The Conversation

Running time: N/A

Maverick film and sound editor Walter Murch joins us for a special screening of the classic film The Conversation. In the midst of our current infatuation with information, particularly telecommunications, how often do you wonder who may be listening in on your cell phone conversation or furtively slitting open that cyber envelope of your latest e-mail? Released more than 23 years ago, Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation is, nonetheless, as eerily contemporary as www.privacynomore.com. Gene Hackman, in one of his best performances, plays Harry, an electronic eavesdropping specialist, who stalks his clients' subjects with the fervor of a well-trained assassin. His weapon, a rifle-shaped microphone complete with cross-hairs, may seem innocuous, but its mayhem proves to be no less deadly than a bonafide firearm with real bullets. To Harry, the assignment is just another job, but as the voyeur in him becomes increasingly obsessed with the clandestinely obtained conversation, he finds himself drawn into a swirling and lethal eddy from which he cannot escape. As sound editor on the film (for which he received an Oscar nomination), Walter Murch so masterfully creates the web of Harry's claustrophobic, glass-against-the-wall universe, that we almost feel the slow, but inevitable deterioration of his soul as he dives deeper and deeper into the quicksand of his stolen little secrets. -- Pete Crane