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Rian Johnson’s Festival of Fakery: The Man Who Would Be King
The final selection from Rian Johnson’s Festival of Fakery is an old-fashioned, epic tale of high adventure: The Man Who Would Be King, directed by John Huston. (Full list here.) Over a few decades, the movie was previously launched and re-launched with a host of onscreen duos — Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart, Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, even The Sting‘s Paul Newman and Robert Redford — before finally succeeding with Sean Connery and Michael Caine.
Though not purely a “con” movie, The Man Who Would Be King features the con of all cons: two rogue British soldiers set out to make a fortune by forging a kingdom in a land of uncivilized warring tribes. It shares many qualities with its Fakery brethren — qualities which Rian Johnson incorporated beautifully into The Brothers Bloom.
You can’t do it alone. Rian Johnson describes the buddy relationship in a con movie as “essential,” and in The Man Who Would Be King it’s no different. Like ventriloquist and dummy, one person serves as the brains of the operation, while the other is the face of it. In The Sting it’s Newman and Redford, in Paper Moon it’s O’Neal and O’Neal, and in The Brothers Bloom it’s Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody. Brody’s character is even known simply as “Bloom” — it’s the name his brother Stephen gave him.
The Man Who Would Be King starts out with a simple theft. At a train station, Peachy Carnahan (Michael Caine) palms Rudyard Kipling’s watch. Then later, as Kipling sleeps on the train, Peachy joins him — and kicks another passenger off the train. “I caught him stealing your watch,” he says, and immediately trust between them is established.
Peachy convinces Kipling to do a favor for him: relay a message to his friend Daniel Dravot (Sean Connery). Little does Kipling know that just by relaying the message, he’s revealing himself as a pawn to be used in a blackmail scheme.
The scam is caught, but since Peachy and Danny are fellow Freemasons, Kipling helps them get out of punishment. In a way of thanking him, Peachy and Danny pledge to leave their schemes in India behind — and reveal a broader scheme, to take over the primitive land of Kafiristan. They draw up a contract and sign it, using Kipling as a legal witness. Then, though no one has survived a trip to Kafiristan since Alexander the Great (“Alexander who?” Peachy asks), Peachy and Danny set out on the trip of a lifetime.
The test of a con. Peachy and Danny make it to Kafiristan, where they spot a small tribe being invaded by a troop of bandits. Using their superior weaponry, Peachy and Danny save the tribe — and then promise to teach them how to defend themselves. “We are not gods exactly, but we are heaven-sent to deliver you from your enemies,” Peachy tells the tribe leader. They dangle the dream of conquest in front of them, and put guns in their hands. The rest, as they say, is history.
Peachy and Danny reach greater success than they had imagined. During the first battle, an arrow strikes Danny, but does not pierce him — because it is cleverly blocked by a bandolier. The people start thinking of him not just as a leader, but as a god — “Sikander”, the son of Alexander the Great. Danny accepts the embellishment, but wants to tell them the truth. But Peachy sees an opportunity, and insists on letting them believe the lie.
Nearly every con movie features a caper that’s too big for the crew to pull off. Sometimes they succeed, but most of the time, hubris takes over, blinding the con artists from the truth of their craft. Instead of pulling out of the scheme as they should, they start to believe the bright shining lies they put forth, and act with more risk.
But without taking the risks, who would they be? In The Brothers Bloom, Stephen takes Bloom through “the ultimate con”, the kind where “everyone gets what they want.” It’s not even about the money — it’s about perfecting the con. Similarly, Peachy tells Danny, “Let’s go seek our safety in battle!” But when there are no more battles to win, Danny reaches for godhood. And the gods get angry.
It’s all in the game. No matter how despicable the con artists might seem (and they are almost never portrayed that way), it’s their cons that are their legacy. The myths and perceptions they create aren’t true, but they’re almost believable — making them empowering and addictive. No matter what the results, the con artists return faithfully to the game — where next time the payoffs might be bigger and sweeter.
Things usually don’t end well for con artists. But they don’t end either. For Henry and Johnny, Moses and Addie, Peachy and Bloom, hope lies in the opportunity around the corner. The real strength, though, lies with those who carry on the story.
DANNY: Peachy, in your opinion… have our lives been misspent?
PEACHY: Well, that depends on how you look at it. I wouldn’t say the world’s a better place for our having lived in it.
DANNY: No, hardly that –
PEACHY: Nobody’s going to weep their eyes out at our demise.
DANNY: And who’d want them to, anyway?
PEACHY: And we haven’t many good deeds to our credit.
DANNY: None. None to brag about.
PEACHY: But how many men have been where we’ve been, and seen what we’ve seen?
DANNY: Bloody few, and that’s a fact!
PEACHY: Why even now — I wouldn’t change places with the viceroy himself if it meant giving up my memories!
DANNY: Me neither.
Neither would we.
Comments
Caine and Connery… side by side?!? I’ve never even heard of this film.
I gotta see this.
You’re besht… loshers alwaysh whine about their besht.
I think that snippet of dialogue really says a lot about these characters. In the buddy con sense of characters. Leading fabricated lives with real danger/adventure. They should criterionize TBB.