MovieChat Forums > The Conversation (1974) Discussion > I don't get this....spoilers

I don't get this....spoilers

posted 10 years ago by prairie_doggie
13 replies | jump to latest

...if Robert Duvall heard the conversation, I mean the SAME conversation we the audience and Hackman hear, then he was totally aware that his wife and the other guy were planning something that sunday on that specifically day at the place they mention.

What the heck was he doing at the hotel then? I mean, putting one self on Duvalls's character...I would find it strange, odd, threatening and distrustful to go overthere, knowing the conversation my wife and this other guy had. I would definitely not go alone, or at least I would have carried a weapon with me...

Aside from that, I think Harrison Ford was accomplice of the wife and the four-eyed guy. What do you guys think?

And just for the matter of giving my opinion out, I think that all theories about where the tap is hidden (sax, Hackman's glasses, nowhere, phone) are possible. Don't forget we got 2 "odd" scenes (the man carrying the sax at the con, and the one long shot from the show off of the device at the con) that have no special reason to be there, I mean, no reason to be there, unless the director was to try to tell us something....I just think he just not wanted to give the audience an specific answer about it, he just left the audience to build their own theory about it and discuss with each other about that.

"To act is not to act" - Me

[–] qfal 10 years ago

So Harrison Ford wanted to get the tape to edit out the sentence where they indicated they were going to kill the husband? And, in fact, he did do that?

[–] prairie_doggie 10 years ago

aaah I can see now...

So you are saying that Harrison Ford, as an accomplice, wanted to lay his hands on the tape before Robert Duvall, so he could delete that part of the conversation, and so he did. Thus, Robert Duvall never gets aware that his wife and goomar were going to do wrong to him?

If that's so, then that makes much more sense, thanks for the reply.

Where do you think the tap is?

"To act is not to act" - Me

[–] dyahrmarkt 10 years ago

Yes - the tape that Duvall hears is one made to sound like it's a love affair waiting to happen, nothing more sinister than that.

Please nest your IMDB page, and respond to the correct person -

[–] wiiztec (258) 4 years ago

The line is heard as he's playing the tape in his office though

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] GuyOnTheLeft 10 years ago

There was no murder. Most of the end of the movie is Harry's paranoid delusion.

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[–] prairie_doggie 10 years ago

I'm open to accept your theory, which is new for me, if you give arguments to support it

"To act is not to act" - Me

[–] GuyOnTheLeft 10 years ago

Coppola calls it "a possibility" on the DVD commentary (which I think is his way of just being nice as I think this is what he intended).

Think about how weird it is that Harry seems to see a bloody death against the glass, but no one doing the killing seems to see him or come after him. He goes to investigate the room, which is uncannily clean...but then finds a horrorshow when checking out the toilet?!? It's hallucinogenic kind of stuff.

Then his paranoia continues in his apartment, and he completely tears the whole thing apart, including the walls and flooring, but can't find any bug. So he sits there and plays the sax in his destroyed apartment. He's lost it, he's a mad hatter at this point.

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[–] mikehaldenby 8 years ago

Robert Duvall was never there. No one was. Everything in the hotel was a figment of Harry''s imagination.

[–] fzane (1120) 6 years ago

where i come from, just saying it was all a dream is a huge cop out. i'd rather have a story that doesn't fallback onto that silly notion.

[–] Voided (50) 5 years ago

Where do you come from?

[–] imjustasking (162) 5 years ago

That is a copout,I agree. Too many movies display images that can be taken as reality OR fantasy(especially now with modern special effects) so it eliminates the need to make a valid plot.Sloppy and lazy.

[–] CMX (265) 5 years ago

How is it less lazy to simply show what happened?leaving it open actually makes it more interestinf than simply showing that they killed him or didnt.got nothing to do with laziness or sloppiness