 |
| 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.
