The film “The Conversation”, directed by Francis For Coppola that brings out the concerns that many people had around the time it was filmed and about the government spying on people for “security” reasons. Everyone felt that their privacy was gone and that nothing was sacred anymore. The film is about a man named Henry Caul who is a “surveillance expert” that is hired to record conversations between people and deliver them to his clients. Through the film Caul records a conversation between a couple that he assumes is just business as usual but upon listening to the tapes again he discovers that the information he collected could put their lives in danger. With this he is conflicted about turning in the tapes because in the past his tapes cost three people their lives. After a string of events the tapes are collected and Caul receives a phone call and it’s revealed that he’s been tapped the whole time and they have information on him, what a twist. The film was released two years after the start of the Nixon Watergate scandal had occurred and many audience members thought that the film was a piece in reference to the incident.

This fear is echoed by many who see the film along with the idea that people aren’t people in the eyes of those who collect the information. This claim is voiced by Alexander Huls when he writes, “It’s how thoughtlessly they did it, how little regard they showed for the human beings whose information they were taking.” and then further stating “It all seems to stem from the very thing The Conversation warns us about: how easy it is to turn people into faceless ones and zeroes.” The second citation comes after he talks about big tech companies being the ones who take in our information and interpret it now instead of it being the NSA. Huls talks about how if, like Caul, the NSA or the tech companies misinterpret the information then they are also putting people in danger or not being aware that there is danger at all. I think that if our information is being taken we should be told about it in bold and upfront to us and not in a 200 page terms and conditions. I understand the NSA is supposed to protect us but when they access all of our information and keep it there’s not really a way to say “yes this is for your safety to know all the details of your life”.

This film seems to be more mainstream than it would be unconventional. I say this because the film is mainly about an issue that is prevalent in the times but not to the point that it would unconventional to mention it and bring about the idea that it’s a broken system or one where morals don’t apply. There are some unconventional pieces in the film but every film does. It’s also conventional because it has a lot of the same elements that a spy movie would have except they take out the action parts and put in the unconventional moral debate about if Caul’s choices in just handing over information is correct. As a whole the film does a wonderful job at illustrating to its audience the idea that maybe “surveillance” isn’t the best idea and makes us think about the way that it still has prevalence in our lives today.