Friday, February 3, 2012

He'd kill us if he got the chance


He'd kill us if he got the chance.


Take 3 …
Ann: This film we’re in, it’s a metaphor. Those six microphones they’re pointing at us.
Mark: Yeah. Metaphors for guns.
Ann: They’re having a hard job recording us.
Mark: Don’t be too sure. It’s hi-tech gear. Shotgun mikes, super-super cardioid.
Ann: Shotguns? See, I told you. He’d kill us if he got the chance.
Mark: You’re obsessing about him killing us. We’re just actors.
CUT!
________
Voice-over
Harry Caul is a surveillance expert, who contracts to record people’s conversations. He’s good at his job; he takes the craft of deciphering incomprehensible speech to the level of art.

Significantly, The Conversation, (1974), a Francis Ford Coppola film, owes much of its acclaim to the editing of Walter Murch, the sound designer. Harry collects sounds, filters out the distractions, and constructs his eavesdroppings. A sound editor like Walter Murch works like this too. Harry, in the way he works, is a metaphor for a sound editor.

But Harry’s job takes him into other people’s private spaces. Then Harry becomes obsessed that his own privacy has been compromised, in his apartment.

And so it has. Just as ours is by the internet, by Google, by FaceBook. We are never alone now.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

People like a quiet place for themselves, the privacy, but HT devices gave human a good chance for sharing. Exchanging information as someone might use gun to shot the person who doesn't like. 50 and 50, what the human being expect for? After all, Life is unpredictable.
Thinking before you do something, that's what we like to be.

Barry Natusch said...

Social networking through sites like FaceBook is drawing increasing amounts of criticism. People giving up because of the time it wastes, the "Big Brother" feeling. See reports such as http://open.salon.com/blog/trig_palin/2012/01/18/i_gave_up_facebook_but_wont_stop_blogging
Many similar.