Coppola's _The Conversation_

At least you didn't say One From the Heart. Useless trivia -- Coppola was the guest on Letterman's first late night show, talking about said film.

Well, except for Rumble Fish, which I like a lot, much more than the really lame and overpraised Outsiders.

also the payphone where that kid with the eyebrows is bleeding from the gut, is one i've used many a time.

i find it really hard to focus in movies that are filmed in locales i know. i'm too busy looking for landmarks.

Another one I rented the other night and forgot just what a great film it was: Network. Perhaps the best, mainstream black comedy of the 70s.

Jack - an appalling sentimental film I believe made because a nephew of Coppola's had this incredibly rare condition of growing up to be Robin Williams - or something.

Coppola's commentary comes through again! I don't recall all the exact details, but he said he was building off the theme of the convention and how with conventions there's usually a chance for people who, say, haven't seen each other for a year to let their hair down, go do something 'crazy,' stuff like that. Which is true enough, based on my one or two English lit academic conference experiences. So it's there for a reason, as well as advancing specific plot points [more details about Caul's previous case that has left him so guilt-ridden, the eventual theft of the tape] and outlining Caul's character some more -- at once private and open, swinging from complete control to semi- tearful confession to manic showoff and back again. That sudden tight camera shot when he realizes he's been bugged with the pen while off- screen you can hear laughter and merriment from the other partygoers = brilliant.

i think it's a terrific film about how a certain kind of smart person turns into a jerky mcjerk idiot — which i don't think is a sepcially deep theme, tho i do think it's a good one — that THINKS it's a revelatory film about THE POLITICS OF HOW WE ALL CANNOT UNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER EVERYTHING IS AMBIGUITY and DECEPTION BLAH BLAH. You're right abt use of sound, depth, everything in terms of fab physical sensual experience; it's as watchable as either godfather — and even more confused.

(Blow-up btw I think is garbage. Antonioni is a four-star clown.)

Basically I think deep is a TRAP!! And FFC fell for it like the cokehead megalomaniac he was heh.

I really really wanted to be able to big up Bram Stoker's Dracula, but k-blimey o dear.

blow-up is a stinker. fucking mimes! led zeppelin jr's cameo was good though.

You should be duct-taped to a fire-hydrant favored by weak-bladdered dogs and forced to watch "Booty Call" until your eyes bleed, you slack-jawed heretic.

this explains the "adjoining hotel rooms" visions, i guess.

according to IMDB, his name was meant to be "Call", but homynyms & Freudien slips are funny, ain't they?

Michael Bay did more harm than he'll ever know.

Hmm, true. Less a shout out than a beery fart, likely enough.

(xpost)

It's pretty good but no classic; haven't seen it in awhile, but the church confession scene particularly annoyed me. SEE, HE'S FULL OF INARTICULATE GUILT.

I prefer Tucker: The Man and His Dream.

watching enemy of the state--solid fuckin flick, holds up well

i think the slowness is just frank aiming for 'serious auteur' art-movieness.

This is a deeply irritating statement, but never mind.

ive probably mellowed in the intervening seven years (dats a pretty typical ilx thing to say, c. 2003), but it's not my favourite failure-of-communication movie. probably should give it another go, since i haven't seen it since ooh 1998.

watching enemy of the state--solid fuckin flick, holds up well

― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Sunday, June 7, 2009 11:47 PM (8 months ago) Bookmark

^^^ also kind of an ilx thing to say. don't really agree with this tho.

best eugene hackman movie

yeah. great haskell wexler opening shot.

remember this as wonderful, kind of afraid to go back to be honest. lotta films like that from the student days, though.

i still prefer 'blow up' but maybe it's because im a londoner.

kingston-upon-thames is in london right?

blow-up has way more hotter chicks that's for sure!

huh I guess I should see this eh

blow-up has way more hotter chicks that's for sure!
this is true, but young teri garr in the conversation ain't bad.
love Harrison Ford in this. He shoud be more like this in other movies.

yes!

he is in the movie star bizness, no characters plz

very ILX of everyone above to be so allergic to something "deep."

anyway, aside from all that, i think what will stick with me from this movie is yes the editing but also some lovely moments--that strange slow swooping movement the camera makes (i think) three times as Hackman gives that monologue to the blond woman in the green dress. and him riding the subway alone with the recurrent musical theme.

this flick owns

Seeing it (again) tonight as part of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival. I was baffled too...Coppola? No, don't think so, and Harry Caul's a devout Catholic. It's David Shire, the composer, who'll be talking and performing afterwards.

Well, I guess the score is quite central to it, but yeah, a tad tenuous.

He was great--lots of stories, and he sat and played The Conversation's main theme. Didn't even clue into the fact he was Talia Shire's husband, nor did I realize that he did the piano work on Zodiac (hired because Fincher had The Conversation in mind), and that it's him playing overtop that amazing overhead Library-of-Congress shot in All the President's Men.

interesting stuff here from an interview with Terri Garr http://www.avclub.com/articles/teri-garr,2390/

man, that's a great interview. thanks, piscesx.

They're showing this at a beer theater in Portland in the next few weeks. Should be good.

weird, just watched this for the first time a couple weeks ago

like it? i think it's kind of the perfect 70s movie.

yeah def dug it. It does encapsulate a lot of different 70s tropes in a great way

One thing I learned last night that surprised me was that Hackman played all his saxophone parts himself. Coppola would be after him to go over lines, and he'd be off in a corner practising B-flat scales.

I'm tempted to say that nobody has ever so completely disappeared into a role as Hackman does here, but thinking about it, Hackman's impish humour does surface in some of his banter with Allen Garfield.

Can't prove a thing, nor does it matter, but David Shire's score is to my ears deeply indebted to Emahoy Tsege-Maryam Guèbrou:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFE2ycYOmik

I can hear some similarity--that's before '74, I assume? He said his main inspiration was a late-night DJ he used to listen to who'd accompany himself on piano underneath his patter. I asked him in the Q&A if there was any Scott Joplin influence, because I always thought I heard some of The Sting theme in there (which would have been a year earlier). He gave one of those polite "Maybe"s that really meant "Not at all," and now that I've relistened, I see what he means--they're not really similar at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DogQt0WJJkI

haw, it'd be pretty wild if shire was listening to that in 1974 (though i see what you mean).

i'd say "strikingly similar", before "deeply indebted", if i didn't know better (and i don't)

Check the rest of that album out, it's uncanny! And Guebrou wasn't unknown in the early 70s. "Strikingly similar" for sure. I guess saying "indebted" suggests plagiarism, which isn't what I meant.

i do want to hear the rest of the album now, as that one minute snippet is great

also..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6wGzJ8PP7k

weird, just watched this for the first time a couple weeks ago

snap, put it on telly as a late movie last Sunday and stayed up to watch it

this film is pretty hard to love IMO

'blow up' is much better IMO

i dunno, hard to love? maybe i'm a pushover, but you put gene hackman, paul cazale, frederic forrest, teri garr, cindy williams and harrison ford in a movie together, i'm going to love it.

This is perhaps my favorite nihilistic "you got played" ending next to "The Killing."

idg what's "hard to love" about it

There's a thread topic: great nihilistic endings. Those two for sure, Straight Time, White Heat, Reservoir Dogs, so many others.

Chinatown obviously

Dumb and Dumber

Half serious about that one

Parallax View?

Definitely^

The Long Good Friday

Night Moves

Easy Rider
Electra Glide In Blue

(matched set)

Shallow Grave

Weekend, of course, both film proper and end credits. It's more a matter of mood and gesture, but I find the last shot of Miller's Crossing strangely nihilistic...I think, I don't know; it's one of my favourite endings ever, but I'm not sure what feelings it conveys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHor-ixem6A

After relinquishing whatever privacy and anonymity he still possessed, Harry Caul has now lost control of this thread.

wowwwwwwwww

Never seen it before?

Nope, it was always on the list, decided to watch it tonight. I'm giving up the NFL and Sundays are going to be for fillum.

You made a fine choice. So what leapt out at you most?

The score, the static shots, the tightness of the editing, but mainly Hackman's performance. Great all-around.

45.

Re: great nihilistic endings. Morocco has a good one, I'd argue -- it's not properly romantic at all.

Five Easy Pieces?

I mean, abracadabra, Harry, show and tell--I'm number two, so I have to try harder.

after rating this film 55/100, one Theo Panayides:

Due to the outcry this rating has caused (I'm not kidding) I've decided not to try and explain myself at any length, since (a) it'd take ages to rebut all the arguments and (b) it's already been over a week since I saw it (for the second time, first viewing being about 8 years ago). Suffice to say the score is brilliant and the lengthy middle section where Harry brings the gang to his office/studio is a very impressive piece of staging - though also very obviously a set-piece, something distinct from the rest of the movie, designed for Coppola to Show His Mastery. But the hero is a very thin conceit (a one-dimensional control freak), playing his sax in conjunction with the solo is a pretty maudlin detail, the ending is so much cruder and snarkier than e.g. the one in REMAINS OF THE DAY (a similar tale of repression), Harry's "I can't let it happen again" is so clumsy it takes you right out of his dilemma (though the clumsiness makes some sense, given the sting in the tail), the Catholic guilt is so shallow and tacked-on it's almost insulting, the dream sequence sucks big-time, and I've never understood how the crucial line gets a different inflection at the end when we've heard it being spoken over and over. Am I missing something?...

http://my.primehome.com/theodorospa/oldies04.htm#convers

Haven't read this--should be fun.

At the most basic level:

and I've never understood how the crucial line gets a different inflection at the end when we've heard it being spoken over and over.

Because all the while we've been hearing it as Harry hears it--only at the end do we hear it as it actually is.

Thought there was more--that's the whole thing.

But the hero is a very thin conceit (a one-dimensional control freak)

Travis Bickle, Scottie Ferguson, maybe even Charles Foster Kane (the control freak part, anyway)--you could simplify lots of characters this way.

it also doesn't fully fit hackman's character.

after rating this film 55/100

How dare he!

I'm a control freak myself. At least two dimensions, though--occasionally I throw in a third one just to confuse people.

I don't find those three characters you brought up one-dimensional -- esp Scottie, you've gotta be kidding.

only at the end do we hear it as it actually is

This is on a level with "I meant Vader KILLED THE PART OF YOUR FATHER that was a Jedi" bullshit.

I don't find Harry any more or less one-dimensional than Scottie. (I'm fibbing, of course--I find Harry much more interesting.)

How is rendering something subjectively through the ears of an excessively paranoid guy "bullshit." I mean, we could argue about this forever--you're taking subjective responses to a film and treating them like fact. Some people love The Conversation, some people love Vertigo. That's just the way it is.

changing the emphasis of the line, especially in such a technoworld-set film, is a cheat to me.

I know what you're saying, and way back when I first saw the film, I think it bothered me too--think I even mentioned as much on an ungraduate paper. (I'll check tonight.) But I think it's a perfectly valid interpretation to say that through the whole film, where we're always looking at the conversation through Harry's eyes and ears, as he's hunched over his editing table, that we're hearing what he wants to hear (an expression of his guilt, a desire to save someone, lots of reasons). When he sees Williams and Forrest at the end, it's like he snaps out of his paranoia and hears the conversation as it is, for the first time. You may not agree, but I think that's a valid way to look at it. I mean, I don't think it was accidental or sloppy on Coppola's part--I'm sure he was aware the two recordings are different.

Clemenza at 19, 1980:

"A point should be raised about the transformation of emphasis from 'He'd kiss us..." to 'He'd kill us..." It is not the same recording--we have not misinterpreted like Harry. It is two distinct recordings, the change occurring because the first time we're hearing it through Harry's ears--a neat, if slightly unfair, trick by Coppola on the audience."

The paper (also on Save the Tiger, The Long Goodbye, and Mean Streets) was written for a guy who went on to make loads and loads of money producing Stripes, Ghostbusters, and other Ivan Reitman films. He gave me a checkmark there--very, very proud.

I actually wrote a second paper on (just) The Conversation three years later:

"Nowhere in The Conversation is Coppola's distrust of language better explicated, than in the transformation from 'he'd kill us if he had the chance' to 'he'd kill us if he had the chance'."

Haven't a clue what I meant by "distrust of language" (Coppola?), and I didn't know how to punctuate, either, so I'll just take a pass there.

It almost seems silly to play The Conversation and Vertigo off against each other, as they've got so much in common. (Someone once wrote that those two plus Petulia make up the great San Francisco trilogy of alienation or paranoia or something like that.) Harry and Scotty are both plagued by guilt over recent work-related deaths, they're both implicated in plots they don't understand until it's too late, both are exceptionally austere films by directors with great popular successes nearby, etc., etc.

Ahem--"kill us" way up top. The transformation wasn't quite that drastic.

the great San Francisco trilogy of alienation or paranoia or something like that

I don't see Philip Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers in this trilogy.

Knock off The Conversation. That'll make room.

The paranoia and the locale, yes, but it's too funny. (Though Allen Garfield really makes me laugh in The Conversation.)

Have to watch Petulia again to see that. It's been seven years or so.

The Conversation is circles to me, the recordings, the shots, scenes, the equipment, the thoughts... which always reminded me of the song The Windmills of Your Mind and The Thomas Crown Affair and explains why I am left wanting to watch The Thomas Crown Affair after The Conversation.

c'mon dude, alienation and paranoia are funny, you've heard the Watergate tapes.

not as funny as the "Windmills of Your Mind" lyrics tho.

Remapping The Conversation: Urban Design and Industrial Reflexivity in Seventies San Francisco

...Though Union Square itself pre-dates modernist planning, the panoptic, bird's-eye perspective aligns the camera with the totalizing, top-down viewpoint that has been closely associated with modernism and what Martin Jay has called the "scopic regime" of modernity. From this opening sequence onwards, the planner's gaze of modernism is strongly associated with technologies of surveillance and control, and by extension, the potential erosion or disappearance of cohesive public space. The trope of the plan recurs several times during the film, particularly through the use of various maps and models, from the scale reproduction of Union Square that Harry Caul discovers at the wire-tappers' convention to the replica of the new downtown and waterfront in the Director's office (figs. 5 and 6). This trope consistently foregrounds the importance of the city to the structure of the film, and it also invokes the notion of planning and the planner's gaze figured in the opening scene. The selection of Union Square is significant too. In its urban design framework, the City Planning Department singled out Union Square as one of only three open public spaces remaining downtown and accordingly set out explicit principles for maintaining its character. Throughout the 1970s, attempts to redevelop buildings surrounding the square became the focal point of struggle between developers and the design panel. From this perspective, Union Square represents an older form of built environment threatened by the advance of urban renewal and corporate reconstruction.

http://post45.research.yale.edu/2014/06/remapping-the-conversation-urban-design-and-industrial-reflexivity-in-seventies-san-francisco/

Just read one music writer praise another music writer as such-and-such, and the words "Since when did William P. Moran of Detroit, Michigan, become 'pre-eminent in the field'?" immediately crossed my mind.

Still a marvellous romp.

romp? really? all singing, all dancing gloom and guilt?

Well, the red red robins do go romp-romp-romping along in it.

Brian De Palma interviewing Coppola in 1974 abt The Conversation:

https://cinephiliabeyond.org/francis-ford-coppola-brian-de-palma-conversation-two-great-filmmakers/

Thank you for sharing that. Great, very insightful interview.

Looking forward to reading that this weekend.

Thx for this! P fascinating

Was at a rep screening tonight. Noticed that Zodiac quotes a couple of bars from the score--makes perfect sense for a variety of reasons, the most obvious being the locale.

Close to a perfect film. The one line from Elizabeth MaCrae about how she bumps her head all the time and doesn't mind at all, that line always strikes me as a little off. Nothing else--and especially not how the key line is transformed.

The Blu Ray is classic; Harrison Ford screen test shot in the actual park, Coppola’s dictations of the script etc. Hours of extra fascinating bits.

"Noticed that Zodiac quotes a couple of bars from the score--makes perfect sense for a variety of reasons, the most obvious being the locale."

Well, actually the most obvious reason might be that it's the same composer...

I don't have the Blu-Ray, but a friend gave me a two-disc DVD--it's possible some of that stuff's on there.

I thought this revive might be about the facetime bug being a lot like the alleged phone bug in the movie.

Didn't know what you meant, so I looked it up...That's great; William P. Moran, new products for a new century.

Came across these two items, too. 1) Had no idea someone turned The Conversation into a play: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/theater/reviews/23conv.html. 2) This book, by one William B. Moran: http://www.amazon.ca/Covert-Surveillance-Electronic-Penetration-William/dp/0915179202.

RIP Allen Garfield

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRfJqmecqUQ

I got no time, Delbert--I got no time.

Wow Alan Garfield was fantastic in this; such a believable performance, a fine actor indeed. RIP.

Saw this on the big screen today. Definitely noticed the “cheat” in the crucial snatch of dialogue. I think it’s an excellent film with which I still have quite a few nitpicks

I'll stand by what I've said more than once on this thread: it's not a cheat if you accept that earlier in the film, you're hearing it through Harry's ears, hearing what he wants to hear, what allows him to take on the role of Cindy Williams' saviour.

OK but why would he want to hear it that way (I.e. the wrong way) if he has no preconceived notions about what he’s listening to. The John Cazale character even makes a point about this, asking him why he doesn’t care what these two people are talking about.

I think he does care, though, and deeply. He puts on that show of not-caring for himself and for Stan, but he carries around so much guilt--for the murder his tapes occasioned previously, for his treatment of Terri Garr, for pretty much his whole life--that he's looking for some way to redeem himself, almost like Travis in Taxi Driver. And I think he projects all that onto the tapes.

As I posted above, I'm not saying I'm right, but I do think it's open to interpretation, and that that particular interpretation is valid.

And I find it so hard to believe that Coppola, a well-know control freak, would leave two different recordings in the film because of sloppiness, or because he figured no one would notice or just wouldn't care.

Eh, there's tons of sloppy stuff in his movies, iirc, especially the two Godfathers. Continuity errors and the like. Right?

Oh, I have no doubt Coppola was aware of the two different recordings, and purposely used the first one first (and repeatedly throughout the bulk of the film) and the second only at the end when it was too late to function as a clue for the audience. But I do think that’s sneaky, even though you may be right about the psychology of Harry. Didn’t other people in the film hear the tape the same “erroneous” way that Harry did? I guess I’d have to watch it again to be sure of that

My memory is shit, I’ve seen this movie a handful of times and loved it every time, but don’t recall what you all are specifically talking about. Whatever the “cheat” was it didn’t register as such.

Should say it either went unnoticed or seemed purposeful. It’s been about a decade.

“He’d kill us if he got the chance” vs “He’d kill us if he got the chance”

***SPOILER ALERT***

The emphasis makes all the difference wrt whether Cindy Williams and her pal will be the victims of a murder or the perpetrators of one.

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.

...until that point.

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.")

(Is there anyone other than Stan who hears the recording?)

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."

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

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

Dumbest reader comment, #6: "Idk man both sentences means the same thing."

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.

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.

Didn’t other people in the film hear the tape the same “erroneous” way that Harry did?

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

I’ll always welcome an excuse to see this again.

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.

Plenty to chew on here!

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/540b22a1e4b0d0f549866135/t/58fe57799de4bb6494158e2d/1493063553867/The_Conversation_SCREENPLAY.pdf

my favourite part was

CLOSE VIEW OF THE MUSICIANS 4
on!Q& hem puts down his instrumen and does a ?
ro licb.ng tap dance. DllNGeK o« D1tNcG D itriEC rDlf ·

Just skimmed that screenplay--looks like the order of things was radically changed.

The American Zoetrope-related films had a real murderer's row of film editors!

Use to have a friend, or acquaintance at least, that worked there for a bit/pvmic

No saxophone playing in the final shot of that screenplay!

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.

That scene does appear in the screenplay, it seems stranded without the "payoff" at the end.

If only they'd had the technology back then Murch could've done a Yanni/Laurel thing with the key line

"He'd kill us if he had the chance... MACLUNKEY!"

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.

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).

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

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

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).

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.

was = with

Just noticed it was #72 on the directors' list, so that's heartening.

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)

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).

hey clemenza, thanks for your email! I appreciated it!

You knew what thread I'd open for sure.

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.

Half the cut footage is different readings of <the line> and the other half is Gene wailing on sax.

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

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.

Move that end quote...