CONVERSATION (DVD)WS ENHANCED 16X9/DOLBY DIGITAL ENG 5.1 SURROUND DVD

The Conversation
Made between The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), and in part an homage to Michelangelo Antonioni's art-movie classic Blow-Up (1966), The Conversation was a return to small-scale art films for Francis Ford Coppola. Sound surveillance expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is hired to track a young couple (Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest), taping their conversation as they walk through San Francisco's crowded Union Square. Knowing full well how technology can invade privacy, Harry obsessively keeps to himself, separating business from his personal life, even refusing to discuss what he does or where he lives with his girlfriend, Amy (Teri Garr). Harry's work starts to trouble him, however, as he comes to believe that the conversation he pieced together reveals a plot by the mysterious corporate "Director" who hired him to murder the couple. After he allows himself to be seduced by a call girl, who then steals the tapes, Harry is all the more convinced that a killing will occur, and he can no longer separate his job from his conscience. Coppola, cinematographer Bill Butler, and Oscar-nominated sound editor Walter Murch convey the narrative through Harry's aural and visual experience, beginning with the slow opening zoom of Union Square accompanied by the alternately muddled and clear sound of the couple's conversation caught by Harry's microphones. The Godfather Part II and The Conversation earned Coppola a rare pair of Oscar nominations for Best Picture, as well as two nominations for Best Screenplay (The Godfather Part II won both). Praised by critics, The Conversation was not a popular hit, but it has since come to be seen as one of the artistic high points of the decade, as well as of Coppola's career. Its atmosphere of paranoia and suspicion, combined with its obsessive loner antihero, made it prototypical of the darker "American art movies" of the early '70s, as its audiotape storyline also made it seem eerily appropriate for the era of the Watergate scandal. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Cast Gene Hackman as Harry Caul John Cazale as Stanley Allen Garfield as William P. "Bernie" Moran Frederic Forrest as Mark Cindy Williams as Ann Teri Garr as Amy Harrison Ford as Martin Stett

Crew Jennifer Shull - Casting Fred Roos - Co-producer Aggie Guerard Rodgers - Costume Designer Chuck Myers - First Assistant Director Francis Ford Coppola - Director Richard Chew - Editor Walter Murch - Editor David Shire - Composer (Music Score) Dean Tavoularis - Production Designer Bill Butler - Cinematographer Clark Paylow - Production Manager Francis Ford Coppola - Producer Doug von Koss - Set Designer Art Rochester - Sound/Sound Designer Walter Murch - Sound/Sound Designer Nathan Boxer - Sound Recordist Francis Ford Coppola - Screenwriter

The Conversation
Though it was commercially lost in the shuffle between The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, The Conversation ranks among the finest films of Francis Ford Coppola's career. Drawn on a more intimate canvas than the Godfather epics or Apocalypse Now, it's a compelling and expertly constructed chamber piece about the nature of privacy and the troubling gray area between facts and truth; it was also remarkably prescient, coming out just as the Watergate scandal was making surveillance a major issue in the American consciousness. Gene Hackman delivers a typically expert performance as Harry Caul, who makes his living finding out what others are doing. As a consequence, Caul has become an obsessively private man haunted by guilt and incapable of trusting anyone, and Hackman and Coppola mold him into an indelible character whose moral and professional sides are at constant war. Coppola also used his soundtrack with uncommon intelligence; in a decade in which the attention paid to film sound would increase by leaps and bounds, The Conversation was a breakthrough in using its soundtrack not just to convey dialogue and music but to deepen the story, as well as providing the ultimate screen example of the adage, "It's not what you say, it's how you say it." The Conversation is a subtle film that best reveals its details through repeat viewings, though even on a first viewing it's a brilliant cautionary tale whose message has become all the more potent with the passage of time and the further rise of technology. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
 

Art Rochester: British Academy of Film and Television, Best Soundtrack (winner) Arthur Rochester: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie, Best Sound (nominated) Francis Ford Coppola: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie, Best Original Screenplay (nominated) Francis Ford Coppola: Directors Guild of America, Best Director (nominated) Francis Ford Coppola: Golden Globe, Best Director (nominated) Francis Ford Coppola: Golden Globe, Best Screenplay (nominated) Francis Ford Coppola: National Board of Review, Best Director (winner) Gene Hackman: Golden Globe, Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama (nominated) Gene Hackman: National Board of Review, Best Actor (winner) Nathan Boxer: British Academy of Film and Television, Best Soundtrack (winner) Walter Murch: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie, Best Sound (nominated) Walter Murch: British Academy of Film and Television, Best Editing (winner) Walter Murch: British Academy of Film and Television, Best Soundtrack (winner)

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie, Best Picture (nominated) Cannes Film Festival, International Grand Prix (winner) Golden Globe, Best Picture - Drama (nominated) Library of Congress, U.S. National Film Registry (winner) National Board of Review, Best Picture (winner) Telluride Film Festival, Film Presented (nominated)

General Specifications: Language Options: English, French Subtitle Options: English Sound Processing: DD5.1: Dolby Digital w/ sub-woofer channel DD1: Dolby Digital Mono Additional Features: "Close-Up on the Conversation" featurette Commentary by Francis Ford Coppola Commentary by film editor Walter Murch Theatrical trailer DVD Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1: Theatre Wide-Screen MPAA Rating: PG DVD Discs Included: 1 DVD Sides: 1 DVD DVD Region Code: 1 Content Length: 113 min   DVD Chapters: Scene Selection 0. Scene Selection 1. Not Hurting Anyone [9:18] 2. Happy Birthday Harry [4:35] 3. Preeminent In The Field [6:13] 4. I Wanna Know You [8:17] 5. Don't Get Involved [4:44] 6. "He'd Kill Us If He Got The Chance" [8:29] 7. Surveillance Convention [8:33] 8. How'd You Do It? [2:06] 9. Tricked [19:09] 10. The Director [10:11] 11. Room 773 [8:27] 12. We'll Be Listening To You [11:45]