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Rian Johnson’s Festival of Fakery: The Sting
In his post this week, Dr. Salvatron made a reference to The Brothers Bloom, the second film by Rian Johnson — maker of one of the most successful and creative low-budget indie films in recent memory, Brick. The Brothers Bloom is one of my favorite movies this summer, elevating Johnson’s craft to a level just below such former indie hit directors as Christopher Nolan, Darren Aronofsky, and Danny Boyle.
Earlier this year, Rian hosted a film festival at the New Beverly Theater to showcase the films that inspired him to make Bloom. The Festival of Fakery — “a week of films regarding frauds, fakers, charlatans, hoaxters, huxters and other unsavory sorts” — featured a wide array of cinema, new and old, foreign and domestic. (Check out IFC’s coverage of it here.)
In my next few posts I’ll be talking about four films in the festival that I had yet to see, and Paper Moon — another Rian Johnson favorite mentioned here. First up: The Sting.
Back in its day, The Sting was huge — before Steven Spielberg and Jaws started the modern Hollywood blockbuster era. It became one of the Top 10 highest grossing movies of all time, won seven Academy Awards and sparked a brief revival of ragtime music.
Set in 1936, The Sting is about a pair of Chicago con artists (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) who find themselves in a high-stakes game against the master of all cheating mobsters (Robert Shaw) when they set out to avenge the murder of a mutual friend and partner. Much like The Brothers Bloom, the film takes the audience behind the scenes of “The Big Con” while still keeping a few tricks up its sleeve. It sets the tone right from the beginning, in the opening credit sequence:
Right away, we’re being conned… The music (“The Entertainer” by Scott Joplin) doesn’t quite match the era of the story, but it sets a clear, light tone. And the film introduces all the major characters to us first — as it would have us know them. In this way, it’s like a magician allowing us to peek into their sleeves to make sure they’re empty.
Watching The Sting now, a generation after it was made, I’m struck by the style of the production and the simplicity of the storytelling.
The filmmakers went to great lengths to accurately represent the look of the era. Yet, underneath all the trimmings of costumes, sets, and cinematography, the story is mainly told in closeup and medium shots. It’s done this way partly out of necessity. The Sting couldn’t be shot on location, so a lot of the exteriors were done on a Universal Studios back lot. But really, it’s a movie about the con artists — there’s no special effects involved. So we spend a lot of time with Newman and Redford and the rest of the gang, in back rooms and on street corners, planning and playing out their schemes.
I think the big lesson Rian Johnson took away from The Sting was that having a strong relationship between con artists is just as important as the con itself. Movies like this are a lot of fun because you’re watching actors demonstrate the real joy of performing their craft. In the con movie, no one plays just one part. You’re watching a guy play a guy who’s playing another guy. And when the actors are talented movie stars like Robert Redford and Paul Newman, it’s a great sight to see.
Upcoming films on my list of fakery: Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Orson Welles’ F for Fake, John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King, and the aforementioned Paper Moon, by Peter Bogdanovich. Check them out yourself if you can, and share your thoughts — I’d love to have a communal viewing experience.
Comments
I’d like to see further examples of the elements that Johnson took from the film. Like scene comparisons or some examples where the influence is displayed. I feel like there’s only half an article here really.
Pretty rad intro to The Sting. You’d never see effort go into doing something like that with a modern mainstream film. Kind of sad.
Big ups to my main man Dana Elcar, Phoenix Foundation represent!
I think it would be kind of difficult to have scene by scene comparisons of the two films. It would be kind of pointless too, since the comparison being made here is the strength of the relationships between the con-men. Especially operating in a field where you can’t trust anyone.
It’s pretty cool that he’s putting on a festival about the influences. Another reason to live and die in LA.
HBO keeps playing Brick. Which is nice.
I really want to see Paper Moon. Have for awhile. I keep catching the ending of it unfortunately. The cinematography looks really beautiful.
Also, what are you guys talking about with that opening? It’s like the opening to Matlock or any other bad 80s TV one hour drama.
Thanks for the comments. I wish I could talk more in-depth about the specific connections between Bloom and The Sting. Unfortunately, The Brothers Bloom is so recent that I don’t have the ability to watch it as closely (i.e., providing screenshots and the like). The relationship between the brothers, and the brothers with their collaborators, is the main way Bloom integrates The Sting’s influence. Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody are no Newman & Redford, but they’re perfectly cast in the world Rian Johnson has created. The addition of Rachel Weisz takes the idea up a notch.
If you visit the Apple trailers site for the movie (http://www.apple.com/trailers/summit/thebrothersbloom/), there’s an audio commentary track you can download onto your iPhone/iPod to listen to while watching the movie. This is the first time I’ve even heard of a filmmaker doing this.
What I was referring to, Dr. S, was that The Sting makes an explicit point about defining the characters’ names for you. After you’ve watched the movie, you realize that this was a ploy to get you to watch the movie the way they wanted you to watch it. But it is a cool sequence in itself. The storybook feature in The Sting is actually one of the things Rian Johnson stole for Bloom.
There have been some pretty cool opening sequences to films. I almost feel like we could have an entire post about how credit sequences have evolved in modern movies. (But maybe this might be more of Dr. Conspicuous’ area…?) For the record, here’s one of my more recent favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqIclb4qsJI. For an added bonus, follow the screens…