In the ever-compounding digital age, privacy and surveillance are more and more of a concern. Many young people cover their laptop webcams, just in case. Many try their best to avoid the looming glow of listening by Siri and Alexa. Others resign themselves to the low-privacy world we find ourselves in. The idea that someone might be listening in on your life may sound far fetched, yet I can't count the times I mention a product in casual conversation and find an ad for it waiting for me on my social media. The latest news in the world of data tracking is that Spotify has filed for a new patent which, "involves the extraction of intonation, stress, rhythm, and the likes of units of speech from the user’s voice" in order to generate musical recommendations. That honestly sounds a little scary to me, whether or whether not it ever is implemented into the service. While we at Hii Magazine love to promote the act of listening, can it go too far? With plot lines based around the concept of listening and surveillance, films The Conversation and Blow Out prompt the question..

The Conversation, while nuanced, could be read as a cautionary tale regarding the morals of surveillance. I have to say, I didn't quite get all the buzz and acclaim - until the ending struck. Then, I felt the deep desire to watch it all over again, framed in a different context. The film belongs to the echelon of paranoia-thriller-mysteries that permeated the 1970s, but the heart of the narrative is in the character study. The main character, Harry Caul, is a paradox, an extremely private man who works as a surveillance expert, recording and listening to people all throughout San Francisco. He even values the privacy of his clients, not letting any of his colleagues listen to the recordings he's captured. The conflict begins when he gets a recording for a client that makes it sound like the subjects are in danger. He analyzes this recording over and over, the audience only able to listen in through his ears. As the mystery grows deeper and deeper, Harry falls down the rabbit hole of conspiracy, and finds himself being listened to by his new clients. It’s only after he’s found himself on the receiving end that he can reckon with his invasions into other people’s privacy. I won't spoil the end of the film, but it culminates with an existential monster of a final shot. The film prods at the dubious morality of Harry's work, never quite landing on an answer.

The political context of this movie can't be understated as well, for it came right around the time that America was still reeling from the Watergate scandal. It swung into the theaters April of 1974, months before Nixon was forced to hand over the incriminating audio tapes that would lead to his impeachment and resignation. The case blew open when burglars were caught trying to plant recording devices in the DNC office, betrayed by their desire to be listening and surveilling - similar to Harry's arc in The Conversation. The genesis of the film happened much earlier than Nixon's scandal however. Francis Ford Coppola stated in a 1974 interview that he came up with the idea eight years before, when he "heard of microphones that had gun sights on them that were so powerful and selective that they could, if aimed at the mouths of these people in the crowd, pick up their conversation". Although this film is 45 years old, it's still refreshing to hear directors base their films off listening and sound. He even states that "I wrote many scenes to be sound-oriented, like a murder occurring in another room that you don't see but you hear". There's a great scene of Harry splicing all the tapes together in a big edit room, which was a real treat to watch as a sound professional. The sound twists and shapes the audience's perspective while watching the film, and flips you on your head just when you think you've figured out what's going on. In the Watergate scandal, the morals seem clear in that the illegal surveillance is absolutely wrong, but The Conversation doesn't quite make it to that conclusion, as most great films don't end with a preachy message.

The 1981 film Blow Out is somewhat of a remix film, combining elements from The Conversation and the 1968 film Blow-Up. Like The Conversation, it’s about a sound guy who finds himself wrapped up in a mystery sparked by one of his recordings. However John Travolta’s lead character Jack Terry is actually a sound effects recordist for films (we love a movie about audio professionals!). He’s out recording background sounds on some back road near the river, when he witnesses a car crash where a presidential candidate dies. It isn’t evident what happened in the accident, until Jack listens to the recording and hears the distinct sound of a gunshot before the tire blowout that causes the accident. Just like in The Conversation, the man who’s obsessed with the technical recording and engineering is forced to reckon with the meaning of what’s on these recordings, and what to do about it. However unlike The Conversation, he finds himself in the situation by accidentally listening (personally, this situation has never come up while I’ve recorded sounds, never too late though!). Both men are forced to make the choice of whether it’s their responsibility to follow through on what they stumbled upon, but John Travolta is the only one that ends up being right. The method of discovery is the biggest difference, and ends up getting Travolta in a world of trouble.

All this begs the essential question of whether it is okay to be listening, or at least critically listening. The fact of the matter is that our hearing is a sense that we can't turn off. Even if we plug our ears as hard as we can, if we hear the couple next door argue through the walls, what do we do? Both the movies impart the idea that listening is dangerous, but it's not necessarily that simple. Listening is an extremely powerful tool. When you open up your ears anything is possible and it's important to think about what that really means. When I hear about Spotify wanting to listen to our conversations in order to recommend music, I question whether we trust them to listen. The fact that the Spotify patent exists at all certainly provokes a level of concern, and in a world where data is sold all the time, I'd say they haven't earned that level of trust.

(Audio easter egg is 'Audiio_FemaleSneeze1.wav', used in OTB's sound library.)