Word: caul
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...Damel E. Caul, a second-year law student and co coordinator of the panel, said his committee chose to hold the panel because "this is the hottest legal and political issue for gays and lesbians and with Congressional hearings coming up soon we thought it was the right time...
Ruth, a beautiful harpy, was born after her mother and father had adopted their tiny niece Elizabeth, whose parents had been killed in a car accident. Ruth loses no time in stating her lifelong position: "I came wrapped in a caul of darkness and anger into Elizabeth's kingdom." Her cousin is, in fact, a preternaturally good child, so Ruth cultivates meanness and petty thievery with gusto. She hides Elizabeth's favorite dolls and into adulthood wears her clothes on the sly. Elizabeth paints (skies only); Ruth toys with starting a publishing imprint (her first book would be a reissue...
...Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) has a pathological passion for his own privacy. That has its vocational advantages, of course-"the best bugger on the West Coast" ought to be as anonymous as possible. Beyond this, though, Caul's insulation is a way of sealing himself off from his own guilt. There is blood already on his expert hands. An earlier surveillance operation resulted in the murder of an accountant, his wife and kids. Harry begins to see their specters in his new assignment: to record an apparently innocuous conversation between a young woman (Cindy Williams) and a man (Frederic...
...level, The Conversation works as a subtle psychological thriller to which Coppola has given a musical construction. The conversation in the park is replayed at intervals throughout the movie-like a theme that gains color and resonance from what has preceded and surrounds it. The conversation begins to crumble Caul's rigorous defenses, and threatens the careful distance that he preserves between his profession and his conscience. Harry's misgivings are refracted in a series of visual metaphors: the confessional, for instance, becomes not only a tentative purging but also another ritual of ruptured privacy, of secrets overheard...
...film is meticulously cast. Special note should be taken of John Cazale, who is so subtle and adept as Caul's foggy assistant that he seems once again (he was the brother Fredo in The Godfather) to be among the best young character actors. For Hackman, Caul presents a substantial challenge. It is a largely interiorized role in contrast to the action parts on which he has recently built his career. He responds with the most sustained screen performance he has done. "Jay Cocks