Today I managed to watch the 2 films I said I would and here are my notes on them:

Topaz by Alfred Hitchcock

I thought this film was very strange, it is quite hard to get into but once you understand it, it was a good film, however I found the french accents very hard to understand this is why it took me a while to get into the film.

• "In a crowd is a high russian official who disagrees with his governments display of force and what it threatens, very soon his conscious will force him to attempt an escape while apparently on a vacation with his family".
• Copennagen- Denmark: 1962
• family of three being followed, Mr. and Mrs. Cruzanof and their daughter tamara, tamara dropped a statue and rung a man- dan perm an ente, they all got away in a cab, however tamara fell over a person on a bicycle and cut her knees, the men tried to shot but missed.
• They were taken to go on a plane to Washington by the US. airforce military airlift command to meet Mr Blake and Mr Mikidric, they pass the white house by car after they have landed, they find out they are staying in a house with Miss. Mosit.
• The agents want to take pictures of the family.
• Derald arrives to see Darcy and general - a message from Paris a high russian intelanificual has defected to the americans.
• Where are the american hiding the defector and how? Darcy wants to know.
• Derald wonders why? what will Paris do when they find out? tell Moscow? How did Paris get this information?
• Tamara loves to play the piano in her spare time.
• Mrs. Cruzanof has a dress fitting, its the dress she saw in a magazine that Miss. Mosit got for her.
• TOPAZ: code?
• Family have no choice but to change their identified they are shown models of different faces, as it will be safer for them as they knew what they were getting into.
• Russia and Cuba have a written agreement.
• A man named Mark came to see Derald for help.
• Mark's son in law is a talented drawer and wants to see a drawing he did of a man named Louie Bullenton, he takes this drawing to a friend at a flower shop called Martinlgue Flowers Shop.
• Derald's friend from the flower shop goes to a restaurant- bar- grill to go find Louie, he found Mr. Comrad and got him to believe he was wanting to interview him and take pictures of him waving to the Americans. While Louie was stealing his red brief case Mr. Comrad clocks on later and goes to Louie's room and caught them, Derald's friend jumps out of the window and he starts shooting but misses him.
• Derald then has to make a trip to Cuba he does usually 4-5 a year for his job, but his wife Nicole does not want him to go or to die. However Derald has to find out what the russians are up to in Cuba/
• Derald stays with a woman called Juanile in Cuba that his wife knows about but is not happy, it turns out he is having an affair, Juanile works underground, she is head of a network and works for Derald sometimes.
• As soon as he meet they kiss passionately , he mentions he needs help from her organisation.
• She sends two of her people to spy on the russians at the top of this hill where no one has got that close, however they get caught, the woman is badly injured, as the soldiers saw them and started shooting.
• Before they are caught they manage to hid there camera in a pole on the street which later on someone takes and hides inside a chicken which is taken to a secret place to get developed.
• Comrad intrudes on Deralds and Juanile's dinner to say to he wants him to leave Cuba tomorrow, Derald goes without a fuss.
• The two people that worked for the Juanile are held captive with Mr. Comrad he asks who sent them and the woman mentions the Juanile. Mr. Comrad goes to see her and his soldiers find her camera and development room and kills her as she betrayed him to his mind but she didnt feel that way at all, she felt he was keeping Cuba people prisoned.
• Before this had happened Derald left for his plane and the Juanile gave him a book to read on the plane, which write inside October 1962 and inside the book behind the sealed cover was the scripts of pictures that haven't been developed, she died but gave Derald the proof he needed.
• A man comes to visit Derald back in America to tell him to go to Paris as his family is at risk, Nicole had already gone.
• TOPAZ: is a code name for a group of french.
• Obey your conscious or government a man mentions to Derald.
• Derald goes to house party where Nicole is and he brings there daughter, Derald meets some people that will help him and they arrange a lunch the next day.
• Derald explains at the lunch there are leaks in their government but he does not know exaclty where, he mentions the Americans have a russian detector.
• Nicole goes and sees another man, as she is a free lady after Derald went to Cuba she was extremly unhappy.
• Derald's son in law goes to see a man for him to interview him and draw him, the man he interviewd got killed and thrown out the window as Derald's son in law got knocked out and the men took him hostage, however he managed to escape.
• Cuban Missile crisi is over, khrushchew agrees to scrap bases.

The Conversation by Gene Hackman

I thought this film was definitely a great example of mis-en-scene, I could really see a combination of blocking, camera, image design, dramatic content and sound design, really good film to watch.

• Since 1850: City Paris (SIGN)
• Man dancing and mimicking people on the street.
• Gun man attempts to shoot a woman/man.
• Harry Caul, its his birthday he s 42, he rung someone to find out how they managed to put a present in his apartment he does not like people touching his things.
• Harry likes to play his saxophone in his own time.
• Harry hates it when people use the lords name in vein.
• Hall and Harry are from San Francisco, Harry is eavesdropping on the two lovers, however after his last piece of work his subjects died he is full of self doubt, however he has been doing this for 20 years, (being a professional eaves-dropper) he does get involved and feels the wait of his responsibilities, he goes against every principle he says he has, which is his own downfall.
• Harry goes to his warehouse shop where his friend reading a magazine mentions, about his convention and that Harry is one of the notable names, among those preeminent in the field expected to attend our Hall Lipsit and Harry Caul from San francisco, which is about surveillance and the law.
• Harry calls a man for an appointment at 2.30 to give him the material, however the director is not there so he does not hand over the tapes.
• He goes to see Amy in the middle of the night but she s asking too many questions so he leaves and she says she tired of waiting for him.
• Harry bumps into the girl he's been spying on in the lift but she does not recognise him.
• Harry goes to church to repent, he is afraid he is going to get hurt for the things his work does.
• Harry goes to an event for convention of wiretec, he notices a man is following him the one he would not give his material too he mentions to him the director will be back on saturday at 1.00 if you would come then.
• After the event Harry and his friends went to hang out and have a few drinks, Harry does not know that his friend's bugged him and show him his conversation with his Meredith and he gets very upset and kicks everyone out except Meredith. The lady tries to seduce him but he's too out of it and they fall asleep.
• Harry has a nightmare about the woman he s spying on, say he knows her but she does not know him and that as a little boy he was sick he was paralysed in a part of his body and doctors thought he would not walk again.
• Harry is not afraid of death but of murder.
• When Harry wakes up Meredith is gone and so are the tapes!
• Harry goes at 1.00 on saturday and gives the director his tapes and takes him $15,000 and he brings pictures too but takes them back and throws them away, he asks what will they do with the material but they do not tell him. He overhead them talking about a hotel and room 774, Harry goes there and gets the room 773 to see what is going on, he checks out the room, he drills into his wall to hear what is going on. He goes to his balcony and see a woman being murdered. He goes back to check the room again and the toilet is over flooding with blood.
• Harry went back to see the director but the two men at the front desk wouldn't allow it.
• However later on he sees the woman he s been spying on and figures out it was a man that got murdered and the woman let it happen! they suffocated him.
• The man who acts on the director's behalf rings harry and tells him he knows he knows and to not get involved, so he goes back home and puts all his religious things away and starts breaking his apartment and then plays his saxophone.

This film was meant to show a lot about eaves-dropping and it certainly did for me.