THE CONVERSATION. Masterful Conspiracy Thriller Explained

So, is this going to be a film about the mime? Not at all. At some point, the camera abandons the street artist and begins to follow one of his “victims”—a balding man dressed in a gray raincoat. As it will soon turn out, he is the main character of The Conversation – Harry Caul.

What is happening in the audio sphere at this time? The first thing the viewer hears is music, specifically a jazz piece. Initially, it may seem like a non-diegetic element—something beyond the world presented on screen. Nothing could be further from the truth. The jazz piece is performed by a small orchestra located within the square. After the performance, applause can be heard. During the camera’s zoom, the music mixes with background sounds (you can hear a bell ringing, a dog barking, and also interference from surveillance equipment). At this point, the viewer feels a slight dissonance, a kind of informational chaos—they do not know what they should focus on. What is truly important in this scene?

There is a cut, and suddenly the camera is on the roof of a building. In a wide shot, the viewer sees a man observing the square through a telescope. It might seem that this mysterious character is targeting someone. The jazz music is heard a bit more quietly now—the camera’s distance from the square has increased. The man’s target is a young couple. Will a shot be fired at any moment, leaving one of them lifeless on the sidewalk? Now, only an unidentified, disturbing noise can be heard—interference from the surveillance equipment.

So, is this a film about a sniper or a young couple fighting for their lives in the middle of the square? Coppola lays false trails before revealing all the cards. He plays with the viewer—forcing them to think and draw hasty, erroneous conclusions. This is extremely important in the context of later plot developments, as the protagonist of The Conversation will also fall victim to a fatal, tragic mistake.

Initially, however, Harry is convinced of the innocence and good intentions of the lovers in the square. Coppola also tries to make the viewer instinctively like the couple, without even realizing it. After all, the young couple is juxtaposed in the first scene with a group of slimy, middle-aged surveillance men, and later with a vengeful corporate executive and his mysterious assistant. Additionally, the lovers are presented by the director as empathetic people, full of Christian compassion for others (a trait that must have made a special impression on Caul as a Catholic). The girl, in particular, is portrayed as a sensitive and innocent being in the film’s first scene. After noticing a homeless person lying on a bench, she says to her companion: Look, it’s awful! My God! Every time I see such a person, I think the same thing. That he was once a little boy, had a mom and dad who loved him, and now he’s lying on a bench as if he were dead. Where are his parents and all his relatives? It is no wonder, then, that the audience’s sympathy automatically sides with the threatened lovers being followed by the main character.

Opposed to this flawless pair is, above all, Harry—a calculated, painfully professional, and enigmatic man. I agree completely with Wojciech Dobosiewicz, who, in his analysis of The Conversation, mentions that Francis F. Coppola sketches the character of Harry Caul using three key spheres of human activity: work, religion, and ways of functioning in society. In terms of work, the protagonist appears as a diligent professional. Generally, he is not interested in the content of the conversation; he only cares about obtaining the highest quality recording. Harry engages in surveillance for financial gain—during a phone conversation with a client’s subordinate, he inquires about the payment, and when he finally receives it, he meticulously counts the money. However, the lovers’ case will not be just another easy assignment in Caul’s career. This will not happen for one simple reason—Harry will become emotionally involved in it.

The protagonist’s involvement in the case of the young couple is connected to the second sphere Dobosiewicz mentions—religion. Harry is Catholic, and because of this, doubts about his work arise in his conscience, or rather, resurface. Caul has found himself in a similar situation before. Back then, he delivered controversial tapes to his employer, which caused the deaths of three people, an entire family. Harry fears that the conversation he recorded will again lead to a bloody outcome. In one of the most important scenes of the film, the protagonist confides his doubts to a priest in the confessional: I’ve been involved in a job that may bring misfortune to two young people. It’s happened before. What I do has caused harm to someone. I’m afraid it will happen this time too. I’m not responsible for it. I can’t be responsible for it. However, Harry does not receive any response or moral guidance—the priest is as silent as a grave.

It is worth noting how the scene of Caul’s confession is filmed. Essentially, it is one shot—a slow zoom on the confessional screen. Due to intelligent lighting, the viewer is convinced for most of the scene that Harry is the only person in the room. Only at the end of the zoom can one see a slight outline of the priest’s profile. A profile that, according to Grzegorz Królikiewicz, resembles… a human ear! The film scholar and director comments on the confessional scene as follows:

In the church scene, the expressive meaning comes from a dialogue with an unseen priest, which transforms into a monologue, as only Caul speaks. We do not see the priest’s face through the confessional screen. The priest, whose profile seen through the screen resembles… an ear, does not utter a word, and what the Church has established as a dialogue with God’s representative becomes Caul’s monologue. Confession is the archetype of all eavesdropping. And it’s when the eavesdropped person is in a trance of guilt. Could it be that even here Caul suspects that a microphone is in the confessional?

In the last quoted sentence, Królikiewicz highlights another extremely important aspect of Harry Caul’s character: his paranoia, which is eating away at him from the inside. This is a paranoid fear of being watched or surveilled. This fear significantly impacts the third of the human activity spheres mentioned by Dobosiewicz: the way he functions in society.

Caul is obsessed with privacy. Although he blatantly invades the intimacy of others in his line of work, he is panic-stricken that someone might one day intrude on his own privacy. It is not without reason that Harry’s apartment is protected by three locks and an alarm. It is not without reason that he never gives his phone number to anyone. When he finds that someone has invaded his private space (a bottle of birthday wine has appeared in his home without his knowledge), he reacts immediately, almost instinctively. He picks up the phone and calls the landlady from whom he rents his apartment. Harry wants his four walls to be a private fortress, a fortress to which no one but him will ever have access.

This obsession with privacy affects Caul’s interactions with other characters in The Conversation’s world. The first conflict caused by Harry’s excessive secrecy arises between him and his lover and kept woman, Amy. The protagonist visits the woman unexpectedly, without any prior notice, most likely motivated by the fact that it is his birthday. As it soon turns out, the woman knows practically nothing about Harry. She does not know basic information about her lover: she does not know what he does, when he was born, or how old he is. When the two sit on the bed with glasses (or rather cups) of wine in their hands, Amy asks, Will you tell me some of your secrets? Confused, Harry thinks for a moment and responds, I don’t have any secrets. However, the woman probes further. She reveals to Caul that she once saw him hiding in the stairwell for an hour, watching her apartment. The protagonist feels very uncomfortable when the woman begins asking him more questions: Why are you asking me so many questions? I don’t like it when people ask me questions. Finally, Caul has had enough, gets up from the bed, and leaves his lover’s apartment a moment later.

A few seconds earlier, during a tender embrace with Amy, Harry removes his glasses. This is a significant gesture—without them, Caul becomes completely vulnerable. Harry will take off his glasses two more times during the film. On both occasions, he will be robbed of the invaluable tapes containing the conversation between the lovers in the square. The first time, Caul manages to reclaim them, snatching the recordings from the hands of the greedy Martin Stett, the assistant to the corporation director. The second time, however, he is deceived by Meredith and loses the tapes forever.

Another item that almost constantly accompanies Harry is his raincoat. The protagonist is wearing it even during the failed romantic scene with Amy. This significant piece of the protagonist’s wardrobe is also noted by Wojciech Dobosiewicz, who writes about it as follows:

This indispensable coat is a kind of cocoon that protects the hero from the world, a shell that allows him to be invisible, not to stand out, which Vincent Canby described as a ‘prophylactic shield against society’.

Harry must defend himself not only from his lover’s barrage of questions. He is also “attacked” by Stan, his closest colleague. In a scene set in the workshop, a quarrel erupts between the men. Stan downplays the value of the conversation between the lovers in the square. What a silly conversation! What are they even babbling about? he comments while listening to the tape that Harry is currently working on. When the protagonist reprimands him for making unnecessary remarks, Stan begins to complain that Caul never allows him to delve into the content of their jointly acquired recordings: What’s gotten into you? You could tell me something now and then. However, the protagonist does not make a habit of discussing his clients’ private matters. He scolds his subordinate first for asking too many questions (the same grievance he had against Amy earlier), then for taking the Lord’s name in vain, and finally for an unprofessional approach to work. As a result of the argument, Stan stops working for Harry the next day and takes a job with his biggest competitor, Bernie Moran.

The conversation between the lovers in the square, which was the catalyst for the argument between Stan and Harry, resurfaces several times throughout the film. It is either played back as a recording by one of the characters or recalled in the protagonist’s memory. It serves as a kind of leitmotif in Coppola’s work. Interestingly, the lovers’ conversation appears in The Conversation in several different versions, never sounding exactly the same. Coppola recorded it multiple times so that the audience, like the protagonist, feels as if they are hearing something new each time.

It is worth noting that throughout the film, the viewer’s level of information is similar to that of the protagonist, Harry Caul. There is no scene in The Conversation in which Harry Caul is not present. Due to the limited information, the audience, like the protagonist, is deceived and draws incorrect conclusions from the recording. This all means that Coppola’s film can be described as having a subjective narrative.

The scene of Harry’s dream is also significant in this context. It deepens the viewer’s sense of Caul’s paranoia while also helping to better understand the protagonist. The dream scene stands out markedly from the rest of the film. Coppola achieves this effect through staging, among other things. The protagonist is surrounded by thick, white fog. On the horizon, in the distance, the silhouette of Ann, the woman from the square, looms. Harry tries to communicate with her, beginning to talk about his childhood. The girl is the only person before whom Caul completely opens up (previously, he partially opened up to Amy and Meredith). In this way, the director suggests that Ann is very important to the protagonist, although (due to distance and thick fog) inaccessible. Grzegorz Królikiewicz devoted considerable attention to the dream scene in his analysis:

Perhaps this is the only moment of Caul’s personality being revealed? (…) Or maybe in the dream, he speaks this way because he cares about the young woman from the square, knows some secret about her, believes she is in danger. (…) In essence, this dream is a desire to remain with someone. In the dream, he wants to build what he fails to achieve in life because, in life, he does not know how to conduct a conversation. The dream should be interpreted as an attempt to establish contact.

Another scene that indicates Caul’s desire to connect is the one where he plays the saxophone accompanied by a piece of music played from a record. This is one of the few activities the protagonist engages in that is not related to his work. Music seems to be his passion—when Amy asks him at her apartment what he does for a living, Harry does not mention surveillance. He answers that he is a musician. The type of music that interests Caul is incredibly important—jazz. Wojciech Dobosiewicz writes about this:

Jazz suits the protagonist of The Conversation because it is the music of improvisation, variable rhythms, and instability, and it is also considered a passion for individualists and loners. Harry plays when he feels lonely (on his birthday) or in moments of utter helplessness (the last scene of the film). However, from the characteristic way he ‘joins in’ with the melodies recorded on the record, one can infer an unconscious search for the possibility of participating in group activities, a desire to cooperate, a longing to be part of a community.

Therefore, Harry’s fascination with jazz can be interpreted as a hidden desire to open up to another person, to become part of some collective. For this reason, I would consider Caul’s musical passion as the fourth sphere of human activity through which Coppola portrays the protagonist. This sphere is just as important as the previous three.

The climax of The Conversation is the murder scene, which, like the dream scene, clearly stands out from the rest of the film. Harry, convinced that on Sunday at 3:00 PM in room 773 of the Jack Tar hotel, the director will decide to murder the young couple, rents the room directly adjacent to the suspected crime scene. Taking all necessary precautions, he installs a bug through the wall and patiently waits. Soon, sounds of a struggle start coming from the next room. Moments later, worried by the noises, Harry steps out onto the balcony—at this moment, the protagonist is convinced he has seen and heard Ann’s murder. A bloody stain appears on the glass surface separating the balconies, and a psychedelic scream from the speakers slowly morphs into disturbing, tension-filled music. At this point, the viewer does not yet know whether the murder actually happened or if it is merely a product of Harry’s paranoia-marked imagination. Caul begins to thrash around the room. The entire scene is edited in an incredibly chaotic manner, with no spatial continuity governing the protagonist’s movements. One moment Harry is standing, then he collapses to the floor, and the next moment he is lying in bed, hiding under the covers and clasping his hands over his ears. The scene ends as abruptly as it began—it is brutally cut to a black screen.

Despite taking concrete actions to prevent it, the main character fails to stop the murder he so greatly feared (earlier, in the dream scene, he uttered the significant words: I’m not afraid of death. I’m afraid of murder). However, a different person is murdered than Harry and the viewers suspected. The director of the corporation, who in Caul’s mind was the potential murderer, is killed. The protagonist was deceived, as was the audience. The victims Harry tried to help throughout the film turned out to be the executioners. To make matters worse, in the final scene of The Conversation, Caul learns he is being surveilled. An emotionless voice informs him through the receiver: We know you know. For your own safety, please don’t pursue this further. We hear everything. Overcome with intense emotions, most likely dominated by fear, Harry demolishes his entire apartment. He dismantles the lamp and phone, tears down blinds, wallpaper, frames, and panels. Finally, after a brief moment of hesitation, he decides to destroy the statue of the Virgin Mary. Yet, he does not find the bug.

So, where was the bug placed? In the saxophone, of course. Coppola hints at this much earlier through subtle foreshadowing. The instrument appears continuously throughout the film. It is seen in the first scene in the square; later, Harry plays it in his apartment. Finally, the saxophone appears for literally three seconds during Caul and Stett’s confrontation at the surveillance trade show. Surely, this is no coincidence.

There are few films that can boast an ending as bleak as The Conversation. Harry’s entire world has collapsed. The protagonist, like Thomas, the photographer from Blow-Up, experiences a cognitive crisis. His method of recording reality turned out to be flawed, making Caul, in a way, a “partner in crime” with the lovers from the square. Antonioni’s film’s protagonist managed to find solace in the game with the artists in the park (the mime from the first scene of The Conversation seems to be a clear reference to this group). Unlike Thomas, Harry has no one to turn to. He can only sit among the ruins of his private fortress and play the saxophone in solitude. The last shot of The Conversation is a horizontal pan of the apartment, ruined by the protagonist. The lens seems at this moment to mimic the characteristic movements of a security camera. Coppola clearly suggests at the film’s conclusion: Harry Caul will never know peace again; he must come to terms with constant surveillance. His life is under a listening device—he has turned from a hunter into prey.