ENHANCE

It's interesting that sometimes one viewing of a movie is more than enough, while other movies we strongly desire to see but never do. Still other movies we feel moved to watch multiple times. I recently saw The Conversation (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1974) again, a movie I thought was great the first time, but didn't expect to give it multiple viewings.

The movie follows a lonely, paranoid freelance eavesdropper (Gene Hackman) who is hired to record the conversation of an anonymous couple as they walk through a public space. He is to hand over the tapes and get his $15,000 without asking questions, but for some reason he decides to grow a conscience, something he's never had in 20 years as a leader in the industry. As he gets more curious, caring, and interested, he also gets way too close and way too paranoid.

What I found really intriguing about the film the second time through was the similarities I saw with Antonioni's Blow Up (Italy, 1966). Both films focus on a craft and a technology that isn't very common (at least not to the degree on display in the film), and concentrates on those who hone that craft. In The Conversation, the medium is audio tape, and Harry Caul has the proper equipment to know just enough to get involved. In Blow-Up, Thomas works with film -- still images -- and his curiosity keeps him manipulating that image just enough to get sucked in. Both protagonists become obsessed with their technologies, and with the ability to enhance their media with the materials they have, they begin to lose focus.

By now, this is a familiar trope. In every television show with any hint of Science or Technology, we get the "enhance" scene. On each of those shows, though, we assume (and take that assumption for granted) that we're focusing on the right thing. The characters "enhance" the image or the audio, they get the results, and, of course, it's the very key to unraveling the case. The first image points out just how ridiculous that notion is, but these films take the concept to the opposite end of the spectrum: if you continue to enhance, you run the risk of losing perspective.

At the risk of completely over-thinking it (as I'm allowed to do here), I've come up with two ways to read these thrillers. First, in addition to focusing on solitary (possibly obsessive) men in solitary, yet well-honed crafts, both films highlight the thriller-like, voyeuristic aspect of their capabilities as well. The folks on CSI use their tools to fight crime, but I suppose if Harry or Thomas are the stand-ins for you and me, they are the protagonists of cautionary tales about the possibility of getting in over one's head. We'd best leave that stuff up to the professionals who work in groups, the mainstream says. The second interpretation I've come up with is reading the films as part of a sub-genre of the "rise of the machines" concept. There's a danger in both films of knowing too much, and the tools Harry and Thomas have at their disposal were clearly what allowed them to gain that much knowledge. There's so much we couldn't possibly know without new technologies at our disposal, and like so many other stories, from Metropolis to 2001: A Space Odyssey, these films convey the dangerous and lesser-known side of human innovations.

Perhaps these messages are combined into one, big, American "let the PROFESSIONALS handle this OR ELSE" theme running through our popular culture. I'm not quite sure where to go with it, but I guess I have to admit that watching someone get a clearer view of something boring or blowing up an image of something that doesn't help your case at all doesn't really make for interesting (read: lucrative) movies or television... Well, now you've got me thinking about "The Wire"...


EDIT (1/29/11): SM was perusing the Wikipedia page for The Conversation, and he confirmed that Blow-Up actually heavily influenced Coppola while he was writing the script. At least I know I'm not just making this stuff up.