That 70's Show

After the fantastic opening shot, The Conversation flails in outdated technology and hair and eyeglasses combinations. When it ventures toward the timeless, in the form of a sad sack main character named Harry Caul, the film's emotional potency increases. Still, The Conversation is anti-drama; a hermetic study of a single, loveless man who wants only to pass through life unnoticed. Under Coppola's magnifying glass gaze, Gene Hackman portrays a man who acts only when no one is looking. Harry Caul is perpetually uncomfortable around people. You get the impression he can only relax when he is alone. He is devoutly religious and will only reveal himself to a faintly lit lattice slot in a church confession booth where hopes there is an attentive priest on the other side. Caul descends into paranoia by the film's conclusion and one is left with the feeling that he is lost forever by the time he guts his apartment trying to find a bug recording his every sound.