The Mise-en-Scene in The Conversation Film Essay

The Conversation is a 1974 psychological thriller by Francis Ford Coppola. The main character of the movie is surveillance expert Harry Caul who listens and records the conversation of a couple in Union Square in San Francisco. As Caul reveals that the conversation between the couple had the phrase, “He’d kill us if he got the chance,” and this makes him personally concerned about the case (Coppola). That makes him hesitate to give the tape to the client, who pressures the surveillance expert and puts the bugging over him. Hence, one of the themes presented in the movie is the surveillance expert being bugged, which resembles a narrative where the hunter becomes hunted.

The sequence that I would like to discuss and the one that I think reflects one of the main themes in the movie is the part that is introduced early in the film. In this scene, the main character Harry Caul travels by public transport to return the tapes to the client. However, when he arrives, he finds out that the client is absent at that moment. In the public transport mise-en-scene, it is hard to determine what type of vehicle it is as Harry Caul sits by the window and does not pay much attention to what is outside. Moreover, it is hard to identify any object outside the window. The mise-en-scene represents Caul’s detachment from the environment both socially and physically. The lights switch on and off during the ride, which isolates the spectator and makes viewers focus only on the character. Harry Caul is alone in this shot, and viewers are left with no information except Caul’s face and a flashback of the surveilled couple. Moreover, switching lights symbolizes the movie’s transition from depicting objective reality to depicting the protagonist’s psychological state. It is important to remember the scenes to follow.

Later in the sequence, when Harry Caul arrives at the office, the viewers are presented with an establishing shot of the building followed by a long shot of the hall. Both shots have strong leading lines, which point to the center. Both places seem empty, and the colors prevailing in the hall are greyish as the interior is made of concrete. When Harry Caul arrives at the office, viewers see a following mise-en-scene. The protagonist is sitting in the bottom left corner of the frame, while the rest of it is engulfed by confusing dark-colored details. The small space is packed with six chairs, and their shadows cascade across the floor. The composition of this room consists of opposing lines. The cluttered vertical lines of chairs’ legs and windows are intersected with the horizontal lines of the horizon, the edge of the floor, and the desk. Shadows and the legs of a tripod add diagonal lines, which create a sense of chaos. The protagonist sits curled in an attempt to protect himself from the environment. The scene outside the window is a cityscape. However, all the buildings in it seem to be in construction. The choice of transparency levels in the windows and chairs, which are placed close to the camera, as well as an observation tube, resemble the theme of the movie. All these elements of the mise-en-scene project a sense of loneliness and confusion on the viewer. The oppressive environment of the frame represents the psychological state of Harry Caul, who struggles to differentiate between objective reality and his own paranoid thoughts. The incomplete buildings outside the window show that the information both viewers and the main character have is partial. Hence, the incompleteness and the sense of the unknown evoke anxious feelings.

Works Cited

Coppola, Francis Ford. The Conversation. Paramount Pictures, 1974.

Spicer, Andrew. Film noir. Routledge, 2018.