The post-revolutionary paranoia of the early 1970s suffuses The Conversation. Even so, Coppola depoliticizes this thriller, removing action, character and history by going over the same tape again and again, in an aural, Watergate-era version of Blow-Up. Gene Hackman, as a professional wiretapper, plays a self-consciously anonymous man at the top of a clandestine profession in which no moment between human beings cannot be recorded. He becomes unglued once he takes an interest in a story beyond its audio quality. 

Made between The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), Coppola’s Palme d’Or-winning film applies the eeriness and quiet of San Francisco to the murk of the corporate thriller. The doomed quality of the talented cast of character actors deepens the atmosphere of mistrust and conspiracy that is on display in this hesitant masterpiece of Murchian sound design. – A.S. Hamrah