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When Privacy Issues Overwhelm:
As I was saying… I had opted for a DVD as a means of escapism from the issues of security that I surround myself with everyday at work. However it seems that security is an issue that is not only difficult to get away from in everyday life but even in the fictitious world of film. My choice of dvd, The Conversation although not focussed on security in the actual plot, the entire storyline was engulfed with the issues and consequences of privacy and the dangers inherent with unauthorised knowledge… I found it so intriguing that the issues of privacy that we assume so practical in everyday life can play an equally important role in our entertainment pleasure. Coppola is intensely interested in how people are able or unable to live and work together. The Conversation bears this trademark as Harry Caul presents himself as somewhat of a social enigma, apparently unable to work or socialise well with others as he dismisses his partner and his on-off girlfriend on several occasions for his own solitude. However, his fellow wire-tappers may be considered the closest thing to a family unit available to him as they unite in their profession and passion at functions and conventions that could be likened to family parties or reunions. Security at the fore of American consciousness The Conversation on close examination is every bit as provocative as The Godfather on its take on America’s crumbling morals. The immediate cultural context of The Conversation was the Watergate scandal, when surveillance and dishonesty rose to the fore of public consciousness making the film almost eerily prescient. The central protagonist is pathologically obsessed with his privacy, ‘I don’t have anything personal,’ a signet ring and moustache the only evidence of personal vanity. It is possible to liken Harry’s character to Coppola’s own position in the film industry. Harry is marginal and peripheral to commercial or social systems just as Coppola was hoping that The Conversation was his advancement away from the clutches of the studio system and generic productions. Coppola presents a post-modern study of voyeurism. As Hackman’s Harry Caul, uncovers more and more about his discovery out of bits and pieces of hacked discussion, fuelled by his own imagination, we discover more about him. As Harry’s investigation, consumes him and eventually crumbles around him he is left with virtually nothing other than enveloping paranoia and his saxophone. “Revered by his colleagues for his skills, we see Caul as something of a fraud, a broken shell of a man whose uncertainty about the world around him has effectively robbed him of any identity.”[1] The Corporate Monster The shift in corporate identity is often a neglected aspect in discussions of 1970’s America but ‘the corporation’ as grand manipulator is at the very centre of The Conversation. The film points towards the faceless menace of unspecified corporate control. The director, Harry’s corporate client, his assistant and the company itself are never identified. Coppola uses the Embarcadero Centre in San Francisco, to great effect, capitalising on its vaguely fascistic architecture. The bare white walls of the building bear no logo or image to reveal the nature of the business. A principle of all good horror movies is to keep the monster invisible for as long as possible and Coppola plays with this format too in his film, as the actual horror in The Conversation remains unnamed and undefined just like the company and cooperate bigshots involved. Not unlike the faceless menances that are viruses and spam The creation of paranoia and intrusion… Coppola plays with indistinct voices and blurred faces which cause frustration, a teasing score with anything recognisable only heard in snatches. The opening scene sets up a balance between what we see and what we hear, almost European in pace. New Hollywood liked to disorientate its viewers in such a way. The Conversation may be labelled generically as a psychological thriller; with Coppola appearing to pay stylistic homage to Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966) with the repetition and parsing of sounds rather than images to create ambiguities. Additionally, in its depiction of hotel murder it bears resonance to Hitchcock’s Psycho. In one of many nods to Hitchcock in his films, Coppola plays with audience expectation, showing the shower clean when Harry snatches back the curtain before the hesitated uncovering of the horror beneath the toilet seat. The Conversation provides one of Coppola’s signature character studies, as we are provided with the disturbing portrayal of power and the isolation of the central character. When we discover that Harry is suffering from intense guilt from a previous assignment and his Catholicism is revealed, this complicates his portrayal of detachment, introducing one element from which he is unable to escape, his own conscience. Unhappy ever after…non-Hollywood style It is Harry’s consumption in the voyeuristic world he has established that causes his misinterpretation of the key line, his misunderstanding of the inflexion in the private conversation he has recorded and which he plays over repeatedly. The shock and horror that he suffers when Harry realises he has been betrayed by his own recordings leads to his destruction. The physical result is his own ruination of his apartment as he searches for a device which remains elusive, that in some sense he embodies. Not even his faith can sustain him as he smashes the statue of the Virgin Mary. ….security and privacy are clearly not only practically important, but if we are to learn from the example of our protagonist… vital for our own sanity Ok so it’s a film I know… but it just proves the power and relevancy that security issues have in order to be awarded a starring role by the director that brought us The Godfather. [1] Steven Jay Schneider, Quintessence: 2007. London. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com www.maildistiller.com |
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