Film Techniques In The Conversation By Francis Ford Coppola

The Conversation, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, follows Harry Caul, an expert in the field of surveillance, as he becomes obsessed with trying to decipher a distorted audio of a conversation between two people that he thinks are in danger. He is already wracked with guilt after his work on a previous project led to a person's death, and this guilt fuels an obsession to prevent it from happening again. This obsession contributes to a disconnect from reality and Harry's tendency to distance himself from the people in his life.
This scene shows Harry's disconnection from others and his obsession with the people in the recorded conversation in a few different ways. It was represented most clearly through the composition of the shots and use of sound throughout the scene. The lighting in one of the shots also plays a role in showing how alone he really is.
The framing and camera angles in this scene play a significant …show more content…
A medium shot of Harry taking off his jacket shows Stan as an insignificant part of the background even though he is talking to Harry. The camera then continues to follow Harry as he prepares his workstation while Stan is still the one speaking, thus showing that what Stan has to say does not matter very much to him. Instead, we see the camera alternating primarily between closeups of photographs showing the couple and Harry's face as he looks at them. We even see that Harry's side of the short conversation is much less important to him than the photos in front of him because as he responds to Stan, the camera lingers on a closeup of the pictures. It is not until he has finished responding to Stan that the camera returns to his face, using an eye line match to show that he is still focused on the photographs. We can see where his focus lies in the following shots as