In the opening shot of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation – one of the great opening shots in cinema – a slow, telescopic zoom scans the lunchtime crowd on a sunny day in San Francisco’s Union Square. As if by accident, the camera settles on Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), a middle-aged man in a grey raincoat whom we may not have even noticed if it weren’t for a busking mime sidling over ... (read more)