In honor of the 50th anniversary of its release this month, we're revisiting our conversation on Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974), looking at the film through the lenses of surveillance and seclusion, Gene Hackman and Walter Murch, Catholic guilt and cool jazz.

From its bird’s eye opening to the obliterative final shots, we get into the nuts and bolts of Coppola’s “personal” post-Godfather film and what it means to watch, fixate, deduce, mishear, and, despite everything, to long to be seen.

(Originally released July 25, 2022)

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The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

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We'll be back with two new episodes next month - talk soon!

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This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. Listeners can sign up for two months of free access at https://join.galerie.com/bwdr.

Joining our spicy all-in-the-family March episode are substitute co-host Fran Hoepfner and BW/DR staff writer Sarah Welch-Larson. Listen as long-time Dune-thusiast Sarah absolutely schools us on Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two (2024).

We get into the finer points of adapting Frank Herbert, how all the Bene Gesserit are sexy, space gravity, Rebecca Ferguson’s jaw, the secularization of Chani, are thumpers biodegradable, and more. Special shout-outs to Sarah’s prescient piece on Dune (2021) and Max Read’s encyclopedic annotation of Part Two.

The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is (usually) co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

You can find every issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room at brightwalldarkroom.com, including our current issue on one of the single best years in film history, 1999.

Podcast-wise, we really appreciate your ratings and reviews. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and welcome any feedback, questions, or sponsorship inquiries at podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com.

This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club, currently featuring Kim Gordon as curator; BW/DR listeners can sign up for two months of free access at ⁠https://join.galerie.com/bwdr⁠.

On this month's micro episode, we get into Elliott Smith soundtracking a savory first kiss in Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting (1997), a film that changed one of our co-host's lives forever.

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The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands.

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The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is sponsored by our friends at Galerie. To find out more about Galerie—a new kind of film club—sign up for two free months at join.galerie.com/bwdr.