The tap is... (Spoilers)
..in his mind. The guy become completely delusional. Nobody in his right mind destroy a room searching for a device. The easier solution is to move to another place.
share[deleted]
MovieChat Forums > The Conversation (1974) Discussion > The tap is... (Spoilers)
remember the hack at the con
the ability to turn a phone into a recording device without planting a bug?
not sure that it would exactly work with an analog phone....but if it could, maybe glitch that phone would ring
but note, the music played back is exactly what he played after he hung up the phone the first time
caul is paranoid and slowly going mad, but he is also arrogant
his arrogance ultimately destroys him
Yep, I think it's the phone as well.
Considering how much screen time was given to the conference demo of that device - it would make sense.
Perhaps they hired his rival?
Do we know there really was a bug or was it a trick? He was playing along to a record, couldn't they just have been playing the record on the phone? It's possible I missed something though, considering this film was rated so highly, I think it really is just a bit of nothing.. Good acting but barely anything happens at all!
shareI don't think it's made clear whether the tap is real or not. I think the point is that Caul believes it is there. By the end of the film he is even more paranoid and possibly delusional too.
shareI don't buy into the delusions or paranoia, there's really no evidence to suggest that's the case (where else do we find evidence of him being delusional?). Moving to another place probably isn't that easy either; he'd ultimately want to bring his belongings with him, so checking to see if they were bugged is imperative. Also, his place seemed pretty bug-proof; going through finding another place that could match his current setup may be more of a pain than you or I could care to imagine.
I believe there are only two answers:
1. They hired his 'rival' and utilized the phone tapping device shown at the convention.
2. The saxophone.
The phone device seems like the most obvious choice, but we don't really know if it works all that well. The saxophone however, is the only device left intact at the end of the film, the only one he didn't think to 'debug' as it were.
Where else do we find evidence of his being delusional? Uh, how about in the hotel room?
Coppola even suggests this interpretation of the film in the DVD commentary.
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