Bibliography

Books

Cowie, Peter (copyright 1989). Coppola. St Edmundsbury Press, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

Philips, Gene D. and Hill, Rodney (Copyright 2004). Francis Ford Coppola: Interviews. University Press of Mississippi

Bignell, J. (copyright 2002). Media Semiotics: An Introduction. Manchester University Press, England.

Branston, G. and Stafford, R. (copyright 2003) The Media Student’s Book: Third Edition. Routledge, UK.

Sarris, A. ‘Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962′ from Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings [p. 516]. Fifth Edition, Copyright 1999

Hesse, H. Steppenwolf. Penguin Books, Great Britain.

 

DVDs

Lucas, G. (2003). American Graffiti [DVD].  UK: Universal Pictures

Coppola, F. (2005). The Conversation [DVD]. US: Buena Vista Home Entertainment

Friedkin, W. (2004). The French Connection [DVD]. US: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Coppola, F. (2001). The Godfather DVD Collection [DVD]. US: Paramount Home Entertainment

Hitchcock, A. (2005). Pshycho [DVD]. UK: Universal Pictures.

 

Images

American Zoetrope logo http://www.zoetrope.com/  [accessed 10/10/2010]

The Conversation http://www.dvdbeaver.com [accessed on 11/11/2010]

Coppola image from http://www.filmreference.com/Directors-Bu-Co/Coppola-Francis-Ford.html [Accessed 10/10/2010]

Dirty Harry DVD cover from http://www.thecinemasource.com/moviesdb/images/Dirty_Harry.jpg accessed on 23/11/2010

DVD cover http://www.murderoutthere.com/IMAGES/DVD-Conversation.jpg [accessed on 23/11/2010]

Films stills from  Coppola, F. (2005). The Conversation [DVD]. US: Buena Vista Home Entertainment

The French Connection http://img.slate.com [accessed 11/11/2010]

Psycho from http://freelancefolder.com/ [accessed on 13/11/2010]

Steppenwolf from http://www.cmi.ac.in [accessed on 13/11/10]

Twilight DVD cover. http://twilightsingapore.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/twilight-dvd-v12.jpg [accessed on 23/11/2010]

 

 

Online Resources

Arp Synthesisers. http://www.till.com/articles/arp/

Peter Cowie. http://www.criterion.com/explore/31-peter-cowie accessed on 20/10/2010

dictionary.com unabridged. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/auteur accessed on 24/11/2010

Chandler, D. Semiotics For Beginners. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem09.html accessed 26/11/2010

The Qatsi Trilogy. http://www.koyaanisqatsi.org/ accessed 22/11/10

Walter Murch Interview. http://www.filmsound.org/murch/parnassus/

Walter Murch Interview. http://filmsound.org/murch/waltermurch.htm

Walter Murch Interview. http://www2.yk.psu.edu/~jmj3/murchfq.htm

Oxford Dictionaries Online. http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0049790;jsessionid=6F449F80D6379D5733CCAD9B45A2D995#m_en_gb0049790 accessed on 24/11/2010

David Shire music http://www.davidshiremusic.com/music.html accessed on 23/11/2010

Famille book on amazon. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Famille-Coppola-Francis-Nicolas-Schwartzman/dp/115967020X accessed on 23/11/2010

Mfiles composers page on David Shire. http://www.mfiles.co.uk/composers/David-Shire.htm accessed on 23/11/2010

star wars movies. http://www.starwars.com/movies/episode-iv/ accessed 22/11/10

Schudson, M. (2004). Notes on Scandal and the Watergate Legacy. American Behavioral Scientist [Online] Available from: http://abs.sagepub.com/content/47/9/1231 [Accessed 22/11/2010

Aphex Twin – Come To Daddy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWDAtMPoBHA

Opening scene sourced from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlwdpNw1FW8 on 01/10/2010

Main theme by David Shire http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUsEIdHxBPk accessed on 23/11/2010

THX 1138 opening scene from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Z2ag8FMZw&feature=player_embedded [accessed 10/10/2010]

 

 

 

 

Critical Review of The Conversation

One aspect of The Conversation that has remained interesting to me throughout all of my research has been the balance between the sound and the visual. The sound is very well produced and weaves its way into the story so heavily that by the end of the film we have no new dialogue. However, to what degree did Walter Murch have influence on Francis Coppola’s film through the sound? To what extent were the themes and motifs emphasized by the sound and would they still be as present if the editor was separate from the sound designer?

There is primarily the importance of the recorded conversation. The way that the sound works with the visual in the opening scene, before we even see the couple is very interesting because it is not obvious where the electronic sounds are coming from. The way also that the sound works in time with the mime’s movements is a good way of showing how the truth is hidden because mimes are never really themselves and the couple are not able to be fully themselves in the park either.

The song playing in the background of the opening scene does not appear very relevant. For example many other songs would have given the same effect as the ‘red robin’ lyric. What are more important are the recorded voices. The inflections given to the voices become a major theme of repetition which builds and builds to the end of the film and which is not achieved in the same way in the visual. Unusually it is actually the visual that enhances the use of sound and not the other way round which is normally the case in film. For example, at the end of the party scene in Harry Caul’s office when he is laying on the bed, the part of the conversation where Cindy Williams is talking about the man sleeping on the park bench is played and takes on new meaning.

 

Perhaps the use of repetition is not as much a theme in itself as a way of illustrating other themes, in this case the theme of power. Harry Caul’s struggling lack of power is illustrated by the strong comparison that does not need to be repeated a third time. However, this comparison would not have worked if we did not have the original visual reference. The lack of power is I feel illustrated more through the image than the word here.

The characterization of Harry Caul is mostly down to physical attributes as we are given hardly any background on him at all. He also has quite non-descriptive dialogue due to his paranoia about privacy. His physical appearance of combed-back hair, spectacles and a plastic mac in all weather is very quiet and ordinary, something that cannot really be displayed through the music. On the other hand, the musical theme for Harry Caul composed by David Shire does a good job of illustrating his loneliness musically. The scene where he goes to visit his girlfriend and there is no music makes the scene more interesting because it is almost like it signifies him not being alone or things being more natural.

The motif of a caul surrounding Harry appears to be detached from the music entirely as it is very subtle and based entirely on physical objects and mise en scene. There may be moments when he is becoming more anxious and the music reflects this yet we still do not get a sense of the desired protective layer in this way. This is most likely due to the fact that the idea of a caul was something that Coppola worked very hard on and Murch had little involvement with.

It would appear that there are times in the film when the sound had to conform to what Coppola was doing with the visual, such as in the murder and bathroom scenes in the hotel that Coppola took the idea from Hitchcock’s Psycho for. The first signifier is Hackman pulling back his balcony curtain like the shower curtain. This would not be half as effective if it was not followed with a scream so similar to the one in Psycho. When Harry Caul pulls back the shower curtain afterwards and there is no sound but his breathing, the tension is in the audience’s memory. When the scream returns as a memory echo as the blood pours out of the toilet, it is like the hotel owner running back to the hotel room and realizing what his mother had done. This is an instant where we can see that the sound editor simply would have had to work with what the director wanted in order to achieve the intertextual reference. This is after all Coppola’s film and although Murch may have had a lot of influence, aspects of the narrative such as this would have been essential to the original.

In conclusion, I feel that although Murch did not really change the narrative with the editing and sound, this film is definitely one where sound holds a greater importance than normal. There are motifs and themes that are dependent on the sound, such as the repetition and the peaks of anxiety. This film about a recorded conversation has little other relevant conversation in it and therefore the other sounds and quick ‘chit chat’ that make up Harry Caul’s world become twice as important. Lastly, this being said, I do not believe the moral dilemma of the film could have been achieved without Hackman’s acting and Coppola’s camerawork, regardless of whether this high attention of sound was present. What the sound does achieve is to make Harry Caul’s inner struggle more poignant.

 

References

Coppola, F. (2005). The Conversation [DVD]. US: Buena Vista Home Entertainment

Both images are film stills from the above source.

 

 

Writing Plan for my Critical Review

How important is the sound of the film other than the recorded conversation in enhancing themes and narrative?

In my Critical Review I plan to address the influence of the sound on the themes and narrative of the film.. Does the sound illustrate as much as the visual?

 

Arguments for:

The loneliness is illustrated through the musical theme and the lack of sound.

There would be no theme of repetition, one that I noticed very early on, without the sound. Important aspect of the film.

Emphasises Harry Caul’s powerlessness.

 

Arguments against:

Important aspects such as shadow play are completely detached from the sound.

The use of repetition would not work without the strong visual references.

Harry Caul’s character works due to his physical appearance and Hackman’s acting.

Final Study Diary Entry

Now I have finished my research and almost entirely finished my blog, I thought I should make one last post on how I feel I have been progressing. As always, as I moved closer to the deadline I found it easier to be productive. I feel that I have been working at a very good pace since my last study diary update and have managed to work at a rate that means I have managed to get everything done without rushing. If anything I feel I should have been able to work faster but I have been ill over the past few days which has definitely affected my work. Hopefully it did not effect the quality or clarity of my work too greatly.

I found the i-map more challenging than I thought it would be but the Critical Review should hopefully not be too challenging because I feel I have done enough research with enough depth for me to be able to talk about the subject I have been studying successfully.

My I-Map

 

My Research Findings

Questions Asked

Who are ‘American Zoetrope San Francisco’? What is their history and what other films have they been involved with?

Where is this scene shot and why?

Why the jazz music?

When was the film actually made? Is it set in that year or a different time period?

What else was happening in cinema when this was made and released?

Is there any significance in Gene Hackman being chosen for this role? What other work has he done?

Music by David Shire. What else has he done? What is his musical background and who else has he worked with?

What is the relevance and importance of the mime?

What else has Francis Ford Coppola directed, worked on or been involved in? What is his history?

What is the relevance of the title of this film?

What genre is this film classed as and why?

What was the initial reaction and opinion on this film in the cinema and afterwards?

Was ‘The Converation’ a box office success?

What budget was the film made on?

The Watergate Scandal was happening as The Conversation was being filmed. What was The Watergate Scandal? Did this timing improve or dampen the film’s reception by the public?

Gene Hackman was in the successful film The French Connection just before filming The Conversation. Do the roles relate and was Hackman typecast?

Walter Murch commented that the opening shot was a signature shot from Francis Coppola in that era. To what extent would I agree?

The Conversation is supposed to be a blend of the novel Steppenwolf, Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller style and Coppola’s own scriptwriting. How well do the three texts compare and contrast?

Why was Godfrey Reggio’s third film of the Qatsi trilogy not made with A.Z.?

Why did George Lucas not make his most famous films, the Star Wars films, with A.Z.?

 

Topics Covered

Francis Ford Coppola

History of American Zoetrope

Themes and Motifs in The Conversation:

• Repetition
• Surveillance
• Power, or lack of
• Paranoia
• Caul/Clear plastic
• Hidden truth
• Humanity and Guilt

 

Different roles played by Gene Hackman

Walter Murch’s contribution

American Zoetrope films

Typical opening Scene

Psycho, Steppenwolf and The Conversation

The Watergate Scandal

David Shire and main theme

DVD Cover and Poster

Auteur theory

Analysis techniques:

• Semiotics
• Narrative
• Intertextuality

 

 

What I would expand on if given the time

Further historical context

Deeper comparisons to films like Bullit

Further application of film theory

Deeper genre analysis

 

The Conversation was written, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola at his studio American Zoetrope in San Francisco. He started making the film in 1972 and it was released in 1974. It was not an enormous success and when people think of Francis Coppola they are much more likely to know him for his more famous films such as Apocalypse Now and The Godfather films. Coppola is still considered a very important director. He has worked closely for most of his career with Walter Murch, who was in charge of the editing and the sound for The Conversation. The main theme was composed by David Shire who has won awards for his compositions in both cinema and theatre. The main themes that play throughout the film are all illustrated in the opening scene but this is not obvious when you first watch it. It is only when returning to the opening scene after watching the rest of the film that I realised how intelligently and carefully the scene was composed. The majority of said themes can be linked to various other texts, mostly other films such as Psycho and Blow Up. The film is also closely and consciously linked to some novels, in particular Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf. The film holds great historical significance in the sense that it was released the same year that president Nixon resigned due to the Watergate Scandal, a scandal uncovered due to people with similar jobs to that of Harry Caul. This film does not have too much in common with the rest of Coppola’s films in style even though it was made at his studio and with his usual crew behind him. However, this does not mean that it is impersonally made, quite the opposite in fact as Coppola had such complete control for the first time. This is a film in which the sound is just as important as the visual and where one probably would not make enough sense if the other was not so well produced.

Analysing The Conversation Intertextually

Different types of intertextuality.

Intertextuality:

• The bathroom scene taken from psycho.
• Harry Caul’s name and appearance taken from Steppenwolf.

Paratextuality:

• Narration is very similar to Blow Up except with sound instead of image.
• 1984 by George Orwell. “Big Brother is watching you.”

Architextuality:

• Thriller and detective, such as Dirty Harry, James Bond and Psycho.

Hypotextuality:

• Again, the Psycho shower scene.
• The Watergate Scandal.
• Possible film noir influences the way some of the scenes are lit and constructed.

 

The degrees of intertextuality

There are many aspects of this intertextuality that were very conscious on Coppola’s part and he has commented on his knowledge of Hitchcock films, for example, in his influences for the film. His alteration on the famous Hitchcock shower scene is interesting because it puts the audience on edge so that when Hackman turns to the toilet, we are twice as concerned as we would have been if he had not first looked in the shower. The majority of his references are fairly obvious to those who know the other texts. For example, the growing concern over the protection of the tapes is like the concern for the photographs in Blow Up. However, the scale of adoption is not so great that the text does not make sense by itself. The script is original enough to work but having certain prior knowledge, for example the historical context of the Watergate scandal, will definitely enhance the film for the audience. The film does feel fairly tied to certain genres because if it wasn’t and you were not expecting a horrific climax or the like, the film would not be as interesting. There are certain signifiers that are very important to the text, such as the couple seeming helpless in a grander scheme or certain locations like the hotel.

 

References

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem09.html accessed on 28/11/2010

A paradigmatic analysis of the narrative

As mentioned before, most meaning in language is created through opposites, also called binary opposites, such as ‘wet’ and ‘dry’. The narrative of a text can be examined through looking at the opposites within the text, such as Good/Bad and Male/Female. This is called a paradigmatic analysis. This kind of analysis can always be put under the same column starters or end with the same conclusions of Culture/Nature. In my lecture we made a class example of what this would look like for Aphex Twin’s music video ‘Come To Daddy’.

Human/Monster

Old/Young

Natural/Supernatural

Nature/Technology

Light/Dark

Innocence/Corruption

Outside/Inside

Good/Bad (Evil)

Male/Female

Calm/Noisy

Prey/Predator

Civilisation/Anarchy

Individual/Mass

Real/Mediated

Liesure/Crime

Harmony/Discord

Pleasure/Sadism

NATURE/CULTURE

This sort of list is useful because it helps to outline the major themes and their opposites, therefore highlighting one of them against the other. After my semiotic analysis I wanted to see if there were any aspects of the scene I had perhaps missed. However, I think that this sort of analysis is harder in this particular instance than the previous.

Leisure/Entertainment

Mass/Individual

Distance/Closeness

Public/Private

Lies/Truth

Obvious/Hidden

Light/Dark

Real Events/Technology

Male/Female

Surveyed/Surveyor

Recording/Memory

Above/Below

or

Below/Above?

Emotional Attachment/Emotional Detachment

Confidence/Paranoia

NATURE/CULTURE

A lot of the above comparisons were quite hard to put together as I did not know what side to put them on. For example, placing Lies on the same half of the list as Real Events and Obvious. I chose to place Lies on that half of the list because the Real Events that happened were acted out do deceive someone; it was not the recording itself that caused the problems. Memory was even harder because even though it should be, it is not very truthful to Harry Caul. In the sound editing, Walter Murch recorded Fred Forest saying the words ‘He’d kill us if he had the chance’ with different inflections on different words to show how Harry Caul became more and more worried about the couple becoming victims of murder (“He’d kill us if he had the chance” “He’d kill us if he had the chance”). Perhaps therefore it is a little questionable as to how much his memory is tied to current events or the original day he made the recording. I felt that Confidence and Paranoia were two themes in the narrative between the different characters that needed to be addressed in this context. Harrison Ford’s character is an example of how certain characters – coincidentally those with more knowledge – are more confident, especially in comparison to Hackman. However, there is also the outer confidence Hackman will sometimes display to hide his inner conflicts, such as when he is with the other wire tappers. This aspect of the narrative is explored in the opening scene through the mime.

Analysing the narrative is an important aspect of analysing any medium and when we dissect the opening scene and see how its narrative then echoes through the rest of the text, we come to understand how important this initial shot is and how much is included. It is interesting to me now to look back to when I first watched this scene and realise that I did not notice any of these things at all.

References

Coppola, F. (2005). The Conversation [DVD]. US: Buena Vista Home Entertainment

Aphex Twin. Come To Daddy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWDAtMPoBHA. accessed on 28/11/2010

A Semiotic analysis of the opening scene.

What are media semiotics?

Semiotics or semiology originated from the work of three linguists; Roland Barthes, Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Pierce. They developed ideas of spoken and written language being a system of signs and meanings by which we can understand the world. When film and television started to be analyzed more seriously, it became clear that similar methods should be applied to media texts as to literature. Structuralism, an important component in semiotic studies, argues that the world is understood through a system of differences, signifiers and similarities. No word can have meaning on its own; the word ‘wet’ means nothing without the word ‘dry’. Even though there are thousands of shades of green, they are still all called green because they are different from red or purple. Our system of organizing meaning gives the world reality through exclusion, signifying oppositions and associations. An example in Harry Caul’s character is his moustache and glasses that disassociate him from his previous confident, street-wise characters and associate him with a more quiet and serious sort of man with an intelligent, skillful job in a strange sort of stereotyping a group of people we don’t really know anything about. His general appearance is associated with the sort of people who do not want to draw attention to themselves.

In semiotics, we analyse texts on different levels. The first level is stating the apparent obvious which we call denotation. What each obvious thing will be a sign for or mean to us is the connotation. The second order of connotation which we take to be ‘common sense’ is considered a myth, and we often do not consciously register them so they can be a lot harder to detect.

A myth is society’s connotations that appear to be natural, universal or common sense, such as the beauty myth that seems so second nature to us but would be different in another culture. A myth is an ideology, an aspect of culture which we take to be nature.

A semiotic analysis of the opening scene.

Descriptive  (Denotation)	Meaning  (Connotation)	Myth  (2nd Order Connotation)
Fade-in on park setting.	Gives the impression of joining in on something that was already in motion. Park in the morning is interesting because if we feel like we are joining in on something at this time, what is it? The hustle and bustle of the city? Also feels like you are opening your eyes and looking for something – what do you see? We have to search, focus at first.	Places audience in story. Helps suspend our disbelief faster.
All shot in one long shot with slow zoom.	Gives sense of surveillance camera seeking out its target. Also enforces focus on the mime then Hackman.	Not the typical movement of the camera for cinema. Places the audience within the story as we have more of a sense of looking through a camera than normal. We feel more in control than the characters.
Lots of heavy shadows.	Hackman is standing in the shadows at first. It is a position of seeing where you yourself cannot be seen. Yet the mime does spot him and so does the camera.	Sense of shadow play, paranoia, theme of half-hidden truths.
Mime copying the passers by.	A sense of surveillance and mimicry. He makes us see certain aspects of each person. Does this hide or reveal the truth by making us see them in this way? Adds a sense of comedy.	Helps us understand Harry Caul’s character through the association of the mime’s interactions with the other characters compared to the mime’s interaction with him.
High angle camera.	Surveillance, we are in the position of power.	High angle is position of power. But we are above the surveyor, not his target. He does not have the power. He does not manage to gain power in the film.
Fairly happy, fast-paced music.	Does not have instant meaning but gains sinister meaning through repetition later in the film.	Layers of sound are confusion, complication. Tempo will gain the audience’s attention.
Confusing sound of radio waves or sound recording.	Surveillance again. Sense of unseen technologies at work.	Purposeful confusion to add intrigue.
Hackman’s first appearance in film is in his plastic mac and drinking coffee.	Appearance associated with detectives in other films, someone who is trying to blend in. Coffee could also be a sign to the time of day when associated with the shadows?	Cinematic stereotyping that doesn’t really translate to real life.
He moves away when the mime approaches him.	Nervousness, anxiety, not wanting to be noticed.	Very closed body language is interesting if the camera is following him; we assume there must be a story behind the behavior.

Some of the points I have outlined in this table come from a discussion that took place in a seminar group which I have then expanded. It was very helpful to start this as a group because I hadn’t yet considered certain aspects of the clip such as the mise en scène, so a lot of time has been saved because of the thought-provoking discussions about shadows and how they illustrate certain important themes.

This sort of analysis is important because it helps you understand why the scene is constructed in the way it is and if you can understand it on all levels, it will not only foreshadow things to come in the rest of the film but also make them more significant to you when they do.

References

Bignell, J. (copyright 2002). Media Semiotics: An Introduction. Manchester University Press, England.

Branston, G. and Stafford, R. (copyright 2003) The Media Student’s Book: Third Edition. Routledge, UK.

Last Research Steps.

As I have mentioned, I need to focus more on what I have learnt in my last few lectures. This includes a much more theoretical approach to my subject. After this step I will hopefully have covered enough angles to start rounding my research up and planning my critical review. I have noticed lately that I find writing my blog posts a lot easier. I feel I have developed a good structure and have learnt a lot in research meaning that my analyses come to me a lot easier and it does not take me as long to get my findings up on the website. However my time management over the next few days will have to be on top form if I wish to include all that I have planned.