Catch Me If You Can - Spielberg Review

 

The Sins of Our Fathers

Catch Me If You Can is a film directed by Steven Spielberg and was made in 2002 starring at that point two of the most bankable stars of that era - Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. It tells the story of Frank Abagnale Jr. (DiCaprio) who before the age of 19 achieved a level of cheque fraud unseen before or since, he stole millions of dollars from the government by posing as a pilot, doctor and lawyer while being chased by Carl Hanratty (Hanks) of the FBI, all the while hoping to rekindle the marriage of his father, Frank Snr (Christopher Walken) and his mom, Paula (Nathalie Baye).

Spielberg's tact at this point of his career was to make films that were entertaining, illuminating and as always married with a rich composition and combination of efficiency and economy thanks to his directorial flourishes and the script by Jeff Nathanson.

Bookended by a flashback sequence, with Hanratty finding Frank in a foreign cell and extraditing him to the United States to face trial, we then start in 1963 where Frank attends his father's life achievement at his lodge ceremony but already the seeds of discontent are being sown by an ongoing inland revenue audit against Frank Snr's stationary shop forcing an estrangement of the marriage culminating in a legal divorce extrapolated by Paula's affair with Jack Barnes (James Brolin), her eventual second husband.

From the outset as Snr talks about seducing Paula, a French native while he was deployed in her town of Montrichard during World War II, it is clear that both Abagnale's are capable of weaving stories and tales to manipulate women (mostly) to obtain financial benefits and suits on hire.

In a pique of rage, following the divorce Frank goes on the run heading for New York City to start a life of independence all while still technically a minor. His first escapade as a pilot leads him to fly the country for free and his first sexual conquests. Hanratty is on the trail and it leads him to a hotel where unknowingly, he comes face to face with Frank who poses as a Secret Service Agent - Barry Allen, and able to evade capture while keeping hold of his machine to forge cheques still. Hanratty is behind the eight ball as he thought he was attempting to capture an adult yet the fact that Frank is a minor is a positive for him as he has no record or fingerprints for the FBI to work off of.

The scene where Hanratty meets Barry Allen is quite brilliant, it shows two actors going head to head but with the junior in a superior position but it is also the power of language in terms of that spoken and body language - the looks and tells that people give away but also the confidence of speaking to strangers gives off great power of authority when used effectively. Hanks is the elder, he has the gun and yet he is quickly into a position of submission with egg on his face. And he still gives his colleagues their ice cream.

Throughout the film, the characters are set up and brought down by the behaviour of their fathers most notably Frank and Carl himself has become an absent father to his daughter; like much of Spielberg's oeuvre this film reflects or looks upon male protagonists from broken homes and troubled childhoods. 

Spielberg's parents divorced when he was in his teens like Frank himself, and it would have been around the same timeline as Frank getting his wings so to speak, so this in a way is Spielberg's nostalgic look at a time of innocence and shot with a fondness such as the scenes at exotic getaways such as Miami, yet the scenes shot with the two Franks together are more claustrophobic and darker in terms of their setting and context. Frank keeps returning to his father in the hope of making him proud, yet Senior is too concerned with suing the government than to praise his son with the blessings he so desperately requires.

What remains on the film is a triumphant light tale that is entertaining and from a look back of Spielberg's filmography perhaps his last light fun film before he got bogged down by a darker palette and cinematography - see Munich, War of the Worlds, Lincoln and War Horse. That is not to discern the quality of those films yet they are shot with less of a rose tinted lens as previously and with a more downbeat perspective.

This film comes when Spielberg is nearly 30 years into his career, and he is a director very much at a crossroads of his filmography. Moving from the popcorn, light fare to the more discerning, thought-provoking adult maturity he is now more renowned for; this is also the last time Spielberg identified with a kid in one of his movies, much like Elliott in ET or the Goonies - from here on in it is adults who are broken or coming from broken homes for future projects. Abraham Lincoln has to overcome the death of a young child, Tom Cruise's Ray in War of the Worlds is a single father while combatting an alien invasion and the children in Jurassic Park have no parents present when running away from dinosaurs seeking solace in the arms of surrogate parental figures who are strangers but yet idols in their eyes.

Titanic 3D Preview

To celebrate the forthcoming re-release of Titanic to mark the 15th anniversary of its original release, and the centenary of the famous vessel's maiden and last voyage in the Atlantic on April 15th 1912. Twentieth Century Fox granted myself an exclusive look at eight scenes from the second biggest grossing film in history in the new 3D format. Following this there was a brief Q&A with the producer of both Titanic and Avatar, Jon Landau, the long time collaborative partner of James Cameron. Here is a review of that footage and the brief time with Mr. Landau ('please call me Jon')

The footage we see did mark out a Reader's Digest version of the movie, a bite size form of the 194 minutes of Titanic. What initially hits you of the footage, is how clean the film looks now in a digital form shot so cleanly and properly. The first scene we see is of when Rose (Kate Winslet) is about to board the vessel and she speaks of not knowing what the fuss is all about; the depth is so lush, you forget how vast the film was in its original form - the last great Hollywood epic that was built from scratch; an 800ft set built in Mexico, hundreds of extras on set every day, the making of the film had enough worries and material for a film of itself. There were many fears for the film's release, and yet the sentiment of the film and the benefit of a narrative story with universal appeals plus a unique female character that was inspiring to young female cinemagoers. It was these females who kept going back to see the film not only for inspiration from Rose, but also to fawn over Jack, played winningly by Leonardo DiCaprio.

After the footage, the first question was what would you have done now if you were shooting Titanic in terms of stock?
JL: If we were doing it today, we would shoot the film in 3D. James wanted to but we did not have the technology, so the reason we are re-releasing it is that we feel that there is an appetite to see it again on the big screen. In regards to the 3D release, we are giving people the option, as we are re-releasing the 2D also, yet the 3D will be the archival master of our film for years to come. Yet we feel the narrative storytelling is a selling point, and the ability to use 3D allows the audience the 'transport of experience' and to escape thanks to the storytelling, the characters and the performances.

What was the task of changing it to 3D?
JL: It was a mammoth task, every shot of the film is now a visual shot, every frame (24 per second) had to be looked at in terms of stereo depth processing. It surprises me how films release a 3D format in conjunction with their original 2D release, as they must only have six weeks to turn it around, and sometimes I feel that is the detriment to their product. We had 60 weeks to work on the conversion, and before that we had a year and a half of research and talks with vendors about the possibility of converting; the wonderful thing about conversion is that it is a creative process that uses technological tools, so we have not gone into the film editing it and doing a directors cut, we are converting not changing. We had 450 people working full time on the film; defining space and figuring out where objects sat in the shot. We used $18m on this conversion, more of a budget than some films.

What was the hardest shots for 3D?
JL: The toughest scene to actually do for example, was the scene where Jack joins Rose for dinner at the captain's table, there is so many objects on the table and so much attention to detail in the original production in the foreground and background, that to figure out which depth a glass should sit in. And also close-ups, because our faces have depth, so sometimes a face looks bloated or a nose may look flatter than they appear. However, the audience came first so we had to make sure the sentiment of the film was not lost.

Why do you feel 3D is getting the wrong end of the stick of late?
JL: I think not every film needs to be in 3D, you look at a film like The Artist is black and white, and silent and it is just as powerful a movie. I feel part of the problem are the glasses, they are part of a deterrent. So I have gone to the glasses' manufacturers asking them to think of it as an opportunity, to make them cooler, classier and more aesthetic value to when you are sitting there. Because 3D is becoming more applicable to our lives as it appears in our homes, computers and mobile devices, so why not make it better viewing experience. I also don't think 3D is the future, for me we have to try and make a move to 48 frames per second; which will give us a crisper, sharper look giving the audience a heightened sense of reality and transform the exhibition experience. I think Peter [Jackson] is doing it for The Hobbit, so that will be exciting - and Peter is thinking of returning to the Lord of the Rings trilogy and convert them for 3D also.

What is the future for you and Mr.Cameron?
JL: Well we are working on the Avatar sequels, we have recently leased a facility for 5 years but we have built in-house a building for the technical, post production crew so they are a part of the collaborative process. We learned so much from Avatar to help us with the Titanic conversion than you realised; 3D is not the be all and end all in action sequences because of the sharp editing, 3D is key in dialogue scenes where the nuance of performance can still be captured and still grab the audience. And we dont want to own the rights to 3D filmmaking, we invite Steven [Spielberg] and Peter [Jackson] to learn from us as we are all storytellers and we want to push and improve the future of film.

Here is the trailer for the re-release out on 6th April 2012

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