Who’s Watching: God or Your Boss?

In May 1966, Life magazine’s cover featured a semi-clad model with a fearful look, glancing over her shoulder at a tiny electronic recording device taped to her back. The article inside discussed high-tech surveillance infiltrating American life, with espionage techniques from the Cold War now being used by mobsters, rival businessmen, and jealous spouses. The story highlighted the pervasive nature of bugging, stating that no one could be certain their home was safe from intrusion.

Around the same time, UCLA film student Francis Ford Coppola learned about a sophisticated long-range microphone that could eavesdrop on a couple in a crowd. This concept inspired him to envision a story focusing on the man behind the microphone. Over the next few years, as Coppola rose to prominence in the counterculture-driven New Hollywood of the 1960s and ’70s, he researched surveillance and developed a script. This script eventually became The Conversation.

The film gained new relevance when it was produced during the Watergate scandal and won the top prize at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival, just months before Nixon’s resignation. However, The Conversation was not specifically political. It adeptly captured the unease and conspiratorial thinking of the time while reflecting on how surveillance affects power dynamics in the workplace.

To work in the modern world often means self-censoring to align with organizational goals, hiding any oppositional traits. At the time Coppola made the film, the KGB had installed the first keystroke logger on IBM typewriters in the U.S. embassy. Today, such tools are commonplace in workplaces, leaving workers feeling perpetually monitored and morally compromised, forced to conform to others’ will.

In The Conversation, protagonist Harry Caul, portrayed by Gene Hackman, is a skilled wiretapper working as an independent contractor. Paranoid yet practical, Caul uses three locks on his door, hides his phone in a desk drawer, and reroutes his mail to a post-office box for security. Haunted by a past job that may have led to a man’s suicide, Caul moved to San Francisco to escape but finds the private sector no less corrupt.

The film opens with Caul recording a young couple on a date in San Francisco’s Union Square for a mysterious executive known only as “the Director.” The Director’s assistant (Harrison Ford) pressures Caul to turn over his recordings. A degrading afterparty follows a professional convention, where rivals listen to the Union Square recording casually and callously. This scene may remind modern viewers of Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA contractors sharing intercepted nudes.

Harry Caul’s actions, such as invading the couple’s privacy, are seen as technical challenges rather than moral issues. However, he is disturbed by the woman’s voice saying someone, likely Caul’s employer, would “kill us if he got the chance.” A woman at Caul’s party reassures him that his work is just a “trick” or “job,” equating it to sex work and highlighting the ethical dilemma he faces.

Caul was modeled after Bernard Spindel, a top freelance eavesdropper mentioned in the Life cover story. Spindel, who died at 48 while appealing a conviction for illegal surveillance, did not discriminate between clients, a reflection of Caul’s moral ambiguity.

Coppola heavily drew inspiration from Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up, translating the alienation of modern life into the postindustrial landscape of San Francisco. Filming in locations like One Embarcadero Center, Coppola used stark, off-kilter angles to emphasize the artificiality of the corporate world governing Caul’s life.

Caul’s isolation makes him the perfect pawn in a nefarious plot, but also drives him to desperation. He carries the weight of others’ secrets, burdened by his own “original sin” of making a perfect recording that led to a man’s death. His job embodies the cliché of a “soul-crushing” role, with real-life consequences at stake.

In a bid to protect those he believes are in danger, Caul begins to dismantle his professional and personal life, searching for hidden surveillance devices. His increasingly paranoid actions evoke a contemporary sense of constant monitoring—akin to modern struggles with data privacy on smart devices and websites.

The film’s climax sees Caul tearing up his apartment, finding no conclusive evidence of surveillance. The final shot shows him amid the wreckage, the camera mimicking a surveillance feed, implying that someone is still watching.

Source: Life Magazine, Edward Snowden