The Sting: A Fabulously-Fashioned Buzzkill

If it wasn't the narrative that distorts itself constantly due to the fact we are following a group of con artists that should engross audiences, it could certainly be the highly stylized look of Depression-era Chicago. In fact, the style in which George Roy Hill's The Sting is presented goes hand in hand in the suave leads in Paul Newman and Robert Redford. The film saturates itself in a colorfully nostalgic outlook on a bleak moment in American history, much to the fact that Newman, as Harry Gondorff, and Redford, as Johnny Hooker, are free to do what they want or, in another way, to do wrong but not be bad people. The film's sets are very impressive and we tend to exercise our eyes in grasping all that the film is showing us in not just the fashion but in the details of the locales. We see Hoovervilles and we see classic diners; the film has both a personality of a film noir while seeming to look kind of like a Norman Rockwell painting (well, it is said in the DVD that the intertitles stating the next episode in the film were made to look like drawings of the Saturday Evening Post). The Sting isn't about introspection, but about the time and place of a big time con and how film as a medium can not only show a con but con its viewers.

Now, modern moviegoers probably think of some other con films before this one; The Usual Suspects and Matchstick Men, both very good films, come to mind, with the former becoming a cult classic in narrative storytelling. Yet, The Sting offers a chance for us to witness not only the narrative playing tricks on us but the film itself, which seems to be in on the whole scam. Through this we encapsulate ourselves in the world that has long gone through the marvelous set pieces and the flashy costumes. Yes, the costumes of cons, who dress to play a part they have never been. The incomparable Edith Head designed the fashion seen in the film. I feel, with the extraordinary colors present and such, that some of the fashion borders a certain absurd trait, but not in a manner that makes it satirical or criticizing. No, it seems to reflect more the nature of Harry and Johnny, as well as the act of con art. Again, they dress up as people they aren't, staging a performance for their victims, as well as the audience, to see. Take a moment where a con wasn't being played, when Johnny held a lot of money from a previous job. He bought a flashy suit and then squandered the rest gambling. Looking at Johnny with his suit doesn't necessarily equate to who he really is, yet, that is exactly his lifestyle. So, actually, it is who he is, but not really...

The film is unconventional, but it uses conventional narrative technique, or more specifically, conventional wisdom, to trick its audience into believing what they are seeing by the fact that what we are seeing is totally false to someone else's eyes, like Robert Shaw as Lonnegan. The double cross seems like not only a plot device but a narrative film technique. The ideas of the love interest and conflict between the two friends is a mechanism that seems impossible not to have in a film like this and this film does have it, yet it plays with those expectations because the nature of this film is the con, and the nature of the characters is the con. Though the love interest is slightly different, we all expected the hired assassin to be a man anyways, so the expectation of gender roles comes to play very interestingly late in the film. As for the friend conflict, it is used to fool multiple characters in the film as well as us; it almost seems like either the camera, when it fixes upon Harry of Johnny, does not know what to do or it knows exactly what information to show and how long to show it. I choose the latter. There are many shots where the main characters, impersonating someone they are not, lingers on them before it fades to another shot, showing that there are still in character, almost wanting us to catch them getting out of character but it never does. In other words, there are times when the emotions expressed are teetering between authentic and staged.

The whole idea of the con generated by Harry plays off as if it was some sort of movie or play set, with actors and a 'director' of sorts. Hell, you could say that the cameras in the film were, well, the cameras for this movie Harry had arranged. I mean, there is the staged conflict between the friends, and then there is this sort of climax. Lonnegan is the audience, who leaves before the magic of the film is revealed. Maybe I'm getting too ahead of myself with the film metaphors, but I feel that this con game and the foundations of cinema have a lot more in common than what it looks like at first. And, again, the characters dress up to fake. We don't meet Harry as a finely dressed man with a slick temperment but when he has to (or, in the case of the famous card game scene, a drunk millionaire) he gets into character. This is why the film is endearing, even after the initial surprise of the many twists that litter the narrative. It is not just the narrative that providing the twists but the medium itself, from the fashion to the cinematography to the editing and the acting (or the acting of the acting...). It is what I would like to call a fabulously fashioned buzzkill, or a climatic anticlimax, or a sting on the audience. Some criticism has been thrown out there that Redford and Newman don't show much character depth or development but that would go against the nature of the film since it is not about revelatory truthfulness; Harry and Johnny don't live like that let alone make their living in that manner. We are first introduced to Johnny in a middle of a con; in a manner that had us believe Luther Coleman really was shot and the racketeer small fry was going to steal his money. The truth is the lie in this film and that's why it propels itself off double crosses and falsities.

In the end, it is subtle in its narrative technique, glamorous in its visualization, but in watching The Sting I couldn't help but think about a more recent film with some recursive construction taking place: Inception. I nag on this film a lot for holding the hands of its viewers as if they could never put things together themselves through repetitive editing and way too much talking (and the introduction of the totem as well as the constant reminder of its existence to force the hallow ending). In some ways, this film has many elements shared with the con game of Harry and Johnny. Yet, the film itself isn't playing along but rather forcing you to pay attention to forced important details. It doesn't make itself subtle in a manner that we are looking not only in wonderment of being in a dreamscape but also the reality in which we are observing it is truly being twisted and distorted. That's enough griping for now, though, I don't want to steal away the momentum of The Sting, but I hope to see more films where the film, itself, is in on the big one, too.

P.S: I thought it was interesting, regarding the first picture in this essay, that the title card for the film shows a drawing of a man supposedly drawing the camera crew as the film Newman and Redford. Very subtly they are hinting at this self-reflexive notion that this film is also about the illusion of film as well as the illusion set up by the leading men.