The Conversation (1974)

          To fully grasp the hot streak filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola was on in the ’70s, it’s necessary to look beyond the titanic accomplishments of The Godfather (1972), The Godfather: Part II (1974), and Apocalypse Now (1979). Released the same year as The Godfather: Part II—and, amazingly, also nominated for a Best Picture Oscar that year, giving Coppola two slots in the category—was The Conversation, which arguably represents the purest artistic statement of Coppola’s early career. Whereas Coppola’s other ’70s films are adaptations, The Conversation is an original. Moreover, the picture is so intimate that it demonstrates the filmmaker’s preternatural ability to use image and sound as a means of communicating nearly microscopic details about a protagonist’s inner life. Yet beyond simply being an auteurist showpiece, The Conversation tells a resonant story about themes ranging from paranoia to personal responsibility, and it contains one of the finest leading performances of the decade, by the incomparable Gene Hackman. In sum, The Conversation is a pinnacle achievement whether viewed as personal art, social critique, or even just craftsmanship.

          Set in Coppola’s beloved San Francisco, the movie concerns Harry Caul (Hackman), a surveillance contractor revered by fellow professionals for his skill at secretly recording conversations in tricky situations. The opening scene depicts Harry’s team using a trio of strategically placed microphones to eavesdrop on an exchange between young lovers Ann (Cindy Williams) and Mark (Frederic Forrest), who speak while walking in circles through a crowded urban square. Harry merges the recordings until he’s extracted a pristine master tape, and then attempts to make delivery to his client, a director at the CIA. Yet when Harry is denied access to the director, he suspects trouble, so he withholds the master tape. It turns out that in the past, one of Harry’s tapes was used to justify an assassination, so Harry fears history might repeat itself. The problem, however, is that Harry is so reclusive that he has no close friends from whom to seek guidance or support. Therefore, the incredible drama of the movie stems from Harry’s quandary over whether to maintain his personal code of noninvolvement or violate his self-preserving principles in order to serve the greater good.

          Every character surrounding Harry is used by Coppola to illuminate a different facet of the protagonist. Amiable coworker Stan (John Cazale) reveals Harry’s inability to trust; gentle prostitute Meredith (Elizabeth McRae) reveals Harry’s inability to share emotionally; undemanding kept woman Amy (Teri Garr) reveals Harry’s inability to commit; and so on. Meanwhile, edgy supporting characters including ice-blooded functionary Martin (Harrison Ford) and vulgar surveillance-industry competitor Bernie (Allen Garfield) represent the types of avarice and duplicity that first drove Harry to become a recluse. On nearly every textual and subtextual level, The Conversation is a master class in character development.

          It’s also a wonder in terms of technical execution. Coppola and expert cinematographers Bill Butler and Haskell Wexler carve delicate images from light, movement, and shadow, articulating the significance of how different people occupy different spaces. Unsung hero Walter Murch, performing the role of sound designer before that job title existed, works magic with distortion and fragmentation to evoke Harry’s insular life experience, while composer David Shire’s whirling piano figures address the painful tension pervading the story. The performances are uniformly good, from Garr’s slightly pathetic likeability to Garfield’s crass aggression, but, obviously, the brittle textures of Hackman’s work hold The Conversation together. Disappearing behind dumpy clothes, horn-rimmed glasses, and a receding hairline, Hackman sketches Harry Caul with incredible restraint, so the flashes of emotion that the actor makes visible speak volumes. The Conversation isn’t perfect, thanks to occasional directorial flourishes that slip into pretention and thanks to a slightly overlong running time. Nonetheless, in every important way, The Conversation defines what made New Hollywood cinema bracing, innovative, and meaningful.

The Conversation: OUTTA SIGHT

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

          Riveting from its first frame to its last and infused with equal measures of humor and tragedy, Dog Day Afternoon is a masterpiece of closely observed character dynamics and meticulous dramaturgy. It also contains two of the most powerful performances of the ’70s, from leading man Al Pacino and co-star John Cazale, to say nothing of one of the decade’s most memorable moments, the “Attica, Attica!” bit in which Pacino riles up a crowd gathered around the movie’s central location by invoking a then-recent tragedy at a New York prison.

          The story is a riff on a real-life bank robbery that was comitted by crooks with unusual motivations. Pacino plays Sonny Wortzik, an intense ne’er-do-well who recruits his dim-witted buddy, Sal (Cazale), to help with a brazen heist in broad daylight. The robbery quickly evolves into a hostage situation as cops, led by Sgt. Moretti (Charles Durning), congregate outside the bank. Then, as we watch various communications between Sonny and the outside world, we discover why he planned the heist: for money to pay for his boyfriend’s sex-change operation. So, while the anxious afternoon darkens into an excruciating evening, viewers develop deep compassion for Sonny’s peculiar plight—on top of everything else, he’s married to a woman and doesn’t want to hurt her, even though his heart belongs to Leon (Chris Sarandon).

          Working from a Frank Pierson’s Oscar-winning script and guided by Sidney Lumet’s sure directorial hand, Pacino reveals dimension upon dimension of his offbeat character, never once making a cheap ploy for audience sympathy; the actor illustrates such deep and profound emotional truths, through behavior and dialogue and physical carriage, that Sonny feels like a living and breathing human being in every scene. The performance is not for every taste (the Method-y screaming and general demonstrativeness is a turn-off for some viewers), but it’s impossible not to recognize Pacino’s work as some of the most impassioned and meticulous performance ever committed to film.

          Cazale, the haunted-looking Bostonian who died at age 42 after appearing in just five films (all of which were nominated for Oscars as Best Picture), is terrific as Sal, a slow everyman who can barely grasp what’s happening at any given moment, much less the future implications of his actions; in the classic moment, he’s asked what country he would like to flee to after the robbery, and he says, “Wyoming.” Durning offers humanistic support as a cop trying to keep a bad situation from exploding, Sarandon is funny and sensitive during his brief appearance as Sonny’s lover, and a young Lance Henriksen shows up toward the end of the movie.

          But it’s almost completely Pacino’s show, or, more accurately, Pacino’s and Lumet’s. As they did to an only slightly lesser degree on Serpico (1973), the two men lock into each other’s creative frequencies perfectly—Lumet creates complex, lifelike situations to frame Pacino’s emotional explorations, and Pacino fills Lumet’s frames with as much vitality as they can contain. Detractors might argue that the movie drags a bit in the middle, but because each scene enriches our understanding of Sonny’s inner life and his strange predicament, complaining about too much of a good thing seems petty—few movies offer as much in the way of believable pathos and varied tonalities as Dog Day Afternoon, and few movies sustain such a high level of artistry and craft for the entire running time. Exciting, frightening, moving, surprising, and unique, Dog Day Afternoon is as good as it gets in ’70s cinema.

Dog Day Afternoon: OUTTA SIGHT

The Deer Hunter (1978)

          The winner of five Oscars and one of the best-remembered movies of the ’70s, The Deer Hunter has undeniable strengths. The acting is across-the-board great, with Christopher Walken earning an Academy Award for the film’s crucial supporting role; Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep were nominated for the male and female leading roles, respectively, and John Cazale and John Savage both contribute mesmerizing work. The film’s level of intensity, once the story kicks into gear, is so high that many find the film too painful to watch. On every technical plane, the movie is gorgeous to behold, with immaculate costuming and production design filling cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond’s Oscar-nominated imagery to create a rich visual experience. And, finally, since The Deer Hunter was one of the first big-budget movies to address the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder as a major issue for veterans returning from the Vietnam War, it has historical importance.

          Having said all that, The Deer Hunter hasn’t aged well, and in fact its flaws were apparent to some discerning viewers back when the movie was new. First off, director and co-writer Michael Cimino’s storytelling is wildly undisciplined. The first hour of the picture, which introduces a group of male friends living in a Pennsylvania steel town, drags on endlessly. Although Cimino’s scheme of immersing viewers in mundane details of his characters’ lives before moving the story to Vietnam is sensible, Cimino ends up delivering the same information over and over again, resulting in tedium. In particular, the interminable sequence depicting the wedding of wide-eyed Steven (Savage) to his pregnant sweetheart unfolds in what feels like real time. Amid this narrative muck, De Niro’s character, Michael, emerges as the de facto leader of the group, an autodidactic tough guy whom the others fear and respect in equal measure.

          A long sequence of the male friends bonding for one last deer hunt before deploying to Vietnam has great visual poetry, but it’s jarring that the sequence was obviously shot in the Pacific Northwest (specifically, Washington state) even though it supposedly takes place in Pennsylvania. The movie really goes off the rails, however, after an abrupt mid-movie shift to Vietnam. For the remainder of the movie, the vicious game of Russian roulette becomes the dramatic focus, first when American POWs are forced to play the game by their animalistic captors, and then when Nick (Walken) becomes a champion Roulette player working the postwar Vietnamese underground. Michael is a kind of battlefield superhero during the POW scenes, and the manner in which he rescues his buddies stretches believability. Yet the story becomes even more audacious when Michael returns to postwar Vietnam in order to rescue Nick, who has become so traumatized, almost to the point of catatonia, that he plays Russian roulette for money.

          It turns out there’s a good reason why none of this hangs together particularly well. Producer Michael Deeley reportedly hired Cimino to expand a non-Vietnam script about Russian roulette into the story that eventually became The Deer Hunter. Perhaps reflecting this hodgepodge approach, the Russian roulette material is so overwrought, and so demeaning to the Vietnamese national character, that it completely derives the film of dramatic restraint and historical accuracy. Whether historical accuracy was ever the goal is another question, but The Deer Hunter ends up being an uncomfortable hybrid of incompatible narrative elements, and also a needlessly repetitive movie that slogs through 183 minutes of boredom and brutality. There are incandescent moments, mostly due to the valiant work of a remarkable cast, but in sum, The Deer Hunter is pretentious, sloppy, unpleasant, and not just a little racist.

The Deer Hunter: FUNKY

The Godfather (1972) & The Godfather: Part II (1974)

          When Paramount decided to make a film of Mario Puzo’s pulpy novel about a Mafia family, the subject matter was considered déclassé at best, the domain of such grimy quickies as The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967). But the success of the novel (something like 2 million copies sold in the first two years after publication) convinced ambitious Paramount boss Robert Evans to give The Godfather the A-list treatment. After the usual dance of overtures to other filmmakers (Peter Bogdanovich, Sergio Leone), Francis Ford Coppola was hired as director and as Puzo’s cowriter on a script about the ascension of crime boss Michael Corelone. Gobs of plot from the novel were cut (and later repurposed for the first sequel), notably patriarch Vito Corleone’s backstory. Getting the movie cast was an ordeal, especially because Paramount hated Al Pacino for Michael even more than they hated Marlon Brando for Vito. The studio pitched such unlikely alternates as Ryan O’Neal for the son and Danny Thomas for the father.

          Making the film was fractious for all involved, with Coppola and Pacino constantly at risk of termination—the director was targeted for overspending, the actor for underplaying. Yet behind-the-scenes disharmony wasn’t enough to inhibit the creative process, because The Godfather represents a career high for everyone involved. As entertaining as it is intelligent and soulful, the picture comfortably ranks among American cinema’s true masterpieces. Working with famed cinematographer Gordon Willis, nicknamed “The Prince of Darkness” for his moody lighting style, Coppola created a unique look that evoked vintage sepia-toned photographs. Drawing on his own Italian American heritage, Coppola blended his cast into a tight unit, thereby creating a sense of familial connection that counterbalances the film’s violent storyline.

          As for the narrative itself, that should be familiar to all ’70s-cinema fans, so here’s a brief sketch for those who haven’t yet had the pleasure. As aging Mafia boss Vito Corleone struggles to maintain old codes of conduct during the changing times of the World War II era, his three sons follow different paths. Heir apparent Sonny (James Caan) is a hothead who advocates violence, ne’er-do-well Fredo (John Cazale) evinces cowardice, and golden boy Michael (Pacino) avoids the family business until circumstances force him to embrace his destiny. Standing to the side of the action is lawyer Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), an outsider who’s nearly a fourth son to Vito, and Kay Adams (Diane Keaton), Michael’s WASP fiancée.

          The genius of The Godfather is that internal friction causes as much trouble for the Corleones as external forces, so the film becomes a meditation on betrayal, disappointment, family, honor, and countless other epic themes. The acting is amazing, from the stars to the perfectly selected bit players whom Coppola employs to imbue every scene with gritty flavor. And although it’s essentially Pacino’s movie, no one actor dominates, since The Godfather is an egalitarian ensemble piece. It also features more classic scenes than nearly any other single movie, from the canoli to the horse’s head and beyond. It’s not enough to describe The Godfather as one of the essential films of the ’70s, because The Godfather is one of the essential films of all time.

          Astonishingly, Coppola and co. nearly topped themselves with the sequel. Both ’70s Godfather films won Oscars as Best Picture, a feat that’s unlikely to ever be repeated. In fact, many fans argue that The Godfather, Part II is the rare sequel to surpass its predecessor, though I don’t share that opinion. Make no mistake, The Godfather, Part II is remarkable in both ambition and execution, with artistic and technical aspects either matching or exceeding those of the original film. Moreover, the film’s painful storyline about a battle between brothers cuts as deeply as the first picture’s depiction of a father trying and failing to save his favorite son from a life of crime. So when I offer my opinion that The Godfather, Part II is incrementally inferior to The Godfather, it’s with the caveat that nearly all films, even great ones, are inferior to The Godfather.

          As has been analyzed and celebrated by countless people before me, the big play that Coppola made in The Godfather Part II was telling two stories at once. In present-day scenes, hapless Fredo makes a series of foolish decisions, forcing Michael to exercise his authority over the family in heartbreaking ways. Meanwhile, in operatic flashbacks, Robert De Niro plays the younger version of Brando’s character from the first film. As such, The Godfather, Part II parallels the formation of the Corleone family with its ultimate damnation, brilliantly illustrating how the fateful choices that Vito made as a young man triggered a chain of events continuing through generations. For my taste, the nettlesome flaw of The Godfather, Part II stems from directorial self-indulgence, which would eventually become a major problem in Coppola’s career. As gorgeous and poetic as they are, the De Niro scenes linger a bit too long, since it feels as if Coppola fell in love with every artistic composition and balletic camera move that he and Willis created together. Even the presence of famed acting teacher Lee Strasberg in a crucial supporting role feels a bit precious, as if The Godfather, Part II is overly aware of its own significance as a compendium of extraordinary performance techniques. That said, we should all be so lucky as to suffer from an embarrassment of riches, and the highest points of The Godfather, Part II (“I know it was you, Fredo”) are breathtaking.

          Regarding the subject of the much-maligned cash-grab threequel The Godfather, Part III (1990), I choose to pretend there are only two movies about the Corleone family. FYI, compendium releases bearing titles including The Godfather Saga and The Godfather: A Novel for Television put all the scenes from the first two pictures, alongside previously unseen footage, into chronological order. Yet another version, The Godfather Trilogy: 1901–1980, integrates the third film and its attendant deleted scenes. The running time on that version is a whopping 583 minutes.

The Godfather: OUTTA SIGHT

The Godfather, Part II: OUTTA SIGHT