1974 was a very good year for Francis Ford Coppola.  Not only did he direct the Oscar-winning Godfather Part II but he also directed another film that was nominated for Best Picture, an intense study of paranoia called The Conversation. 

Today’s scene that I love comes from The Conversation.  Surveillance expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman, giving one of his best performances) fears that his work may lead to murder.  In this scene, he has a nightmare in which he tries, in vain, to talk to one of the people who he has been surveilling.  This scene perfectly captures the horrific logic and helpless feeling of a nightmare.  Harry, who is not the most open or emotional of men, can only be his true self in his dreams.