Classic Film - Episode 7

 A drama for this week. The Fugitive was released in 1993. From my understanding it was based on a 1960 TV series, which was based on a real person. I seriously doubt the film even remotely resembled reality but it is still a fun movie to watch. Starring Harrison Ford as Dr. Kimble, a man wrongfully accused of kill his wife, the fugitive follows Dr. Kimble as he escapes jail and seeks out the real murder all the while being chased by a hard-nosed U.S. Marshall named Samuel Gerrard.

The film opens with the murder of Dr. Kimble’s wife. It’s very blurry and in slow motion so most of the violence is muffled by the odd camera angles. It’s clear what’s happening but the details are fuzzy, which makes the crime all the more poignant since it is precisely the truth of these details that forms the subject of the next scene with Dr. Kimble’s trial. The most damning evidence is a 911 call of Mrs. Kimble in which she says she’s being attacked and then calls out her husband’s name before dying.

We are then treated to the escape, which is an exciting action scene. Dr. Kimble is being moved by a prison bus when several of the other prisoners attempt to escape. They cause the bus to run off-road and flip over several times before landing on the tracks of an oncoming train. Dr. Kimble barely escapes and then runs for it.

Enter Tommy Lee Jones as the U.S. Marshall sent to capture Kimble and the one other prisoner to survive the crash. This is Tommy Lee Jones at his best. He’s sarcastic, scarily perceptive, and cracks jokes in a dead-pan fashion. He also immediately takes charge and announces one of the best short speeches I’ve ever heard in a film in which he directs the police to search every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, and dog house in a four mile radius.

While we can certainly relate to the sympathetic Dr. Kimble and his quest to discover the truth behind his wife’s murder, it’s really the U.S. Marshall that makes this film so much fun. When Gerard confronts Kimble for the first time in a sewer, Kimble announces that he didn’t kill his wife. Gerard, even though he has a gun pointed at his head, casually replies that he doesn’t care. He’s funny, single-minded and seemingly good at his job.

The overall story is a standard murder mystery. If you haven’t seen it, I won’t spoil the ending but there really aren’t many twists and turns. What’s interesting about the film, however, is how Dr. Kimble uses his knowledge of hospitals to sneak back into society and covertly investigate his wife’s murder while playing cat-and-mouse with Gerard. Both men are intelligent and it’s fun to watch them match wits even though they aren’t technically enemies.

The film is a drama so there are a lot of slow moments broken up by the occasional chase scene. There’s a fist fight at the climax, which is so over-the-top ridiculous and long that it almost takes away from the real seriousness of the rest of the film. My older kids really got into the story. They liked the conflict and the tension between the two main characters. There’s a villain and his lackey but they are in the film so little they might as well be side characters.

One of the interesting little trivia bits about The Fugitive is that they filmed part of the movie in North Carolina. They crashed a train into a bus and then pretty much left it here. You can drive out and see the wreckage if you are so inclined. They did a sequel to The Fugitive called U.S. Marshalls, which followed Gerard tracking down a different fugitive played by Welsey Snipes. I remember seeing it years ago and not being very impressed. I don’t remember much about it.

There was one thing in the story that stood out to me personally more this time around and that was one of plot twists involving a pharmaceutical company that was faking its research in order to get a drug approved. I’m not just not shocked by it. I guess it might be because I’m older now and have had more experience with the medical industry that I’m honestly disillusioned about the lack of morality in the health sector. Or maybe it’s because I’ve studied how academic and scientific research is conducted that this kind of blatant falsehood for profit doesn’t surprise or alarm me. I kind of almost expect it. Now I just feel jaded.

Overall, The Fugitive is a great drama. Harrison Ford plays the mournful victim well. We feel bad for Dr. Kimble and want him to discover the truth. You can feel his simmering anger at the injustice of the situation and while I enjoyed his detective-work, the scenes where he’s kicking butt and brawling just feels out of place. Thankfully, those scenes are short and there aren’t too many of them. Tommy Lee Jones is just awesome as the hunter. The dialog is witty and the banter between Gerard and his team helps us enjoy the ride.

Classic Films - Episode 6

We get two this week for the price of one. Since the last film was such a depressing topic, we needed a healthy dose of humor to remind us that there are good things in life too. The first film on today’s menu is “Raising Arizona” starring a true master of insanity Nicolas Cage and the ever-funny Helen Hunt.

So to understand this film well you have to know a little bit about the directors. The Coen Brothers are one of those directorial teams that have created a bunch of great films from “The Big Lebowski” to “Oh Brother Where art Thou.” They are quite the film scholars so their films often make sly references to older movies and genre tropes. Their films are a but strange and not for everybody. I hated their film “Fargo” but mostly from the exaggerated Minnesota accents and the repetitive “Ja” that’s in every single line but I can forgive them for being eccentric since I’ve generally enjoyed their other films.

“Raising Arizona” is one of the Coen brothers’ earlier movies and it follows an unsuccessful robber named Hi who keeps trying to stick up gas stations using empty guns because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He falls in love with the police photographer, which is cutely shown through a series of arrests in which they spend a minute or two talking each time. Each scene is shown in a montage generally skipping the long periods in between where Hi serves his time for his crime. Finally, Hi gives up crime and proposes to Ed and they settle down to live the typical American family life.

A small problem arises when the couple discover that they can’t have children. They then hatch a ridiculous plan to steal a baby from a local unfinished furniture store owner who had quintuplets because his wife used fertility drugs. Hi and Ed steal a baby and through a series of mishaps involving a couple of Hi’s old convict buddies and a bounty hunter, Hi and Ed realize that they shouldn’t have taken the child and return him. While the two initially talk about divorce, the film ends with them in bed and Hi has a dream in which we see their future as a loving old couple surrounded by a large family of children and grandkids. It’s a hopeful ending to an otherwise silly journey.

The film follows an old comedy genre called the screwball, which was really popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s. This genre typically followed a married couple who split up and then through a series of unlikely events would rekindle their love with one another. Sometimes the couple aren’t married and just fall in love but they are almost always opposites of one another. One is poor, the other rich. One is educated, the other isn’t. And so forth. In “Raising Arizona” Hi breaks the law, while Ed upholds it.

Screwballs are also marked by witty dialog particularly between the two romantic interests. There are loads of just ridiculous conversations in “Raising Arizona.” At one point Hi’s criminal friends show up and Ed asks them if they broke out of prison. They respond by saying that they released themselves of their own recognizance because they felt the correctional institution no longer had anything to offer them. When Hi and Ed welcome Nathan Jr., the stolen baby, into their home Hi points to the TV and says, “That there’s the television. No more than two hours a day either educational or football so you don’t ruin your appreciation for the finer things.”

Lastly, screwball comedies are most well-known for absurd situations and events. Possibly, the best scene in the film occurs when Hi, frustrated at his attempts to live properly, holds up a convenience store to get diapers. Ed sees him and drives away leaving Hi alone with an unloaded gun, police sirens blaring, and a pack of Huggies. What follows is a hilarious sequence in which Hi is chased throughout the suburbs and a grocery store by some gun-happy police, a pack of dogs, and a vindictive shopkeeper with a shotgun. All the while, Hi is trying to keep his grip on the diapers.

Screwball comedies were popular during a time when the institution of marriage was under severe question as states were legalizing divorce. People felt that the bed-rock of the family unit was under attack but screwballs emerged as hopeful reminders that marriage can withstand rocky patches. Some great screwballs of the past include “It Happened One Night,” “His Girl Friday,” and “Bringing Up Baby.” “Raising Arizona” is a nice tribute to a forgotten genre but it’s also a funny movie on its own. My kids really enjoyed it. While I don’t think they were as interested with the film’s presentations of the American family dream as I was, they liked the silly sequences and the slapstick humor.

Our second film for today is “Brain Donors.” What can be said about this film except that it’s sheer lunacy. Our cast of characters include Flakfizer, an ambulance-chasing lawyer/con man played by John Toturro, a cab driver named Rocco played by comedian Mel Smith, and a handy-man named Jacques played by Bob Nelson. These three nutballs hatch a plan to start a ballet company in order to scam a wealthy widow by fulfilling her dead husband’s last wish. What results is a zany series with the slapstick comedy of the Three Stooges and fast-talking verbal humor of the Marx brothers.

“Brain Donors” came out in 1992 and was produced by the Zucker brothers whose other comedies include “Airplane!” and “Ruthless People.” I missed it in the theaters but that’s not surprising since the studio pulled the film after initial screenings performed poorly. After renting the movie, it quickly moved into one of my favorite comedies. However, it’s sort of an odd duck and will either make you snort with laughter or the puns will make you groan.

My 10-year old couldn’t stop laughing. He greatly enjoyed the finale of the film in which our three intrepid heroes purposefully ruin a ballet performance in order to win back their ballet company. For the most part, the film is pretty dumb. The villains are your stereotypical greedy lawyer and a stuck-up bully of a ballet dancer. There’s a side-plot involving a “nice” ballerina and her boyfriend that seems sort of tacked on. The wealthy dowager is a fool whose opinion and goals sway with every gentle breeze. She allows Flakfizer to mock her publically and generally forgets important things within moments because it would be inconvenient for the plot.

However, there’s a lot to enjoy about “Brain Donors.” There’s some wonderfully silly lines. Flakfizer flirts with the widow by saying he can’t wait to take her on a Carribbean cruise where they can watch the old Jamaican moon. “Why the old Jamaican will be mooning us, I have no idea,” he remarks. This is an obvious nod to Groucho Mark’s classic joke about shooting an elephant in his pajamas and then wondering why the elephant was wearing his pajamas.

After our trio breaks into a hospital by pretending to be doctors, they are arrested and we are treated to a bunch of gags as one of the characters has to empty his pockets and he just keeps dumping random stuff on the desk including a rubber snake, a fire extinguisher, and a bicycle pump. It’s over the top but really that’s the point of these films. The characters break social norms and the laws of nature and they do it joyfully. They set fire to a woman’s hat. They play basketball on a ballet stage. They jump out windows to pick flowers. It’s a bunch of nonsense. One of my son’s favorite scenes involved the greedy lawyer shouting, “This is nonsense,” to which Flakfizer responds, “You’re wrong. This is nonsense.” He then points to Jacques who starts imitating a monkey and then eats a candle.

Some of the humor is a bit adult. Flakfizer casually comments that “Two’s company and three’s an adult movie.” However, the slapstick jokes are well-suited for a young child’s sense of humor. In order to annoy the ballet jerk, the main characters have a few dozen pizzas and a singing lobster delivered to his dressing room. I was paying attention to the potty humor this time around and was surprised at how little there actually was of it. I think my kids were able to get more of the jokes in “Brain Donors” than “Raising Arizona” but they still laughed at them both. It was a fun night of guffaws and absurdity.

Classic Films - Episode 5

So, I missed posting a WIP for Wednesday morning. I ended up working 8 nights in a row last week, and I pretty much slept from Monday morning when I got home through Wednesday afternoon when I went back to work. I do have some WIP stuff to post for next week though. And I will not be working those kind of crazy hours again any time soon. =D So anyways, on to today's planned blog post. It's another film discussion based on what my husband has been watching with our (older) kids. He does have the younger ones sit out when the film is not appropriate for younger viewers. Anyways, no more rambling for me. Here's his post...

Episode 5 – Schindler’s List

This week’s film should probably viewed by everyone at least once. It’s a powerful film and I seriously debated letting my kids watch it. The youngest one wasn’t there so I felt it would be okay. The film I’m talking about here is Schindler’s List. It’s a three and a half hour epic following a group of large ensemble cast of Jews who survive the holocaust through their employment with Oscar Schindler, a war profiteer who kept his Jewish employees safe from the death camps. It’s based on a true story and it’s a hard film to watch.

Directed by Steven Speilberg, this historical drama, is probably one of the most heart-wrenching films I have ever seen on the holocaust. It also doesn’t glorify the Jewish victims but rather shows them at both their best and worst. I had to explain the history to my kids before we watched. Although we have briefly covered recent American history, they have not had a thorough study of WWII. My eldest is just now entering that chapter in history.

The film actually begins when the Polish and German Jews are herded into ghettos where they must live in cramped rooms with one another. It follows them as they are forced out and moved into work camps where living conditions are even worse. Many, except those who find shelter in Schindler’s factory, are then shipped out to the camps. The film ends with the end of the war and the release of the Jews at Schindler’s factory. All along the way we see them stripped of their belongings, their dignity, and eventually their lives.

I have to say the cleansing of the ghetto scene is perhaps one of the most elegant and awful scene in the entire film. We listen to classical music as the Germans move from house to house executing anyone they find. There’s a long shot of the ghetto in which we see lights flashing in the windows across the town and its beautiful and frightening as we think about how each flash is probably the death of someone.

There are a few main characters. You have Schindler played by Liam Neeson who begins as a womanizing profiteer. He’s charming and genteel but he’s also clearly looking to benefit from the war. He gives an offer to several Jewish investors to lend him the money to start a factory and he will pay them in goods bought from the factory profits. When they argue that it isn’t a good deal, which it isn’t, he tells them that they have absolutely no power to get anything better. He’s right and they know it.

The Jews eventually lend Schindler his money. He then builds a factory and mans it using Jewish labor, first from the ghetto and later from the camps, because he doesn’t have to pay them real salaries. Schindler is assisted by a skilled Jewish accountant played by the Ben Kinglsey who helps Schindler turn his factory into a money-making success. Eventually, Schindler becomes sympathetic towards his Jewish employees and the other Jews at the camp. When he discovers they are being shipped out to death camps, he bribes the local officials using all of his ill-gotten gains to keep a little over a thousand Jews as “workers” for his factory. He ends the film penniless but managed to save a large number of Jews.

That’s the main story. The film itself is full of more vignettes than anything else. It has little scenes that give us a picture of everyday life for the Jewish people under the Nazi regime. People use ice cycles on a train in order to have water to drink, they are forced to run naked in the open, hide in outhouses to avoid being shipped away, and so forth. One scene shows a woman telling a story of how a group of women were shaved and put into a shower were they were gassed to death. We later see these same women get shaved and shoved into a shower where they stand terrified until the water comes on. The movie is filled with little scenes and moment that give us a picture of the terror, despair, and dehumanization that occurred during the holocaust.

One of my sons remarked that he felt bad for the people on the screen and how they were being treated. He said it made him want to cry. I told him that was a good thing because it shows that he cares and that he has a good heart. While America has had its fair share of terrible history and how it has treated minority groups, it’s important to remember the bad so that it doesn’t ever happen again.

There’s a lot to talk about with this film. It doesn’t really give us a lot of the historical context so we spent some time talking about the rise of Nazi Germany and the general attitude of the people at the time towards the Jews. I personally feel that this is a sure sign of God’s providence. No other people group has been has hated throughout history as the Jews and yet they are still with us. If God didn’t intervene then they would have been destroyed long ago.

We spent a little bit talking history and religion. We’re supposed to identify with Schindler but it’s a little awkward since he’s kind of a jerk and his scenes are spread thinly throughout the film. As such, the movie makes it hard to really identify with any one character so it is more of a starting off point for discussion about the holocaust in general. Next week, we’ll watch a comedy to balance out the depressing aspect of this film.

Classic Films - Episode 3

 - Guest Contribution by my husband and writer (which is kind of ironic since I write the blog)

Okay so this film is a little bit of a guilty pleasure. We watched Wargames, 1983 starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy in a non-John Hughes film. I really liked this movie growing up and I think it appealed to my kids in the same way.

The movie follows a high-school computer hacker who accidentally breaks into a military computer and almost starts WWIII. All the while, he thinks he’s just playing a new video games from a game company while he’s telling the military’s computers that Russia is attacking the US with nuclear bombs. My kids found the concept of a high-school hacker amusing.

The film is definitely dated in terms of technology. The computer dials up through a rotary phone. Our hacker has to use 51/4 inch floppy disks to run his programs because his computer doesn’t really have a hard drive. There’s a 7-11. I honestly haven’t seen one of those in years. Throw in the 1980s hairstyles, clothing, and Dabney Coleman and you have a quintessential 80s flick.

What I had forgotten was how much this film actually addressed some concepts that were years ahead of its time. The first idea was to computerize human jobs in order to remove human error. We’re still arguing this concept as we move steadily towards computer-driven cars. The second is, of course, AI, which I believe is technically impossible. Computers can only do what they are told. They have two settings, on and off. Here, the computer “learns” a key philosophical concept of futility by playing tic-tac-toe. Lastly, we have the idea of games versus reality.

There’s one great point in the film in which David, Broderick’s character asks the computer if they are playing a game or if what they are doing is real. The AI computer responds, “What’s the difference?” When you really think about it, this can break your brain. After all, both are real in the sense that they actually exist but the concept of game and how it relates to play are really tough to tease apart. After all, do professional athletes play a game or are they working? What’s the difference? If it’s money, then is gambling really a form of play? I teach a class in game studies so we often spend the first two weeks discussing the meaning of play and game and then we watch The Game and many minds get blown.

Back to Wargames for a moment. My kids wanted to know why the military would even have games on their computers and so we talked a bit about how games and war are similar. Both rely on tactics. Both attempt to have a winner and a loser in a contest of skill, numbers, luck, and strength. Both have rules. Both can have cheaters. Chess is really just a symbolic version of war. The military uses games like “America’s Army” for training and as a recruitment tool. Wargames is actually a clever play on the meaning of the two words.

What I noticed this time around was the acting. Matthew Broderick plays a rather meek teen. He gets very submissive around authority figures, looks at the floor, and speaks in a contrite tone when he is being addressed by most of the adults. When he talks to adults that have no authority over him, he behaves humbly and actually praises their skills. It’s a very different kind of teen then we see in movies today who are often loud, aggressive, and confrontational when it comes to adults or authority figures.

I had forgotten Ally Sheedy was in this film. Honestly, her role as Jennifer in the movie seems at first to be just to serve as a romantic interest but a careful look tells us more. She’s the Watson to David’s Sherlock Holmes. He explains to her what he is doing and thus explains it to us the audience providing a reason for the exposition. He’s portrayed as a non-athletic geek. She is his reverse. He takes the bus. She rides a motorcycle. He stays in his room. She exercises. He can’t swim. She can. When he freaks out after discovering that he broke into a military computer, she calms him down. Even though she really doesn’t do a whole lot to affect the overall story plot, she has character. The funny part is that the film doesn’t draw much attention to it.

I actually really loved the snarky general played by Barry Corbin. When the computer takes over the US missile controls and threatens to begin thermonuclear war, he turns to the computer expert and says, “You know. Your fancy computer system really sucks.” It’s just such a wonderfully sarcastic line and Corbin delivers it with comic perfection. It took me a while to figure out that Stephen Falken is actually a reference to Stephen Hawkins, the brilliant physicist. Falken is your stereotypical genius antisocial inventor. His only unique quality is that he’s given up on life after the loss of his child and wife. Somehow David and Jennifer reach him and he comes along with them. He doesn’t solve anything. His role is merely to get the military leaders to listen to David for a moment by confirming that the computer is playing a game with them.

Wargames is a cool movie. It has a simple message that no one wins in a nuclear war. I think we can pretty much agree with that idea. While our relations with Russia have changed, this film could still be made today.

Classic Films - Episode 2

This episode's film is a classic in many books: Twelve Angry Men. Based on a play, the film follows 12 unnamed jurors as they debate a murder case. The films begins with 11 jurors convinced that a young boy killed his father. Only one disagrees. By the end of the film (spoiler alert), the jurors find the defendant innocent. I use this film in my public speaking classes as a discussion on argumentation and persuasion because it is such an excellent example of it. As such, I have seen this film well over a dozen times.

I’m referring of course to the 1957 version starring Henry Fonda as juror number seven, the only one who begins by assuming the boy on trial is innocent. I’ve had students remark in the past that they hate black and white films but really enjoyed this one. My kids felt the same way. They really liked this one. My second child remarked that juror #7 should really be the judge or the trial lawyer.

We had a fun talk afterwards about the justice system. This film is unique because we really don’t know if the boy killed his father or not. If this was a classic Hollywood film, we would begin by seeing the boy get framed for the murder, everyone disbelieving his story except some plucky young lawyer, throw in an odd love subplot, and the film would climax in a passionate plea to the jury for true justice. The jury would leave and then come back minutes later, announce a verdict of innocence, there would be much rejoicing, and everyone would go celebrate at a barbecue. Instead, none of that happens.

We don’t see the murder. We don’t really see the trial. Instead we begin with a very bored looking judge say that the jury must decide whether the boy is guilty or innocent and that they must all agree. The judge nonchalantly tells them how important this decision is but acts as if he’d rather be out golfing because he recites his speech in a dull monotone. Ninety percent of the film takes place in one room as the jurors debate the facts of the case. When they decide their verdict, we don’t even see the boy’s face. Instead the film ends with the various jurors walking their separate ways outside the court steps. As my eldest put it, “They just kind of blend in with the crowd. It’s as if they are just everyday people.” And that’s the point of the film. The decision doesn’t affect them. One juror even states, “We receive a summons in the mail. We decide the guilt or innocence of a man we don’t even know. It’s what makes us strong.”

I’ve been called onto jury duty once or twice but had to decline because I was still a student at the time. My kids found it interesting to hear that they might one day be called in to decide justice on some case. I warned them, however, that they don’t need to be juror number 7 and convince everyone that the defendant is innocent. Sometimes they are guilty. When I asked my kids whether they thought the boy really killed his father, they weren’t sure. The arguments were well-made but there were some holes in the story such as the murder weapon happening to be the same as a knife the boy bought that afternoon. It’s a bit of a coincidence.

What’s fun though is looking at the personalities of the different jurors. Even though they are never named, each one is distinct. You have the highschool football coach, the baseball fan, the angry father, the stock broker, the advertiser (whose job is persuasion but he himself seems unsure of it), the prejudiced man, the older gentleman, and the European watch-maker. It’s a fascinating crew of individuals. It’s also interesting to watch juror #7 work. He begins not by saying everyone is wrong, then they would get defensive. Instead he just says he himself isn’t sure of the boy’s guilt and that the boy probably is guilty but may not be so they should talk things out.

This is an excellent persuasive strategy as it gives you a foothold for collaboration instead of opposition. Henry Fonda, playing juror number seven, excellently maneuvers the group to look at each fact and consider possible alternatives. However, it is the last three jurors to convince that are the most interesting.

Aristotle argued that there are three different forms of appeals: Logos, pathos, and ethos. This is called the rhetorical triangle. Each of the last three jurors represents one of these. The first is the prejudiced man. He requires an ethos appeal. Ethos refers to quality of character. We are more likely to be convinced by someone whom we respect and deem trustworthy. What matters most to him is the character of the boy. He assumes the boy is a violent criminal because of his upbringing. He makes a speech about how dangerous poor people are and everyone in the room turns away from him. Confused, he keeps saying “Listen to me.” At which point one of the jurors, one who agrees with him that the boy is guilty, tells the prejudiced man to “Not speak again.” The prejudiced man has to be shown that just because the boy is poor and has a violent past does not mean he committee this specific crime.

Next to go is the stock-broker who is very thoughtful and likes things to make sense. He requires logos, which are logical appeals, in order to persuade him. His biggest concern was that a woman across the street saw the crime. This testimony is hard to argue unless she is lying and there didn’t seem to be any reason for it. However, one of the other jurors remarks that the woman had marks on her nose suggesting she wore glasses and if she did wear glasses, she wouldn’t have been able to see the killer clearly. The stock-broker agrees that this is logical and changes his opinion.

The last juror is the angry father played by Lee Cobb. This character is awesome. He is extremely emotional and often shouts out unintentional statements that reinforce juror #7’s arguments. It is hinted at earlier that he had a falling out with his own son and doesn’t like ungrateful children. When all of the other jurors confront him about the guilt of the boy at the end, angry father pulls out his wallet of notes and throws them on the table. Included on the pile is a picture of him with his own son who hasn’t spoken to in years. The angry father says, “There it is. That’s the whole case right there.” He then tears up the picture of him hugging his son and breaks down in tears.

This man requires pathos, or emotional appeals. He is angry at his own son. He has misplaced this anger on the boy on trial. He empathizes with the dead father and wants justice for the murdered man and also for himself. The other jurors don’t really have to say anything but they silently make this frustrated man realize why he is so angry. He finally gets his emotions in check and agrees with the other jurors as to the boy’s innocence.

Overall, 12 Angry Men is an incredible film. The story is engaging. The characters are memorable. Cinematically, it’s well crafted. The camera begins with long shots and moves closer and closer to the characters. By the conclusion, the camera is almost always showing close-ups, which reflects the intensity of the conversation and the mental debate. It is a fun, thoughtful film about persuasion, truth, and the American justice system.

Summer Classic Films - Episode 1

So, we're going to do a little something different around here. With my new job and the health problems I've had, keeping up with my blog and other social media stuff has been difficult. So, my husband is going to be contributing more to the blog here. This is related to the studio because he's the one that does all the writing for my prints and badges. He also wrote the Anime RPG book you may have seen at my table, so it makes sense for him to write some stuff for my blog. For the summer, on most Fridays, I will be sharing some reflections related to a film project he's been doing with the kids. He's big fan of film, and he teaches a variety of film classes at the college level. These posts are going to be a little longer than what I normally write, but I think they're worth the read. So, without further rambling, here's the first Friday post for the Summer Classic Film Project...

The Sting

As part of a summer activity, I have decided to watch classic films with my children. I want them to have to a good cultural background in film so the plan is to watch a number of movie classics and then talk about them. I was inspired to try this after I finished teaching a film art class in the spring. I was actually rather surprised at how few movies over twenty years old that my students were familiar with let alone seen.

I’ve already exposed my children to a number of what you might call geeky classics. They’ve seen films like Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future and the older Batman movies. We’ve even watched some of the more obscure ones like The Monster Squad, Ferris Bueller, and Murder by Death. As such, I’m going to experiment here a little more and show them more dramas and action films that aren’t quite as well known. Our first film was The Sting.

Made in 1973, The Sting features a pair of con artists named Hooker (Robert Redford) and Gondorff (Paul Newman) who exact revenge against a corrupt mobster named Lonnegan, played by the excellent Robert Shaw who was the drunk shark-hunter in Jaws. It’s a fairly straightforward story with a few twists along the way to make things interesting. It’s set in the 1930s and certainly captures the feel of destitution and dirt that I often associated with my limited knowledge of the Great Depression period.

One of the more interesting aspects of the film is how it not only creates this underworld fantasy of crime but it populates the world with a society of con men with goofy nicknames like Kid Twist and Combs. These men apparently have their own secret society with signals to identify one another and will on occasion band together to act out a complicated con story for big bucks. They play off one another to create an intricate story with which to bamboozle the poor schmuck they’ve decided to rip off. In this case, the con is revenge for the murder of one of their members. As such, it is a satisfying story of crooks stealing from other crooks. It probably wouldn’t have been as good if they had decided to just target a rich guy who was a little more empathetic.

The film opens with a couple of clips from the movie and a description of the players. This is a nice nod to earlier silent films that used this term when listing the opening credits since film in the early days drew heavily from plays. After an introduction to our main characters, the film halts over a still image of people sitting at a street corner. Some have chairs. One rests against a car. In the background we see a man rummaging around in the trash. It almost looks like a painting depicting the squalor and general hopelessness I have when I picture 1930s urban Americana. The still image shifts to movement revealing it not to be a painting but part of a film.

The camera then cuts to a man walking past all of the poor street dwellers. We only see the man’s shoes and they are clearly clean and expensive. They stand in stark contrast to the poverty around them. The man climbs some very dirty and rusty old stairs and enters a room bustling with people. We hear another man talking on the phone about the day’s take and how the police shut the group down for an hour. While we are not privy to the whole story, there are enough pieces here to suggest that these men are involved in an organized crime racket. Probably gambling but it’s hard to say.

Matolla, our well-groomed man from the street, is given some money and told to take it to Chicago. He leaves and as he walks down the street, he observes a robbery. Our man doesn’t get involved but another man, Hooker, steps into the scene and foils the robbery. A short exchange occurs in which Matolla agrees to deliver the robbery victim’s money to a group of loan sharks. What Matolla doesn’t realize is that he is being conned and is quickly relieved of all of his money. Thus begins The Sting.

The movie has some interesting and likeable characters, a complicated confidence scam, some assassins, and some very corrupt police officers. It doesn’t cut as often as newer movies but then again it is rather dialog heavy. That’s something that really stood out to me on this viewing. The characters in this film rattle off a ton of slang. I’m not sure if people in the 1930s spoke like this or if it is only a Hollywood reimagining but I found myself reflecting on the language a lot here. A lot of the slang was vanishing from general vocabulary when I was a kid. I can only imagine the confusion of my own children as they heard words like moxie and sting thrown around like cotton candy.

In particular there is one scene in which our conmen observe a detective entering a pub. One of the con men remarks, “I’ve never seen him before. He’s a dick, though.” I know from my experience that dick was an old slang term for police detective. My kids have only heard that word used as an insult meaning a jerk. The two meanings were probably synonymous once upon a time but the former term is no longer really well known among the younger generation.

That’s not to say I was able to follow the dialog all of the time either. I still have no idea what “droople drooze” is supposed to mean. Robert Shaw’s Irish accent is almost indecipherable at times when he rattles off phrases like, “You don’t see my men rumbling around with such riffraff.” Overall though, I think my kids were able to follow the story. The older two in particular really liked some of the card tricks and lies that the con men used to trick the evil mob boss.

One little thing that amused me is that at one point, Hooker and Gondorff are playing Cribbidge together. They only play one hand and for the most part the game is really just to give the two something to do with their hands while they rattle off exposition and character reflection. However, they played the game correctly. I like that kind of detail in a film.

In summary, The Sting is a fun film. It won a ton of academy awards and made a lot of money in the box office when it came out 45 years ago. There is one scene in which we see a woman’s naked backside and part of her breast. In the same scene is a woman doing a semi-risky strip tease in a bikini bottom and nipple covers. There are also a couple of murders in which one person gets shot in the head. I was actually rather surprised that the film has only a PG rating. I had forgotten those moments when I first saw the film years ago.