3 Films That Deal With Loneliness

3. The Conversation (1974)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrhRsZ56b4g Directed, written, and produced by the much-heralded Francis Ford Coppolla, The Conversation is arguably the director€™s finest work to date. If films were judged solely for their intellectual depth, this psychological tale of paranoia and voyeurism would quite possibly come out on top. The protagonist is Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), a surveillance expert who runs his own private business in San Fransico, doing high-paid jobs for high-up people. Being a widely respected professional on the West Coast of the United States, Caul has a deep, extensive knowledge of the surveillance industry, and is all too aware of the damage Big Brother can cause. Having been indirectly involved in a murder that resulted from his wiretap recordings, Caul is an extremely cautious individual, diligently protective of his private life and distrusting in people. Caul has no friends, only colleagues, and lives in an apartment with a triple-locked door. He only uses payphones to make calls, and his place of work is submerged in a shadowy basement, his equipment protected by wire mesh. His methods are so extreme, that when his landlady leaves him a bottle of wine and a card in his apartment wishing him a happy birthday, Caul is affronted by the gesture, for he never reveals his personal details to anyone - not even the woman he visits in the dead of night to make love to. His uncomfortable disposition is exacerbated by an assignment he has been working on, recording a young couple who appear to be in mortal danger, and his spiritual affliction makes him feel responsible for their lives. Unwilling to hand over the tapes, Caul finds himself being followed by the outfit he is working for, becoming a victim of the business he has pioneered for so long. The Conversation is an edgy film, fraught with suspense throughout, leading audiences into the confines of mystery, burrowed deep beneath our consciousness.