Are You Being Watched? Anonymous 11th Grade

Director Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 masterpiece The Conversation (released in the same year as a film that many consider to be Coppola’s magnum opus, The Godfather Part II), tells the story of Gene Hackman’s Harry Caul, a surveillance specialist living in San Francisco, California. But when Caul and his team are tasked to record a seemingly normal couple in San Francisco’s crowded Union Square, his life turns from incredibly isolated to downright strange. He and his crew successfully record the couple, but several words are ambiguous. Caul tries to unravel the mystery and is led down a dark and treacherous road. A road that leads him to (perhaps) witness a murder. As Caul delves deeper into the case, it becomes more and more apparent to the audience that he is paranoid – his girlfriend knows nothing about him, he claims to have no phone in his house and to use only a payphone, and he has a plethora of locks on his door. Nevertheless, Harry’s paranoia reaches fever pitch when it is revealed at the end of the movie that someone has been watching and recording him (playing saxophone) in his apartment, his greatest fear in life. As Harry desperately tries to uncover what is recording him, he destroys his once-pristine apartment,...