The Conversation is a 1974 mystery and thriller written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Robert Duvall (uncredited), Teri Garr, Cindy Williams, and Harrison Ford.

Plot

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Harry Caul (Hackman) is a paranoid surveillance expert running his own company. Caul is obsessed with his own privacy; his apartment is almost bare behind its triple-locked door, he uses payphones to make calls and 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 he finds personal contact difficult. He is exquisitely uncomfortable in closely-packed crowds and withdrawn and taciturn in more intimate situations; he is also reticent and secretive with work colleagues. He is nondescript in appearance, except for his habit of wearing a translucent plastic raincoat virtually everywhere he goes, even when it is not raining. Despite his insistence that his professional code means that he is not responsible for worrying about the actual content of the conversations he records or the use to which his surveillance activities are put by his clients, he is in fact wracked by guilt over a past wiretap job that left three people dead; his sense of guilt is sharpened by his devout Catholicism. His one hobby is playing along with his favourite jazz records on a tenor saxophone in the privacy of his apartment.

Caul has taken on the task of monitoring a couple's conversation as they walk through a crowded public square. The challenging task is accomplished, but Caul feels increasingly agonized over his doubts about the actual meaning of the conversation and about what may happen to the couple once the client hears the tape. He plays the tape again and again through the movie, refining its accuracy (by catching one key — though crucially ambiguous — phrase hidden under the sound of a street musician: "He'd kill us if he got the chance") and constantly reinterpreting its meaning in the light of what he knows and what he guesses. Caul avoids handing in the tape to the aide of the man who commissioned the surveillance; he then finds himself under increasing pressure from the aide, and is himself followed, tricked and listened in on, the tape ultimately stolen from him in a moment when his guard is down. Caul's appalled efforts to forestall tragedy ultimately fail — because, it turns out, the conversation doesn't mean what he thought it did, and the tragedy he anticipated isn't the one that eventually happens. In the final scene of the film, Caul discovers that his own apartment is bugged, and gradually takes it to pieces in an unsuccessful effort to discover the bug, ultimately destroying everything there (even, after a moment of hesitation, his plastic figurine of the Madonna) except for his beloved tenor saxophone: at the film's end he's left sitting amidst the wreck, blowing a solo.

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OMG! So we ARE capable of decent friendly conversation? The Virgin Mary's smilin somewhere. I just wont ask all the questions I have I guess
udeebee (Udee Bassey) Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:41:21 -0000
OMG! So we ARE capable of decent friendly conversation? The Virgin Mary's smilin somewhere. I just wont ask all the questions I have I guess
@johndobbs I'll be the judge of that. Please send me transcripts of your lunch conversation.
dcmba (dcmba) Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:41:14 -0000
@johndobbs I'll be the judge of that. Please send me transcripts of your lunch conversation.
.@caseorganic @paulynncue Thanks...I can't wait to continue the conversation on media production that integrates all of these changemakers!
amoration (✩ evonne heyning ∞ ) Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:40:56 -0000
.@caseorganic @paulynncue Thanks...I can't wait to continue the conversation on media production that integrates all of these changemakers!
RT @Jonesyuk01: “Ask dan haha” -@MonkeyBoyUFC WTF !!! You need to see the previous conversation knob knocker haha
MonkeyBoyUFC (Chris) Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:40:38 -0000
RT @Jonesyuk01: “Ask dan haha” -@MonkeyBoyUFC WTF !!! You need to see the previous conversation knob knocker haha
If we haven't had the conversation yet.....BELIEVE its coming! 2010 is rapidly approaching us its time out for the dumb shit
JaMezSimOn (James Simon ) Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:40:20 -0000
If we haven't had the conversation yet.....BELIEVE its coming! 2010 is rapidly approaching us its time out for the dumb shit
wow lil momma that i was talkin to ran because of the me and bm conversation, look me and bm not together for reason i c…http://lnk.ms/3STZQ
aaekeelo (Keavlon Sims) Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:40:09 -0000
wow lil momma that i was talkin to ran because of the me and bm conversation, look me and bm not together for reason i c…http://lnk.ms/3STZQ

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