1974 – Sat In Your Lap

I Always Feel Like, Somebody’s Watching Me

The Conversation revolves around just that, a conversation between a man and a woman which is secretly recorded in San Francisco’s Union Square by Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) and his team as a paid job for a private interest. Watching The Conversation decades after the fact, it’s surprising to see that such long-range microphones which can record conversations from afar and even in crowded places existed, let alone were commercially available in 1974, while it’s also of great interest to watch the process depicted in the film of editing together the audio from different sources without the aid of a computer screen. It goes without saying that in a post 9/11, post Edward Snowden world, The Conversation is more scarily relevant than ever.

Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is the personification of a paranoid man in one of the most effective portrays of a crisis of conscience in film. If you’re in the business of spying on people, it’s difficult to believe people are not spying on you, even to the point that the man can’t even bear one of his neighbours delivering him a present on his birthday. Unlike an Edward Snowden, Harry Caul does not work for the government but the movie hints that he has been hired by them before. Harry’s assistant Stan (John Cazale) even speculates the tapes Harry is editing could be for the Justice Department or the Internal Revenue. However, the most “out there” moment in the film comes when Harry’s associate Bernie (Allen Garfield) states: “Twelve years ago, I recorded every phone call made by the presidential nominee of a major political party…I’m not saying I elected the President of the United States, but you can draw your own conclusions.” Francis Ford Coppola had been writing The Conversation since the late 1960’s however it’s not determined whether the Watergate scandal had any influence on the film’s development, but you can draw your own conclusions.

Perhaps the most unsettling section in The Conversation is the surveillance convention – a convention where the subterranean world of wiretappers come together to showcase their Orwellian recording technology with the pomp and flair of any business expo. As Martin Stett (a certain young Harrison Ford) sinisterly sums it up, “It’s a convention of wiretappers, ah excuse me, surveillance and security technicians”.

Ah yes, let’s talk about the young Harrison Ford in the supporting role of Martin Stett. Perhaps I may be biased being a huge Harrison Ford fan but he leaves a huge impression in this small but significant part in which he does have a surprising amount of screen time for this early stage in his career. According to Coppola on the director’s commentary track, the character was Ford’s own creation. Originally no more than a cameo, the character’s role was expanded as much as possible when Ford fleshed it out, turning the character into an implied homosexual with his campy checkered tie and sweater, in an implied relationship with the company director played by Robert Duvall. Martin Stett is like a predecessor to the 1980’s yuppie and is one scary looking dude when he lingers in the background – even his voice over the phone is unsettling. I’m unable to discover whether or not more footage of Ford ended up on the cutting room floor. However included on the Blu-ray release of The Conversation is an early screen test from 1972 in which a young and dashing Ford plays the role of Mark, which a part which would eventually be portrayed by Frederic Forrest.

Being a film about sound itself, The Conversation couldn’t be a more ideal match for the editing and sound design talents of the great Walter Murch. Like his work in Apocalypse Now, the sound effects are as memorable as the music, particularly that audio distortion noise that repeats during the film’s titular conversation. Likewise, the eerie, ragtime-esque music score courtesy of David Shire shows what you can do with just a piano – the ideal accompaniment to the gritty 70’s look amongst the film’s oppressive yet striking architecture and a slightly drab-looking winter San Francisco (The Conversation is one of those film’s set during Christmas which has no bearing on the holiday). Even the camera acts as an eavesdropper with the film’s use of voyeuristic shots.

“We know that you know, Mr. Caul. For your own sake, don’t get involved any further. We’ll be listening to you.”

Perhaps You’ve Heard of the Yakuza, the Poison Fists of the Pacific Rim. The Japanese Mafia!

***This Review Contains Spoilers***

In the audio commentary for The Yakuza, director Sydney Pollack speaks of what attracted him to the project, that he wanted to create a film which examines the clash between western and eastern cultures. In particular, the opposing view the two share on forgiveness. The Christian ethic in the West believes that confession absolves one of guilt and sin, whereas in Japanese culture, forgiveness is something you must earn; if you cause pain, then the only way to atone for it is to inflict pain upon yourself. As protagonist Harry Kilmer (Robert Mitchum) is described at one point in the film, “When my brother spoke of you as a unique stranger, I took it to mean that you were a westerner who had values consistent with our own, that a man pays his own debts, discharges his own obligations, that they are all that make him a man”.

Kilmer is a World War II veteran who remained in Japan after the war and fell in love with a Japanese woman, Eiko Tanaka (Keiko Kishi). I find it difficult to imagine a better choice for the role of Harry Kilmer than Robert Mitchum. The ultra-cool, world-weary actor (who still retained a magnificent mane of hair in his old age) carries a real level of gravitas. An icon of film noir and someone who was often cast in movies about the war in the Pacific, his casting in this neo-noir on the seedy underworld of Japanese gangsters is a perfect marriage of actor and role.

The Yakuza is a love letter to Japanese cinema. You couldn’t ask for a non-Japanese production about Japan to be more respectful, thoroughly researched and authentic than The Yakuza. The opening credits themselves are reminiscent of the film Kaidan (1964), while the names of the Japanese actors appear in the traditional last name, first name format. The score by Dave Grusin is itself magnificent, combining eastern and western influences, delivering a real sense of aching beauty as it plays alongside scenes of the bustling, neon-lit Tokyo streets. The filmmakers clearly took full advantage of the Japanese locations at their disposal; the Kyoto International Conference Centre is an incredible piece of architecture (it’s not a 70’s movie unless there’s some brutalist architecture), while the sento (public bath) with its minimalist waterfall and carp-filled aquariums has a real Blade Runner vibe. Westernisation in Japan is often a shock to outsiders, and that is on display in The Yakuza, in particular, the scene in the nightclub in which patrons are singing My Darling Clementine. However, as stated early in the picture, “The farmers in the countryside may watch TV on their tatami mats, and you can’t see Fuji through the smog, but don’t let it fool you. It’s still Japan. And the Japanese are still Japanese.”

Kilmer and his friend Oliver Wheat (Herb Edelman) are so engaged with Japanese culture and its customs to the point that they’re second nature to them. Richard Jordan, as Dusty, on the other hand, acts as the audience surrogate character for the non-Japanese viewer as he experiences Japanese culture for the first time. He expresses a genuine interest and curiosity, such as when he gets too comfortable examining a katana sword, to expressing his observations; “When an American cracks up, he opens the window and shoots up a bunch of strangers. When a Japanese cracks up, he closes the window and shoots himself. Everything’s in reverse, isn’t it?”. The Yakuza is part of the Gaijin subgenre of films. A long lineup of films about foreigners’ interaction and navigation through Japanese culture, often confronting their own cultural blind spots. The Yakuza wouldn’t even be actor Ken Takakura’s (as Eiko’s brother Ken) final appearance in such a film, as he would also appear in Ridley Scott’s thematically similar Black Rain (1989) and the sports comedy Mr. Baseball (1992), playing the cultural counterpart to a foreigner. From what I understand, Takakura only had a perfunctory understanding of English, although watching The Yakuza, you would think the man is fully fluent.

The scenes involving the dealings of The Yakuza themselves give the film the vibe of being the oriental Godfather; suited men negotiating at desks while smoking cigarettes, with a strict hierarchy and their own set of customs (such as the introduction of extending their hand from their right knee to show they have no weapon). The Yakuza is a film with some very violent scenes, but it is not a schlocky film; thus, the violence is portrayed in a classy, arty tone and not gratuitously, with an effective combination of gunfire and katana duels. The film does, however, have one reality-bending moment in which a gangster has his arm chopped off, yet the severed arm continues to hold a gun and fires it in mid-air (either way, it looks cool). The film’s rescue plot, in which Harry, Dusty and Ken have to rescue a kidnapped American girl, and its messy aftermath is quite complicated and hard to follow with its web of conspiracy and double crossing, but even during my first viewing of The Yakuza, it didn’t detract from the film’s emotional core.

The romance angle of The Yakuza is established with a Casablanca-like set-up. After Eiko refuses to marry Harry (a love made forbidden due to family ties), Harry leaves Japan, but leaves Eiko a café named the Kilmer House as a sayonara gift. Following Harry’s return to Japan, he arrives at the Kilmer House just as the café is closing for the night, to greet Eiko for the first time in 20 years, as they subsequently spend the evening reliving their nostalgic memories of the occupation years. The Yakuza shows that Mitchum was not only a tough guy, but could also play a great romantic lead with a tough yet tender personality. So why did Eiko refuse to marry Harry despite being in love with him? In the film’s big final third twist, the man we are led to believe is Eiko’s brother, Ken (who returned from the jungle several years following the end of the war), is actually her husband. Although Ken was always grateful to Harry for saving Eiko’s life after the war, his current return to Japan is what leads to the death of their daughter, Hanako (Christina Kokubo), at the hands of Yakuza – a disbalancing of debt and obligation.

Upon Harry’s realisation that ‘’I destroyed his past and future”, Harry offers Ken an apology fitting of a former Yakuza, completing the overarching theme of the film. In a scene featuring some of the finest acting of Mitchum’s career, Harry performs the Yakuza ritual of Yubitsume (cutting off the tip of one’s little finger). During the scene, there is the nervous anticipation as Harry sits down, takes a deep breath, then takes out a handkerchief and knife with the look on his face of “I can’t believe I’m really going to do this”, before proceeding with the act itself. He offers the severed fingertip to Ken, as Harry’s face and voice are overcome with physical and emotional pain as he delivers words of sorrow in both English and Japanese (“No man has a greater friend”). The Yakuza ends with a sense of tragic yet melancholic closure. However, why did Eiko never tell Harry the truth all those years ago? Would the truth not have caused less heartache? The final interaction between Harry and Eiko puts a cap on this ambiguity:

“I have no more secrets, do I, Harry?”

“Never run out of those darling.”