Coppola's next film, "The Conversation", further cemented his position as one of the most talented auteurs of Hollywood. The movie was partly influenced by Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blowup" (1966) and generated much interest when news leaked that the film utilized the very same surveillance and wire-tapping equipment that members of the Nixon administration used to spy on political opponents prior to the Watergate scandal. Coppola insisted that this was purely coincidental, as the script for "The Conversation" was completed in the mid-1960s (before the election of Richard Nixon) and the spying equipment used in the film was developed through research and use of technical advisers and not by newspaper stories about the Watergate break-in. However, the audience interpreted the film to be a reaction to both the Watergate scandal and its fallout. The movie was a critical success and Coppola won his first Palme d'Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.