The Conversation (8/10): The 70's were the Golden Age for Coppola

“We'll be listening to you.”

I can’t think of another director who dominated a decade in the same way that Francis Ford Coppola did during the 70’s. Beginning with The Godfather, following it up with its sequel and this film in 1974, and finally closing the decade with the ambitious Apocalypse Now. Each one of these films can be considered among the best of all time, and unfortunately due to the success of The Godfather sequel, The Conversation is often left out of the conversation. I wouldn’t rank this one so high up, but I can see its appeal and the fact that the film is as relevant (if not even more) today as it was 40 years ago. Both Coppola and Hackman have each declared that this is their personal favorite movie out of the ones they’ve worked in, and that just proves how much passion was put into this project. The Conversation works best as a character study of a paranoid and devoted surveillance expert who is so absorbed in his profession that he shuts everyone out of his life. His life is one of contrasts, because even though he is the best at what he does, he is easily a victim as well (it’s easy to spy on this spy), he is conflicted about putting other lives in danger with his work (he’s haunted about the murder of three individuals as a result of one of his most successful surveillance operations) , but at the same time he is proud of his work and accomplishments. He is considered by his peers to be the best bugger, but ironically he is so concerned about someone spying on him that he shuts everyone out despite the fact that he really has nothing to hide. He lives a persecuted life because that’s how far his paranoia has gone, but that doesn’t mean he’s good at keeping people out, because in several instances we see how easily he’s fooled. The focus is entirely on Gene Hackman’s character so don’t go into this one expecting an edge of your seat thriller. 

The film opens with an extended long shot of a park in San Francisco full of people as the camera slowly begins focusing on a couple walking in circles around the plaza although we can’t quite make out what they are saying. There is a surveillance team following them around with microphones, but it’s hard to distinguish what they are saying from all the noise. This isn’t an issue for Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) who has developed his own technology that allows him to filter out the noise by combining the three separate microphones that his team was using and piecing together the conversation. He is a bit disturbed with what he has recorded and begins having doubts about giving the tape to the person who hired him for the job (referred to as the Director). Harry keeps to himself and acts all secretive, not even allowing his closest assistant, Stan (John Cazale), to know what is disturbing him. When he finally decides to turn in the tapes, he is greeted by the Director’s assistant, Martin (Harrison Ford), who says the Director is away on a Business trip. Since he had specifically said to turn in the tapes directly to him Harry decides to return home with the tapes despite Martin’s protest. He begins to feel followed and this only intensifies Harry’s fears about getting the couple in trouble. At a surveillance convention that takes place soon after, we discover that Harry is a respected man in his line of work although no one knows much about his personal life. 

The performances in this film are great, especially Gene Hackman who delivers one of the best roles of his career. He downplays the paranoia and delivers it in a very subtle manner. Despite not having much screen time John Cazale, Allen Garfield, and Harrison Ford each deliver solid secondary performances. The film’s atmospheric tone is set by the grainy camera work and the outstanding jazzy score which help build the tension. However this being a character study, it relies entirely on Hackman’s performance. The theme of surveillance also continues to resonate today after the ongoing scandals with Snowden’s claims and the increasing advances in technology. The Conversation is a wonderful film that continues to grow on me the more I think of it. It wasn’t the haunting thriller I was expecting to see, but it did surprise me at how well crafted the story was and how it centered on this character that is full of ironies and contrasts. The film ends on a brilliant note as well which just goes on to prove that The Conversation belongs to be considered amongst Coppola’s best work. It’s a shame that after such a brilliant decade, Coppola has never seemed to come close to what he did in those four films. Thanks to the 70’s his work will be hard to equal by any director so he still deserves to be considered as one of the best of our generation.       

My Review: Apocalypse Now Redux (7/10)

¨I love the smell of napalm in the morning.¨

There is no doubt that Apocalypse Now will be considered by many as one of the best films of all time because it is a very memorable and unique film. It feels surreal at times and has some great performances. It`s also hard to define what genre the film belongs to because it doesn’t seem to have a structure or a pattern we find in other films. Apocalypse Now is a classic and powerful film, but I really wasn’t blown away by it and didn’t enjoy it very much. The problem I had with it was that I watched the Redux version which is almost one hour longer than the original, so there were several moments that seemed to drag forever. What I did enjoy about this movie was the first hour which I felt was an absolute masterpiece. Those first sixty minutes were a lot of fun and had the best moments in the movie. Then the next two hours dragged way too much with all the surrealism. I got the point, the soldiers were getting crazy over the minute and the film succeeds tremendously in pointing that out as we see how nonsensical this war really was. The minds of these men seemed to be lost completely and there was chaos reigning all over the place. For me nothing will replace those brilliant first sixty minutes with a performance from Robert Duvall for the ages. He was perfect in those few scenes he was in and I wish the film would`ve dealt with him instead. The entrance in the helicopters with the classical music and then the surfing in the middle of the war zone was so hilarious; one of the best scenes in film history. I was really feeling good about this movie, until the film went completely in another direction and lost my interest.

The movie takes place during the Vietnam War and it begins with a voice over narration of the main character, Captain Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen), who has recently returned from the United States to continue fighting. He is beginning to lose his mind while he awaits his mission. He says all he wanted to do when he was in the jungle was return home, and once he was home all he wanted was to return to the jungle. War has taken its toll on him. Finally he receives a new mission from Colonel Lucas (Harrison Ford) that is highly classified. He has to go down the Nung River all the way to Cambodia and find a former Colonel who has seemed to have lost his mind and gone haywire. He has built an army of his own and is killing off several Viet Cong officials without taking orders from anyone. Colonel Lucas wants Captain Willard to locate Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) and kill him. Willard is sent on his mission along with a Navy patrol boat to escort him. Chief Phillips (Albert Hall), Chef Hicks (Frederic Forrest), Lance Johnson (Sam Bottoms) a known surfer, and Clean Miller (Laurence Fishburne) are Captain Willard`s only companions on this classified mission. In order to begin their course down the river they first have to infiltrate a Viet Cong outpost so Lt. Kilgore (Robert Duvall) and his cavalry help them do so. As Captain Willard and his men begin their descent through the river they come across several bases (friendly and enemy) and the further down we go the more chaotic and wild things begin to get.

The descent through the Nung River was probably my least favorite part of the film. I enjoyed much more the scenes with Lt. Kilgore and his men that helped them begin their mission. Duvall as Lt. Kilgore steals the movie and he is brilliant in every scene. He is more concerned with surfing than he is with the actual War. It`s as if he is living in an alternate reality. This is just a small glimpse of what we are going to see further on in the movie as we encounter different outposts that seem to get weirder every time. Everything is escalating up to the very end and seems to get more and more chaotic thus making the title, Apocalypse Now, very appropriate. This isn’t your typical war movie, people are losing their minds and the film becomes more and more surreal and harder to fit into one specific genre. Francis Ford Coppola was at the top of his game during the 70`s with The Godfather films and you can see how brilliantly directed the scenes were. The cinematography and lighting was excellent. The reason I don’t give this film a higher grade despite admitting it is a memorable and unique movie is because I really wasn’t entertained that much with it. It would be hard to watch it again, unless I could just see that first hour with Robert Duvall. The all star cast makes it a little easier to watch: Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Harrison Ford, Dennis Hopper, and Laurence Fishburne.

  

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My Review: The Godfather Part II (10/10)

¨Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.¨

Coppola´s (or should I say Puzo`s) The Godfather Part II is considered by many as the best sequel of all time, and some even consider it to be better than the original. In my opinion it is not as good as the first part, but there is no denying this is a great film nonetheless. Coppola did a great job with the direction once again, and has created a timeless film that movie fans go back to time after time. There are several things he did well with this film. First of all he took a completely different approach towards romanticizing the Corleone`s. In the first film we were attracted to Vito for his strong family beliefs and loyalty to his friends, in this film we see how Michael completely begins to lose control of his family and friends. Michael, who I admired in the first film, has become so blind in his lust for power that he losses the strong values his father had taught him. He has grown cold, distant, and even goes as far as to hitting his wife (something Vito would never have dreamed of doing). The parallel story of young Vito and how he became a Don also works really well as it is told in flashbacks during Michael`s present reign as Don. This story serves as a reminder of how distant Michael has become from what his father wanted of him. Part II is more of a nostalgic movie as we see the decline in the once strong and united Corleone family, and Nino Rota`s score is a perfect example of that. The final scenes of the film only confirm this sentiment. The performance from the cast is as equally as brilliant as it was from the first, and Gordon Willis`s cinematography is also equally impressive with its dark scenes that help set the mood of the film.

The Godfather Part II continues where the first one left off with Michael (Al Pacino) as head of the Corleone family and Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) as his personal adviser and lawyer. They are living in Nevada now and running the gambling business in that state during the late 50`s. While we follow the present storyline, Coppola introduces a series of flashbacks beginning all the way back in 1901 following the early life of Vito (Oreste Baldini) in Sicily. Vito´s father, brother, and mother (in that specific order) have been killed by Don Ciccio (Giuseppe Sillato), but Vito is able to escape to New York. The film later jumps forward to 1917 where Vito (Robert De Niro) is making a living working as a clerk for a small store in New York. The movie jumps back and forth between both stories. On the one hand you have Michael trying to expand his empire travelling to Miami and Cuba, meeting with Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), a successful Jewish businessman, who Michael isn`t sure he can trust. On the meantime he has problems back home with his wife Kay (Diane Keaton), problems with Nevada Senator Pat Geary (G. D. Spradlin), and problems in New York with Frankie Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo), Clemenza`s replacement and friend of the family. After an attack on his life Michael isn`t sure who is after him (or maybe he is and we don`t know it). On the other hand, the other story continues to follow young Vito as he meets Clemenza (Bruno Kirby) and Tessio (John Aprea) and begins his imminent rise to becoming the Don.

Marlon Brando was a huge part of the success of the first film, but Coppola, along with Puzo, did a great job introducing new characters to the story that contributed to the success of the sequel. Michael V. Gazzo as Frankie and Lee Strasberg as Roth were great in this film and gave it a fresh new look. Another contributing factor was the addition of the flashbacks because Robert de Niro was the right man to play young Vito. His Oscar winning performance was outstanding and he just stood out in every scene he was in. Al Pacino continued with his transformation in the first film, and now he portrayed a much darker and colder Michael. He didn`t have to say anything and we already knew what he was feeling. There are several memorable scenes in which he speaks louder with his facial expressions than he does with his words. The opening scene in Nevada where the family is reunited celebrating Michael`s son`s First Communion is reminiscent of Connie`s wedding scene in the first Godfather, and the same thing can be said of several other scenes as the final one. The sequel serves as a nostalgic memory of what the Corleone`s once were (or at least what Coppola wanted us to think of them in the first romantic movie), it is much darker, but it still works and compliments the first part really well. The Godfather Part II is not better than the original, but it is still a masterpiece.

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My Review: The Godfather (10/10)

¨I`ll make him an offer he can`t refuse.¨

Many people consider the 70`s to be the Golden Age in Cinema, and if that is the case then Francis Ford Coppola had a great deal to do with it. During that decade he directed The Godfather Part 1 and 2, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now; he also produced American Graffiti, and wrote the screenplay for Patton. During that time he won 5 Oscars and was nominated for another seven. At least one of these films is on everybody`s favorite movies list, and The Godfather is considered by many critics to be the best film of all time. Despite being nominated for eleven Oscars it only took home three (Best Picture, Best Performance by Marlon Brando, and Best Screenplay), just one more confirmation that a film can`t be judged by the amount of awards it receives. The Godfather deserves much more. It is a movie that has transcended time and is enjoyed by everyone even decades after its first release. It was the first of its kind to portray the mafia from the inside and Coppola does a great job at romanticizing them and making us root for these criminals. How does he do it? By showing us the mafia as a strong and united family that supports each other; portraying the good guys as bad (there are corrupt cops and politicians); and making Vito Corleone stand out from the rest of the criminal families by not wanting to get involved in the drug business. He completely romanticizes the Corleone family and has us rooting for them from the very first scene thanks to a very intelligent script co-written with Mario Puzo who had previously written the bestselling novel. The script is amazing, the performances are great, and the direction from Coppola is just superb. All these elements combine perfectly to create this classic masterpiece.

We are introduced to Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) in the opening scene. He is head of one of the five New York Mafia families, and is attending his daughter`s wedding. The wedding serves as a great excuse for Coppola to introduce all the characters because the entire family is gathered at the wedding. Vito is the Godfather for many of the people invited and he is treated with a great deal of respect. Tradition has it that no Sicilian can refuse requests on their daughter`s wedding day, so Vito is attending some of his associates who are in need of favors. His sons Sonny (James Caan) and Fredo (John Cazale) are in the family business along with Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), the family lawyer and consigliere, who was adopted by Vito at a very young age and is like a son to him as well. His youngest son, Michael (Al Pacino), a World War II veteran shows up with his girlfriend Kay Adams (Diane Keaton) and is talking to her about his family. This conversation also serves as a perfect excuse to hear anecdotes about the family`s criminal life and we are informed at once that Michael is the only one who is not involved in the family business. He has decided to stay away from the criminal lifestyle and is respected by his family. The entire plot takes place inside the world of the Corleone family and during a time where significant change begins to take place. Vito will have to make an important decision whether or not the family should protect a wealthy man named The Turk (Al Lettieri) who is trying to bring heroin into the city, or stick to the harmless gambling and alcohol business. He better think things carefully because his decision could have consequences.

The Godfather is without a doubt a masterpiece and the cast has a great deal to do with it. James Caan and Robert Duvall had worked with Coppola in his previous film, The Rain People, and now they returned again with significant roles. They give great performances, but who really stands out in this movie is Marlon Brando who really becomes the Don. He gives one of the most memorable and all-time best movie performances in film history. Al Pacino hadn`t made a significant movie before and the transformation he goes through in this film is incredible. His character is the one who experiences the most change if we recall his first appearance in the wedding and his last one in the Baptism scene. The screenplay is also very well written, the story completely hooks us from the very beginning, the characters are unforgettable, and Coppola just did a great job with the direction as he immersed us inside this world of crime. Of course we know that the mob world isn`t anything like this and it has been romanticized by Hollywood, but Coppola managed to make us care for these criminals who actually don`t see themselves as the villains. Nino Rota`s score is just amazing and breathtaking; it helps build the suspense.The Baptism parallel action scene is one of the best ones in film history and has since been imitated endlessly in most action films, although never with the same effect. This is required viewing for everyone, one of the greatest achievements in film history.

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