Italian distributors Lucky Red are
re-running Francis Ford Coppola's iconic The Conversation from
1974 in its Italian cinemas from March 10 to 16 in homage to the
great Gene Hackman who has died aged 95.
The film, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1974, will for
the first time be seen in a restored 4K version.
The Conversation, which garnered three Oscar nominations and
four Golden Globe nominations but was a commercial flop, is a
psychological thriller that has become a true cult film over
time.
To the notes of the evocative soundtrack composed by Coppola's
cousin David Shire and with the extraordinary sound editing by
Walter Murch, an unforgettable Hackman - alienated face,
moustache, raincoat and saxophone - plays the role of the
paranoid Harry Caul, an expert in electronic surveillance
dealing with a case that could have dramatic consequences and
that makes him sink into a deep crisis of conscience.
Written, produced and directed by Coppola, admittedly partly
inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up and shot in the
interval between the first and second chapters of The Godfather,
The Conversation was considered a prophetic film, having
preceded Watergate, the wiretapping scandal that brought down
the Nixon administration.
It is in fact, one of Coppola's most personal and experimental
films.
Alongside Hackman, it features a cast of other stars, including
John Cazale, Robert Duvall and a very young Harrison Ford.
Full of twists and turns, immersed in a noir atmosphere in a
crescendo of tension between a sense of secrecy and a sense of
guilt, The Conversation is a profound reflection on loneliness
and the invasiveness of technology, still very current fifty
years after the film's first release in movie theaters.
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