CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

By the time he was arrested in 1969, Frank Abagnale Jr., had stolen close to $3 million in fraudulent checks, making him one of the richest conmen under the age of 30 up to that point. During his sentence he used his eye for phony checks to help the FBI, especially Carl Hanratty, the agent leading his arrest, catch fakes. After his sentence ended his talent became a career which brought him even more millions than he had stolen. That says more about justice than Abagnale’s character but the story, published in 1980 as a book written by Abagnale himself, is full of the sour irony Hollywood loves. Sure enough, Abagnale sold the film rights before a year could pass since publication. But the project stayed on back burner for almost twenty years. It wasn’t until 1990, in fact, that Michael Shane first optioned the book but soon tossed it back to the storeroom as he went on to develop Magellan Filmed Entertainment. There it remained until 1997 when Paramount’s Bungalow 78 Prods came along with screenwriter Jeff Nathanson and offered to co-produce an adaptation, taking it to DreamWorks, where it attracted Leonardo DiCaprio for the role of Abagnale by the summer of 2000. At the time the forerunners for director were Gore Verbinski and David Fincher.

            At the time, the studio’s priority was to begin production before anticipated strikes by the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild in the early summer of 2001. By July of that year, however, threats of the strikes amounted to nothing, Verbinski had backed down from production in late 2000 fearing he would be unable to start shooting in time after DiCaprio’s stay in Rome became prolonged when filming for Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York met with delays.  When Lasse Hallstrom backed down in the summer of 2001, Steven Spielberg was beginning to look like a viable option, though his heart was set on Big Fish and Memories of a Geisha.

            “This movie wasn't even on my radar until, you know, the product was purchased,” Spielberg said. “I didn't even know the history of the project, didn't know this incredible journey the project had taken. I didn't realize that Frank had actually bought and sold his book four times. I mean, which is very Frank. But, I didn't realize any of this until we were in production on the screenplay that Walter Parkes supervised.”

Spielberg was soon taken by Abagnale’s story, however, remarking, “I was like the many people who fell under the seductive influence of the real Frank William Abagnale, Jr., just through his book. And when you meet him, you understand in a second how he could pull the wool over your eyes and convince you that he was a doctor or a lawyer. I was fascinated by the unique way he came of age. I really believe he was very strongly affected by the divorce of his parents. There are all sorts of ways kids act out against divorce, and Frank just happened to act out in a way that was so original, it was worth making a movie about. Personally, I have always loved movies about sensational rogues, like the Newman/Redford classics Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting. They were breaking the law, but you had to love them for their moxie. "

            Were it not for the presence of Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio as the relatively well-mannered cat and mouse, Catch Me if You Can would hardly garner a whisper in any overview of Spielberg’s body of work, so few of the director’s hallmarks being present and the magic relegated to a scant few moments. It works, but unexcitedly so, much like clockwork. If it’s worth anything it’s for the innovative things it does with DiCaprio and Hanks.

            Carl Hanratty is a plum role for Hanks and he captures the dour agent’s stiffness with a good eye for eccentricities as well as sense of fair play. The movie, unfortunately, gives Hanks little space to expand with what he is capable of, but the seed of a compelling performance is ever present. Perhaps, though, Hanratty is best played as a tough oddball to read, the mystery surrounding the workings of his mind only adds to his mystique. There is something brewing beneath that reptilian shell. He is humorless, but not boring and clearly invigorated by the challenges of the chase. Abagnale is his Professor Moriarty; the criminal who can finally outsmart him. Without him, Hanratty hungers stimulation. When not occupied with a worthy foe, Sherlock Holmes turned to cocaine. Chinese take-out is Hanratty’s drug of choice. Moriarty almost killed Holmes (indeed, that was Doyle’s intention for “The Final Problem” until fans demanded otherwise) but, nonetheless, was Holmes’s most formidable opponent, often complimenting the sleuth for his mastermind and allowing him to write a farewell letter to his friend Watson. Holmes missed the old criminal after he fell to his death from Reichenbach Falls, now lacking an adversary worthy of his genius. Likewise, Hanratty is impressed by Abagnale’s intelligence, certainly the slickest teenager he has chased. Hanks recognized Hanratty’s ego as the primary driving force.

“Carl Hanratty loves that stuff; he lives and breathes it. So when he comes across this paperhanger, as they're called, who is remarkably intelligent and certainly an above-average check forger, Carl makes it his life's mission to, well, catch him if he can,” he said.

            Take the first time Hanratty meets Abagnale. Hanratty has tracked him to a hotel, but by the time he breaks down the door to his suite, Abagnale has now taken on the identity of a Secret Service agent, also investigating the fraudulent checks. Hanratty buys the story and lets him go only to discover he’s been duped once Abagnale has escaped. He is frustrated and humiliated, but not without a hint of amusement.

            Hanks explained further, “Carl is so impressed with the style and panache of his quarry that he's doubly astounded to discover how young he is. Carl suddenly realizes that he is just a kid, incredibly gifted but ultimately a child, who is in the midst of an adventure that is bigger than he is. Carl comes to feel almost protective of Frank. I mean, he treats him like a criminal-he's going to arrest him and send him to jail-but at the end of the day, he sees a fragile human being who is worth trying to redeem somehow.”

            “Carl Hanratty eventually becomes the only person who Frank Abagnale trusts, which is ironic given the fact that Carl is the one who is aggressively trying to put him in jail. There is a certain element of Carl becoming something of a father figure to Frank because he ends up being the only real guidance that my character has,” DiCaprio added.

            Abagnale, in turn, plays as fairly as he can with Hanratty and resents embarrassing him. From the start the relationship seems destined to end in partnership if not friendship. Catch Me if You Can is, after all, a vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio and the film can’t afford to make him despicable. He takes a sympathetic approach to Frank Abagnale and makes him a charismatic fake with a broken childhood. The film wouldn’t work otherwise, and DiCaprio can play vulnerable rogues as good as anyone. For the film’s purpose of asking the audience to be merciful in our judgment of Frank Abagnale as well as demonstrating just how he got away with so much for so long, the casting of DiCaprio could not possibly go wrong. Who else could charm his way through flight stewardesses, pretty young bank tellers, and the shy rich girl played by Amy Adams? And, at the same time, who else could bring such sensibilities to a man who made millions as a fake?

            The best moments in Catch Me if You Can involve Abagnale’s relationship with his father (Christopher Walken), a man who also tried to fast-talking his way through life, but never explored the option of dishonesty and as a result lost his business and his wife, inadvertedly leaving his son with one lesson, honesty will get you nowhere.

            The significance of Frank Abagnale Sr. to his son was best described by producer Walter F. Parkes, who recommended Walken for the part. “The key person in Frank's life was his father,” he said. “In our film he is a kind of modern Willie Loman. He's an extremely charismatic man whose attempts to grab onto the American dream elude him every time. There is great poignancy in that.”

There is much to learn about Abagnale from the Abagnale household, but Spielberg decides not to dig deep. He goes out of his way to keep the tone fluffy and fleeting, which is fine as far as it goes. He made clear his intention to go for lighter fare. But he tries to have it both ways, amusing us with Abagnale’s escapades while trying to make us want to hug him. But Spielberg never realizes the need to slow down and give the audience a chance to reflect on Abagnale and what made him who he is if he wants a heart to the picture.

Parkes stressed how difficult it was to find the right tone, “What was both exciting and tricky about Catch Me if You Can was that it falls between several genres,” he said. “There are times of searing drama, but at its heart, it is more of a comedy. So it was a challenge, both in the writing and in the execution of the movie, to somehow encompass all of those facets.”

            Spielberg found the humor, but not the heart. One scene in particular reflects how inadequate his speed is for the sentiments he wants. Late in both the movie and in his criminal career, a sickly and saddened Abagnale, with the FBI in close pursuit, staggers over to his childhood home where his mother has remarried and built a new life after his father’s death. Abagnale is now a destroyed man, robbed of the only man he ever trusted, his health poor, and no escape left (both literally and figuratively). A frosty window separates this forlorn figure from the festivities of Christmas inside the house. Indeed, the world within, of opulent Christmas trees, holiday music, and Christmas joys is a world he can no longer return to, so much so that his mother never even notices him outside. It’s the film’s most potent moment, but Spielberg is too hurried to let the inherent heartbreak to sink in. He makes his point and runs off before it penetrates.

            That he misses the human factor is a pity but Spielberg’s intention from the moment Catch Me if You Can landed on his lap was to take a break and have fun.

            “I had just finished shooting Minority Report and was in something of a dark place,” the director explained. “I thought this would be a breath of fresh air for me. I enjoy that whiplash sensation of going from a film like Jurassic Park to a Schindler’s List and now from Minority Report to Catch Me if You Can.”

 To that end the movie is a modest success, thanks largely to the two fun lead performances and a delightfully intimidating Martin Sheen as Amy Adams’s bullying rich daddy.

“Martin brought an immediate power and solidity to the role,” Parkes said. “He has that kind of intimidating presence, which is very important in that it gives Frank a certain amount of anxiety to deal with.”

 Finally, the period recreations never become a distraction.

“This was the age of the jet set,” observed Hanks. “Literally, you could get on a jet plane and be on the other side of the world in a matter of hours. For my generation, it was the height of glamour: colors looked cooler and everything was very bold and stylish.”

To capture both the essence of the era and the bouncier tone of the film, Spielberg made greater use of lighting than is customary and even instructed John Williams to tone down his soundtrack.

“John did something he's never done before,” Spielberg later said. “He wrote music in the idiom of progressive jazz, which was very popular in the 1950s and '60s.”

“In my past work with Steven, we have had large orchestras and broad themes,” Williams recalled. “But on this particular film, we don't have that kind of canvas. It's more intricate. The story is light and amusing, but is also about a serious subject, so the music had to have different shades. It's comedic one moment, and then tense as the FBI closes in on Frank. One particular figure who I think dominated the American film music scene in the 1960s was Henry Mancini. He typified the best of that stylish, jazzy approach to films that we now associate with that period so nostalgically. I actually was the pianist in Henry Mancini's orchestra at the beginning of both of our careers. I played on the Peter Gunn recordings and on Breakfast at Tiffany’s and was very close to him personally, as well as musically.”

Despite his avowed comfort in the 40s, Spielberg does a fine job of the 60s, its sounds, colors, though his heart seems to be less involved here than his true passion projects, a sad result of the manner in which the project was forced into his hands. All things considered, however, he pulls off a commendable effort for what was almost certainly an unexpected interruption in his schedule no matter how taken in he was by Abagnale’s escapades. His approach to Catch Me if You Can is uninspired but the end result is not unpleasant, a rare circumstance indeed. It’s a Spielberg time-filler, no more no less.

SUPER 8

Before the first Transformers movie in 2007 there played a mysterious trailer without a title or much else in the way of explanation. Featured in it was simply a group of hipsters gathered round a New York flat for a going-away party. The atmosphere suggested another independent youngster oriented comedy of the sort catching steam in the late 2000s. Suddenly, though, something unexpected happened that shattered not only the party but the audience’s presumption. A loud explosion was heard from outside the flat followed by a thundering roar. ‘Hmm, that feels out of place in what appeared to be a Judd Apatow style comedy,’ is our first reaction. What’s going on? The group looks out the window and watches buildings come crashing down and the severed head of the Statue of Liberty bouncing down an alley. End of trailer, beginning of the guessing game until January of 2008. What is this movie? A new Godzilla or the long-rumored Voltron movie, perhaps?

            Not long after this cryptic trailer, audiences noticed the name attached to the project and recognized J. J. Abrams as the mastermind behind TV’s Alias, but suspicions of a tie-in involved his then unfolding series Lost. Could this be connected to the then unidentified smoke monster? Well, the guesses would be partially true if only because of the way Abrams works, though not in the way fans thought. The connections to Lost were subtle and ultimately trivial. How so? The Dharma Initiative, a central component to Lost, was name-dropped, thereby establishing a shared universe.

            Cloverfield (as the movie was titled for reasons no one seems to agree on) was ultimately a creative wasteland made successful by a clever marketing strategy and the less than universally appealing gimmick of being shot entirely with a hand-held camera; a lackluster monster movie, if you will, passed off as something special. When it was finally revealed, the monster was nothing to scream about and did little more than chance the young socialites around the city. Cloverfield, however, proved two things besides the fact that marketing campaigns are becoming a more integral part of the filmgoing experience. One is that J.J. Abrams, for all his talent, often struggles with delivering on the expectations he creates, Lost being the most shattering example as a compulsively gripping show ending with one of the most polarizing endings in television history, the other is that clues to his various story-arcs are scattered throughout his body of work.

            Naturally, when the first trailer for Super 8 appeared before Iron Man 2 in May of 2010 links to Cloverfield were suspected, perhaps the rumored sequel. The trailer was less cryptic, but the marketing strategy was familiar. In the trailer we simply see a freight train at night intercut with shots of a pickup truck driving deliberately into the tracks and toward the train. There is a loud and explosive collision, the train being derailed and off the tracks and scatters about the area. But something is still alive inside one of the destroyed compartments and its pushing its way out before the scene goes dark.

Abrams was quick to dispel rumors of a Cloverfield connection, and it’s not hard to imagine why the sequel never got off the ground. Its premise was a dead horse (it was to involve an alternate vantage point of the night of the monster attack from another photographer) and involved the hand-held camera gimmick of which the success the first time around is disputable at best (a good comparison being Robert Montgomery’s point-of-view camera in Lady in the Lake).

            Super 8 did share some attributes with Cloverfield, not the least of which was the viral marketing but, also, the theme of video recording when something spectacular shatters the ordinary (more of a McGuffin in Super 8 than it was in Cloverfield), and a military plan to destroy the area of invasion (Operation Walking Distance here and the far more drastic Operation Hammerdown in Cloverfield). Further, Slusho, the drink responsible for the awakening of the Cloverfield monster when its production company began drilling in the ocean depths for ingredients, appears as a product here in a convenience store.

            Be that as it may, even without Abrams’s comment, when released, Super 8 would have cleared away all suspicion that it had anything to do with 2008’s dud. While Cloverfield was an airy bag of tricks, Super 8 is nearly a great film. Super 8 has a soul while its ancestor was, in the words of one critic, “emotionally sadistic”.

            There are two stories in Super 8 and the one that matters is not the one advertised. It’s all about the story of the kids with a love for movie magic. This one is the real testament to Steven Spielberg’s financial and creative backing of the film. There is enough there to make a wonderful movie, standing alone firmly in its own simplicity.

            In a quiet little town in Ohio (Spielberg’s home state) a gang of middle-school aged friends set out to make a zombie movie in the summer of 1979. Super 8 cameras are a hot new toy for aspiring filmmakers and thanks to George Romero zombies are the monsters of choice. The movie serves as escapism from the pains of adolescence; the death of a parent, the insecurities of the surviving parent, and watching your crush fall for your best friend. There is even the loss of a pet, a heart trigger Spielberg has always had his finger on, using it as a tactic to get his child actors in E.T. to cry for key scenes and then and then used it as dark humor in Lost World: Jurassic Park. Whether a statement or not, the death of the dog at the jaws of the T-Rex in Lost World is indicative of either a society grown cynical since E.T. or Spielberg’s own cynicism since, given that the boy in that scene is more awed by a dinosaur in his backyard than saddened by the loss of his pet. Here the town dogs merely run away when danger arrives in town, but the movie is smart enough to comment on the emotionally impact of such a loss. But Super 8 is also familiar with the many joys we tend to forget when we get older. Movies, especially fantastical ones, captivate us in a way they never can again once we are past a certain age. For Joe (Joel Courtney) and his friends, making a movie is not only a hobby but the thrill of creating a supernatural world. Abrams and childhood friend Larry Fong drew heavily from their own recollections.

            “I had a friend who lived across the street from J.J., and we’d make Super 8 movies while J.J. was across the street working on his own Super 8 stuff,” Fong said. “Eventually, J.J. and I started making movies together. I wasn’t the cameraman, though. I remember helping him out with special-effects makeup!”

            “The DNA of Super 8 is this weird, geeky obsession we had with the magic of making movies when we were kids,” Abrams added. “Larry had to shoot this movie because our references were exactly the same. We lived them together.”

Naturally, the kids in Super 8 link the pride of making a movie to the other joy that comes only once in a lifetime, your first crush. Being the director gives Charles (Riley Griffiths) courage to ask Alice (Elle Fanning), the dream girl of every boy in the town, to star in his movie. But, the shared sorrow of being raised by an inattentive single father creates instead a bond between Alice and Joe and the most inspired moments in Super 8 are the tender, endearingly awkward, moments between the two young lovers. The word is never mentioned, but it’s perfectly clear to anyone who remembers their first love.

            Super 8 understands its young leads, handling their wide-ranging emotions remarkably well. It begins establishing the work-related death of Joe’s mother as a backdrop, but thanks to Courtney’s emotive performance, the sadness lingers in Joe’s face even after the movie flash-forwards four months later. Alice’s mother may as well be dead for all Alice knows. She left Alice some time ago with a father (Ron Eldard) who tries to drink his sorrows away. Through their similar losses, Alice and Joe find each other while their newly single fathers learn to act on their love for their children. Things are further complicated in that Joe’s father (Kyle Chandler who is quietly becoming one of our best actors), the deputy sheriff, blames Alice’s dad for his wife’s death (she took his shift at the steel factory on the day of the incident that took her life).

            All the kids get a chance to shine, though. Charles is the most dynamic of the gang and is likely Spielberg’s avatar; the boy from Ohio with a love of film. Perhaps because of Spielberg’s connection to the character, Charles’s love for Alice is treated compassionately, though it is obviously hopeless even to Charles. The rest of the gang are as charming as the Goonies, each with their own quirk and moment to glory.

            As in E.T. the measure of the adults is determined by how they are changed by children. As hostile as they are to each other, Joe and Alice’s fathers have much in common starting with the loss of the women in their lives and the challenge of showing love for their child. It will take an external force to bring them together, in this case, the US Air Force that begins scouring the town in search of their runaway cargo from Area 51. In E.T. the reasonable authority figure played by Peter Coyote saved the face of the US government. Super 8 offers the government no such positive face with the exception of Dr. Woodward (Glynn Turman), the ex-government researcher discharged when he discovered a way to communicate with the alien survivor when it first crashed its ship on Earth in 1958 and Colonel Nelec (Noah Emmerich) who is redeemed with a final act of valor before being devoured by the alien.

            Indeed, Super 8 looks and feels like the kind of movie Spielberg used to make so well. It remembers the lost magic, wonder, and mystery of being young and with a big imagination, thanks to the input of a filmmaker who never let go of those sentiments. Thus, there is a sharp divide in Super 8 where Spielberg’s movie ends and Abrams’s begins. Almost everything involving the alien, its stranding on Earth and its attempt to rebuild its ship to return home feels like the new generation at work and, unfortunately, lacks the subtle thrill of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which the finale of this film is reminiscent of. Fong noted the similarities, “The look of that movie informed all my choices, from lighting schemes to color and lenses, as well as the format we shot in, 35mm anamorphic.”

  Some of it is well done, no doubt. Abrams is a talented mind and the train wreck, for instance, has the polish of a cinematic wizard. The truck that will bring forth such destruction appears first as a negligible vehicle in the distance, our attention diverted to the kids filming at the train depot. Joe is the first to notice that something doesn’t look right. The truck makes a suicidal turn into the tracks, racing toward the train. As it becomes increasing clear that something bad is about to happen, our priority shifts from Charles’s movie to the inevitable collision, even before we learn who is driving the truck, why they are determined to stop the train, and what the train is carrying.

Abrams designed this scene ingenuously, placing red lights of decreasing size on poles of decreasing size along the tracks making them appear far longer than the model they built at Agua Dulce’s Firestone Ranch really was, this way allowing longer for the suspense to develop and gather more momentum before the impact. He then sprinkled the surrounding hills with bulbs, creating the illusion of a town.

In smaller doses, this expertly crafted suspense returns in two of the film’s most effective moments, the attack at the convenience store and the assault on the bus used by the Air Force to transport the meddlesome kids. The latter is modeled much like the T-Rex attack on the trailer in Lost World, here with the added advantage of real human drama.

            The parts focusing on the alien are at their best when they balance fear with drama, even in something as simple as the community’s devotion to their runaway dogs, expressed through a poignant shot  where the camera pans out to an entire billboard covered with lost dog fliers, each representing a broken heart somewhere. At best, the movie’s use of the alien is in the Hollywood tradition of sending hurting humans help from an unknown (and sometimes feared) presence from another world. This has worked well countless times before and would have again here had Super 8 dug deeper from Spielberg’s past work. But the alien here is simply a gimmick and one that belongs in a different movie. As he undoubtedly knew, Abrams had the makings of a complete movie in the story of the kids and their cameras. The finale in the alien’s underground liar feels like a conclusion spliced from another movie of a different nature made to work as the ending to Super 8. Little thought was put in developing the alien or connecting him to Joe and the gang, probably because it mattered little. The alien was little more than a selling point, emotionally distanced from the soul of Super 8.

            The irony is, of course, that Super 8 is a very good movie despite the use of the creature. It will be remembered but not for anything to do with the alien. When we look back on Super 8 it will be for its heart, its style, and the impressive performances by Elle Fanning and Joel Courtney. Also, it will be remembered fondly for being the movie that proved Steven Spielberg remembers the endless possibilities before you when you are a young man with a camera and an imagination and that he also knows what it’s like for adults in danger of forgetting that.