We'll be listening to you.

The Conversation

(1974)

Coppola’s intricate, sure-paced film treads from mundanity to horror while retaining its focus on the “best bugger in the business”. Gene Hackman’s surveillance expert Harry Caul is a meticulous, anal character, quite unlikeable in some respects, but it’s his fussy dedication to his trade that gradually exerts a hold on the audience. That, and the knowledge that he nurses a profound guilt over a previous job that may have resulted in the deaths of surveillance targets (his Catholic background is also repeatedly referenced).

We first see him instructing Stan (John Cazale, playing a standard Cazale type) that it doesn’t matter what the nature of their recording is, or what the people they are listening in on are up to; he only wants to ensure the best quality possible is rendered. But by the end of the film the whys and wherefores are all he can think of, and the crucial twist is the icing on the cake; we have been so focused on the way he has viewed his subjects that we have all missed the wood for the trees.

This is Hackman’s show, but Coppola surrounds him with strong players in small roles; Robert Duvall, an impressively subdued yet threatening Harrison Ford, Frederic Forrest, and Bernie Moran as a fast-talking rival bugger. As Harry’s paranoia increases, so does the subjectivity of what he sees/imagines, and we move into Repulsion territory. I can see that some might consider the film as a whole to be a bit of a bore, but it exerts a hypnotic hold such that it remains in your head long after the end credits.

****1/2

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(SPOILERS) I don’t tend to fall heavily for Noah Baumbach fare. He’s undoubtedly a distinctive voice – even if his collaborations with Wes Anderson are the least of that director’s efforts – but his devotion to an exclusive, rarefied New York bubble becomes ever more off-putting with each new project. And ever more identifiable as being a lesser chronicler of the city’s privileged quirks than his now disinherited forbear Woody Allen, who at his peak mastered a balancing act between the insightful, hilarious and self-effacing. Marriage Story finds Baumbach going yet again where Woody went before, this time brushing up against the director’s Ingmar Bergman fixation.

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Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
I’ve seen comments suggesting that John Sturges’ thriller hasn’t aged well, which I find rather mystifying. Sure, some of the characterisations border on the cardboard, but the director imbues the story with a taut, economical backbone.

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Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
(1982)
(SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek, but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

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Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

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Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the system when Burton did it (even…

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The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)
Easily the best of the Narnia films, which is maybe damning it with faint praise.

Michael Apted does a competent job directing (certainly compared to his Bond film - maybe he talked to his second unit this time), Dante Spinotti's cinematography is stunning and the CGI mostly well-integrated with the action.

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***

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