The trouble with Harry: "The Conversation" at 50

One thing the obsessive men of the New Hollywood knew and did well was male obsession; part of the newness was that the Scorseses and Schraders and Friedkins and De Palmas and Coppolas were pushing that old screenwriting maxim "write what you know" to a compelling extreme. 1974's The Conversation, which Coppola somehow managed to knock out in the same year as The Godfather Part II, is one of those masterpieces born of multiple influences: the corporate takeover of America (and the studio system Coppola was working within), the paranoia and surveillance culture that led to Watergate, and then-recent developments in arthouse and avant-garde cinema (notably Antonioni's Blow-Up and Michael Snow's Wavelength, from which The Conversation steals its closing shot). It's a film offering two obsessions for the price of one, even better value in 2024 than it was a half-century ago: that of a protagonist trying to make sense of a whispered heart-to-heart between people whose lives and motives (and - who knows - maybe happiness) he will never fully know, and that of a writer-director attempting to master sound and vision, to re-engage us with the very nuts and bolts of cinema, even as his narrative acknowledges it is possible to be too fussy about such things. It feels immensely personal, as much note to self as major motion picture, and even Coppola would forget its wisest counsel - on maintaining clear boundaries between one's professional and personal life - as the decade went on; it recurs now as a warning from history to a whole new generation of nerds and tech bros. All that arcane and specialised knowledge you've been gathering, it says, will be no substitute at the end of the day for a rich and fulfilling life.

So here again is Gene Hackman as private snooper Harry Caul, not so much God's lonely man as a figure God may have abandoned altogether. He's well regarded in his field, yes, but also square and stand-offish, guardedly anonymous, not someone you'd notice in a crowd. There are women in his life, sure, but the prospects of any lasting relationship would appear limited by a long-term bachelor's gruffness and an inability to open up born of underlying, existential trust issues. And so, aged 44 as the film finds him - just ten years older than his creator - he returns home from a long day's knob-twiddling to blow his own horn (jazz saxophone). Coppola nevertheless manages to locate sources of fascination within this small, shabby life: crucially in those scenes that endlessly fast-forward and rewind a keenly sought recording, where Harry tenses up anew on the verge of realising something, as much about himself as the couple he's taped at a distance in a city park. These scenes are a technical feat, pivoting on sound editor Walter Murch's ability to weaponise audio - to make what we're hearing seem at least as significant as anything we're watching. (In the context of the film's workaday, un-movieish San Francisco, such murderous words can't help but catch the ear.) But they're also a deeply human achievement: the quiet genius of Hackman - as distinct from, say, the vocal genius of Pacino, or the looming genius of De Niro - is to disappear inside the role while still communicating exactly what Harry is mulling over and wrestling with. A rewatch reveals a great film's only flaw: a midfilm dream sequence born of creative insecurity, designed to bring us closer to a character Hackman has already humanised. (The material reality of the film is enough; we don't need to go poking around inside Harry Caul's head for clues.) Coppola understands and shows that, like any technician, Harry has choices; that he'd make life far easier for himself if he delegated, talked, even if he just walked away from the whole affair. But some men can't. The Conversation thus strands him and us in an apartment that represents the tatters of this man's life, at once horribly empty and a terrible mess, the kind of rabbit hole you could spend the rest of your days falling down. Conspiracists beware.

The Conversation is now showing in selected cinemas, and is available to stream on the BBC iPlayer until Saturday.