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Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, The Conversation premieres in Los Angeles. Drawing inspiration from Antonioni’s Blow-up, the film stars Gene Hackman as a taciturn, high-tech surveillance expert who is compelled to compromise his self-imposed emotional detachment from the lives of the individuals he is hired to spy on when he overhears a young couple, which he and some of his freelance colleagues have been hired to track, expressing grave fears for their safety. An intricate, intensely persuasive, morally ambivalent thriller brandishing paranoia as its central leitmotif. Co-starring John Cazale, Frederic Forest and a youthful Harrison Ford, the film wins the Palme d’Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.
