

The Conversation (1974) - primigenus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conversation

======
beloch
Obviously, this is being posted because of the NSA and FBI scandals even
though it was, originally, more of a response to the Watergate scandal. Even
if you're sick of hearing about all of those this is still a fantastic film
and well worth watching.

Gene Hackman plays a private consultant who specializes in the surveillance of
difficult targets, such as people talking as they walk through a crowd.
Technology is handled brilliantly in this film. It's antiquated analogue 70's
tech obviously, but it's also both believable and impressive. Hackman's
character is layered and complex. He specializes in surveillance but values
his own privacy to the point of paranoia. The Conversation makes an incredibly
strong statement about the value of privacy and the price of destroying it.
Who watches the watchers? Somebody apparently, and the watchers don't like it
one bit!

If you're not convinced, read one of Ebert's reviews.

[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-
conversation-1974](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-conversation-1974)

[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-
conversati...](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-
conversation-1974)

~~~
pvarangot
The film is also still really fresh if you are a seasoned technologist.
Hackman's character goes to a trade show in one part of the movie where he
looks at all the new surveilance equipment he can buy and talks to some
vendors, and it really feels amazingly real and accurate.

~~~
ojbyrne
Whenever I debug some particularly difficult bug, I think of the scene where
he basically tears his house down looking for the other kind of bug.

------
NelsonMinar
The Conversation is one of the classics of 70s cinema, really worth a watch.
To match today's paranoid times, Tony Scott's spiritual successor film "Enemy
of the State" is also worth a watch. It's updated more as a star vehicle /
action flick, but it's also pretty good.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_State_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_State_\(film\))

~~~
jfb
Hackman plays the same character, really. It's not in the same league as _The
Conversation_ , but it is a really fun double-feature companion.

------
thex86
The more you know about surveillance, the more paranoid you become. And I
don't mean paranoid in a derogatory way, but the more you know about these
things, the more you have to sacrifice some of the _easier_ things in life
because you are spending more time making sure everything is _private_. The
phrase "ignorance is a bliss" never matched anywhere else more perfectly.

Great movie BTW.

------
raldi
If you like analog electronics and reel-to-reel tapes, this movie is like
pornography.

~~~
wmf
There's just something about those Nagras.

------
cleverjake
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6348750](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6348750)

~~~
olympus
This was on the front page less than a week ago. It's technically not a
repost, but it feels the same. While I am more tolerant of reposts of things
that never made it to the front page, stuff like this makes me feel bad for HN
as it indicates the arrival of one or more phenomena:

1\. A reddit-like circle jerk where the same stuff gets posted and the same
conversations are had multiple times.

2\. A reddit-like contingent of karma whores who repost stuff just to get
votes.

3\. A goldfish-like memory in HNers where they forget what happened just a
short while ago.

The multiple posts about the same thing happen often when big stories
break(Snowden's first leak, Steve Jobs death, Apple releases product iXYZ,
etc.), but I'm noticing it now with some smaller stories, and it is
frustrating.

My proposal is that the mods police these posts (I know they're watching,
titles get changed all the time), and keep the front page fresh. When a big
story breaks, maybe create a meta post- a "Snowden related links go here" post
and when people outside of that official post they are either merged in or
deleted. I realize it would require substantial changes to HN to add a meta
post type and change the decay algorithm to account for a meta post.

Go ahead and downvote, but I figured I'd offer up an idea (that probably isn't
original) instead of just complaining.

~~~
timmaxw
I speculate that re-posts get voted to the front page because the users who
are voting on them didn't see them the first time around.

The fraction of HN users that see a post on average depends on how long a
typical post stays on the front page and on how often a typical HN user checks
HN. I don't know what those parameters are, but I think it's plausible that a
typical HN user sees fewer than half of all front-page posts, in which case it
wouldn't be surprising for there to be some re-posts.

If something changed about those statistics--for example, perhaps more posts
per hour leads to a typical story staying on the front page for a shorter time
--then that could account for an increase in the number of re-posts.

Also, I'm not sure that there is actually a trend towards more re-posts on HN.
It seems like the kind of thing that would be easy to mis-estimate.

------
breck
> [Gene Hackman's] office is enclosed in wire mesh in a corner of a much
> larger warehouse

Neat. Gene Hackman's office in Enemy of the State is identical.

------
danso
I submitted the Netflix link last week but didn't comment in the
discussion...I'll just chime in with this:

* Reportedly Gene Hackman's favorite role of all time

* Young pre-Star-Wars Harrison Ford plays a total asshole in this movie

* Great ending

* One of the 5 John Cazale movies (Fredo in Godfather)

* The movie Coppola had scripted a decade before, but had to wait until Godfather was a success before he could finally film it

* Competed with Godfather 2 for Best Picture (and lost)

* On Netflix Streaming (for U.S. customers) [http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/The-Conversation/60003586?fcld=...](http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/The-Conversation/60003586?fcld=true)

It's a little slow for today's crowd, but really one of the best cinematic
portrayals of paranoia and the surveillance state.

~~~
jfb
OT: John Cazale had the most astonishing career of any actor ever. Six years,
five movies, five nominees for Best Picture ( _The Godfather_ , _The Godfather
Part II_ , _The Conversation_ , _Dog Day Afternoon_ , _Deer Hunter_ ), three
winners. And then he died. Just a remarkable life.

------
fiatpandas
The Conversation is just perfect. It's worth a watch for sure. While we're
thinking about surveillance themed films, The Lives of Others comes to mind as
a strong recommendation:

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/)

------
codebaobab
"He'd _kill_ us if he got the chance." "He'd _kill_ us if he got the chance."
"He'd _kill_ us if he got the chance." "He'd kill _us_ if he got the chance."

~~~
zetazzed
The line actually changes - it was recorded twice, once with each emphasis.
Coppola expressed regret about the decision, since he also considered just
using one take of the line and allowing the audience to imagine the different
inflections.

------
hendler
Check out Sneakers, great crypto-thriller.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakers_(1992_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakers_\(1992_film\))

~~~
anigbrowl
Meh, that's a kid's film. A fun kid's film, but still.

~~~
res0nat0r
Wut. That is one of the best "hacker" movies that has come out of Hollywood.
Great film.

~~~
anigbrowl
I don't agree. The McGuffin (the decryptor chip) is magic, the ethical
conundrums are juvenile. It's teenage wish fulfilment for liberal geeks (and I
say that as a liberal geek); a high-tech version of _the Blues Brothers_ and
just about every gang-of-mistfits-thwart-horrible-landlord film.

Sorry, but I saw it in the theater when it came out and it was just a total
let-down - not my idea of a serious film at all.

~~~
res0nat0r
There aren't many better examples from Hollywood out there, so we have to take
what we can get...

------
zokier
For anyone wanting to watch this tonight, I can hint that attempting to encode
1080p movie at 1824 kbps results pretty horrid image quality.

------
smegel
Thanks, my evening was looking fairly grim before this!

------
vezzy-fnord
What I liked about The Conversation is that it showed you how the spy grid
affects the ones working for it. At least, those who still have some sort of
conscience left and haven't been completely swamped by cognitive dissonance.

The ending was very powerful.

------
indefatigable
Yep, great movie.

