two years ago) link
It was a different film this time (this was the 4th or 5th time I saw it and the second time in a theater) - more about a wounded man trying so hard to control and hide himself from the world around him that the world wounds him (as opposed to a sinister conspiracy or a surveillance fable).
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 14 April 2022 02:22 (two years ago) link
Poster I made up for my second attempt at launching a Film Night in my small town. The first night--Sweet Smell of Success--one person showed up! (Me plus one other person, just to be clear.)
https://phildellio.tripod.com/conversation.jpg
― clemenza, Wednesday, 30 November 2022 02:32 (one year ago) link
great movie, and very cool you’re doing that! i’d suggest using an image from the movie though. at first glance this flyer looks like it’s advertising social media platforms
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 30 November 2022 08:56 (one year ago) link
Thanks. I did one with the original movie poster, too--with the screening details in a little box in the corner--and that's the one I posted around town. This was just an extra thing I linked to on FB, trying to explain why I thought the film was a relevant as ever.
It's really hard to launch this kind of thing in a small town. This Thursday I have to compete with the annual library book sale and a small get-together for the tennis club (which will be attended by all of 10 people or so--but cost me two people who said they'd be there).
― clemenza, Wednesday, 30 November 2022 11:30 (one year ago) link
If you go from an audience of one to an audience of two, is that incremental or exponential growth? It's both--I love math!
Having seen this so many, many times, something I think I noticed for the first time tonight (and only because it's the first time I've ever watched it was captions--it'd be easy to miss otherwise): Nixon is mentioned by name once, at a crucial moment.
― clemenza, Friday, 2 December 2022 02:34 (one year ago) link
was = with
Just noticed it was #72 on the directors' list, so that's heartening.
― clemenza, Friday, 2 December 2022 03:45 (one year ago) link
Nixon is mentioned by name once, at a crucial moment.
Oh yeah ... I remembered that bit from the first time I saw it, but then I kinda associate this film with Nixon and that era of "paranoid film" ... I think I probably saw it for the first time in a thematic week along with All the Presidents Men so ... (I think I've only seen it 4-5 times though)
― sarahell, Friday, 2 December 2022 06:03 (one year ago) link
The image flashed by quickly, but I think it might have even been Coppola himself who says it (although not having come across mention of this before seems unlikely).
― clemenza, Friday, 2 December 2022 13:26 (one year ago) link
hey clemenza, thanks for your email! I appreciated it!
― sarahell, Monday, 17 July 2023 17:48 (nine months ago) link
You knew what thread I'd open for sure.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 18 July 2023 00:59 (nine months ago) link
From Sam Wasson's The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story (which I'm not especially liking--for the 57th time, Coppola the crazed genius lost in the jungle):
The first cut of The Conversation was extremely long, close to five hours.
I usually name The Conversation as the closest any film has ever gotten for me to perfection. There's one of Elizabeth MacRae's lines that always sounds off to me, otherwise there isn't a line or a moment elsewhere I'd change. So in no way would I expect longer to be better, or even close. But if this cut still exists--highly doubtful--I sure would love to have a chance to see it.
― clemenza, Friday, 19 January 2024 04:01 (three months ago) link
Half the cut footage is different readings of <the line> and the other half is Gene wailing on sax.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, 19 January 2024 04:08 (three months ago) link
I saw a bunch of people on Twitter saying how unnecessary the sax scene at the end was and finally lost my last bit of faith
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 19 January 2024 04:12 (three months ago) link
I'm thinking of "These pretzels are making me thirsty from Seinfeld"; every possible permutation of "He'd kill us if he got the chance."
Yeah, that's bizarre--that final scene is so crucial. Makes me think of Google/Facebook when I watch it now.
― clemenza, Friday, 19 January 2024 04:23 (three months ago) link
Move that end quote...