Sullivan, 1

Mary Sullivan

Galanter

CART 330

11/3/2020

An Analysis in Sound: The Conversation (1974)

The film The Conversation (1974) directed by Francis Ford Coppola is a

Dramatic-Thriller following Henry Caul, a surveillance expert on an assignment. Worried about

how his line of work and past actions have affected the people he’s surveilled and reported on in

the past, Caul becomes curious about the outcomes his subjects face, which leads him down a

path of paranoia and conscience-led actions, which in turn causes him to discover a lot more than

he should have ever known. The use of sound in Coppola’s The Conversation, designed by

Walter Murch, plays an important role in the storytelling of this film. It constantly conveys

Henry’s emotions to the audience while maintaining an undertone of paranoia and suspense,

keeping the audience on the edge of their seats in anticipation of the story’s unfolding. Many of

the composer and film theorist Michel Chion’s theories on audio-visual relationships are

apparent throughout the film, including vococentrism, synchresis, materializing sound indices

(MSI), and empathetic and anempathetic sound. Michel Chion’s theories of sound in Francis

Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974) are used to convey emotion to the audience while

keeping consistent undertones of suspense throughout the protagonist's journey.

Michel Chion introduced his theories of audio-visual relationships as a way to simply

categorize, recognize, and effectively use sound in films. In Coppola’s The Conversation, all of

Chion's theories can be spotted throughout the film. In fact, vococentrism, synchresis, and
 Sullivan, 2

materializing sound indices (MSI) can all be detected in the opening scene, which becomes the

centerpiece of the entire film.

Vococentrism is the idea that the voice has a privileged place in a film and purposely

elevates a certain voice or conversation out of a crowd of chatter (or “walla”) to ensure the

audience is paying special attention to a specific voice rather than being lost in the background

noise. At the beginning of the film, the audience is brought into a lively square with a lot of

action and conversation. As the camera brings us closer to the crowd, we realize it is searching

for something, and we begin picking up snippets of conversation that are being lifted out of all

the noise. We later learn that we are observing this from the perspective of the protagonist’s,

Henry Caul’s, scanners who are trying to pinpoint and record a specific conversation between a

man and a woman, Mark and Ann. Throughout this scene we continue to see a variety of

recording devices attempting to pick up this single conversation with the vococentrism effect,

and the audience joins the experience of attempting to pick up this conversation in its entirety.

Ironically, Red Shark News reported that on the DVD commentary for The Conversation, the

sound designer Walter Murch noted the real struggles attempting to film this scene due to

interference, despite the multitude of mics and recording devices used. Murch mentioned that as

a result, they had to record the scene 3 times before taking the two actors playing Ann and Mark

to a different square to record their specific audio.

Synchresis is when one’s mental image of a sound and the image associated with that

sound synchronize and become one. This technique is also included within the attempted

recordings in that first scene. The two largest examples are the band playing and the camera

clicking. Although the band playing are a part of the environment and background, they are

shown on camera along with their respective musical sounds. The music grows louder and softer
 Sullivan, 3

as Mark and Ann walk closer and further away from the band, creating a type of synchresis. The

camera clicks used by one of Caul’s operators in the truck, is also a form of synchresis. As he

takes pictures, a typical camera shutter and click can be heard, giving us another example of this

technique being used in the opening sequence.

In that first scene, even though the audience is following the recording attempt from the

multiple mics surrounding the square, we don’t hear the entire conversation. Later in the film we

are able to piece the conversation together by connecting different recordings, however, that first

time around, the audience only gleans bits and pieces, as Caul does. The attempted recordings

are constantly interrupted by the rest of the activity in the square. Whether it is interference from

the other mics, surrounding conversations, or even the band, Materializing Sound Indices or MSI

are intertwined with these extensions of the sound environment. The use of MSI intertwined with

vococentrism communicates the difficulty of Caul’s surveillance work, along with ensuring the

audience doesn’t get caught up in the details of the conversation just yet. Coppola wants to

ensure that we experience the very real world outside of the conversation, before the film focuses

on the conversation alone.

Outside of the opening sequence, three more of Chion’s theories are used throughout the

film: empathetic sound, anempathetic sound, and null extension. Empathetic sound is sound

which conveys emotion, commonly through a soundtrack, although heightening other external

sounds are also common. There is a scene fairly early on where Caul heads over to the office that

hired him to hand over the tapes he recorded. When he finds out he is meeting with the director's

assistant and not the director himself, he becomes suspicious (as he already feared he was being

watched and followed) and rushes out of the office. As he makes his way to the elevator, a

symphony of sounds are layered with the elevator and its foot traffic noises, along with a general
 Sullivan, 4

electric hum, some tunneled wind and eventually some squeaking, which neatly transitions to the

next scene of tapes replaying. Music is introduced as Ann walks into frame showing that she

works at the company who hired Caul to surveil her. The music brings together the rest of these

sounds, spiking the audience’s adrenaline and Henry’s curiosity, which eventually causes him to

re-listen to the tapes and pay special attention to the conversation that lead to his guilt-ridden

spiral. Empathetic sound seems to be most used in this film, as music is constantly interjecting

and adding layers of inquiry and suspicion to Caul’s thoughts and movements. Caul also indulges

in music as a form of relaxation by playing saxophone over his jazz tracks, so using a contrasting

soundtrack to help narrate his emotions throughout the film seems quite poetic and appropriate

for a story told from his point of view.

Anempathetic sound on the other hand, is when music or sound creates a sense of

indifference. It is typically used to convey a sense of tragedy. The most noticeable moment

where this technique is used in The Conversation is right after Henry Caul realizes a murder was

carried out in the room next to him and he is sitting alone with his thoughts knowing his tapes

contributed to the tragedy nextdoor. Henry sees a bloody handprint on the window of that room,

hears a scream and in horror, shock, and panic, runs to the bed and hides under the covers. The

next thing the audience sees and hears is a cartoon playing on the TV, indifferent to Henry's

paranoia spiral and indifferent to the crime which occurred earlier that afternoon.

In Null Extension, the sounds have been diluted to reflect the inner workings of a

characters' thoughts. They can be specific sounds a character hears or focus on a character's

thoughts. Either way, it gives the illusion that the audience is experiencing the thoughts of a

single character on screen, in real time. In The Conversation, null extension is more prominently

used towards the end of the film as Henry Caul descends further into a “Tell-Tale heart” type
 Sullivan, 5

spiral. As he obsesses about this couple and the possible outcomes that may befall Mark and Ann

as a result of his recordings, he begins to hear their conversation in his head in snippets. The

conversation has become so intertwined with his stream of consciousness that he can no longer

ignore or escape the reality that someone will get hurt because of his actions. The audience

begins to notice that the tapes cloud his memory as he leaves the director’s office where they

were listening to the recordings, and Caul officially got paid. Caul notices a portrait of Ann in the

director’s office implying that she is related to him (we later find out she is his wife) and that

becomes the final straw that caused Caul to dive into his self-imposed investigation. This style

pops up a few times involving Caul and his recollection of the conversation he recorded

throughout the rest of the film. The other time the audience gets a larger sequence of null

extension is when the conversation is fully revealed to be set up against the director the entire

time by Mark and Ann, with help from the director’s assistant. In this sequence there is a mass

of reporters following Ann out of the building as she and Henry make eye contact. That eye

contact fades out the chatter of the reporters with Ann, as the recording of Ann’s voice from the

focal conversation is heard, and the lines Henry, along with the audience, had originally

misinterpreted, reveal the true conspiracy.A further shift in audio pairs with a flashback of Henry

looking into the bloodied hotel room. The null extension is not missed and is intended to be the

main conveyor of this information.

In Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 film The Conversation, six out of eight of Michael

Chion’s theories of sound were prominent and helped not only engage the viewer but tell a story

about an audio surveillance expert in a fitting manner. Through sound alone, feelings of tension

and suspense were disclosed to the audience and truly contributed to the success of this movie.
 Sullivan, 6

Works Cited

Author, Guest. “Francis Ford Coppola's ‘The Conversation’ Is a Masterclass in Sound

Design.” Redshark.png,

www.redsharknews.com/production/item/6331-francis-ford-coppola-s-the-conversation-is-

a-masterclass-in-sound-design.

“The Conversation.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 12 Apr. 1974, www.imdb.com/title/tt0071360/.

Freer, Ian. “Walter Murch: A Conversation With The Legendary Sound Designer.” Empire,

Empire,

www.empireonline.com/movies/features/walter-murch-conversation-legendary-sound-desi

gner-coppola-classic/.

Jagernauth, Kevin. “5 Things You Might Not Know About 'The Conversation'.” IndieWire,

IndieWire, 9 Apr. 2012,

www.indiewire.com/2012/04/5-things-you-might-not-know-about-the-conversation-25271

8/.

“Walter Murch.” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/name/nm0004555/.