Flimflam in Film: Con Artists’ Comeuppance

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Notes

Filmography

Body Heat. Dir. Lawrence Kasdan. Ladd Company, 1981.

Gone Girl. Dir. David Fincher. Twentieth Century Fox, 2014.

House of Games. Dir. David Mamet. Filmhaus, 1987.

Matchstick Men. Dir. Ridley Scott. Warner Bros., 2003.

Nine Queens. Dir. Fabian Bielinksy. FX Sound, 2000.

The Grifters. Dir. Stephen Frears. Cineplex-Odeon Films, 1990.

The Last Seduction. Dir. John Dahl. Incorporated Television Company, 1994.

The Sting. Dir. George Roy Hill. Zanuck/Brown Productions, 1973.

Notes

1 A similar revelatory structure informs the narratives of Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014) and Body Heat (Lawrence Kasdan, 1981). In both of these films, an attractive woman who is not a professional con artist dupes a man with an elaborate, protracted con. An Argentinian film, Nine Queens (Fabian Bielinksy, 2000), also sweeps the audience along as an experienced grifter is cheated out of his money through a convoluted con.

2 A short con, as its name implies, is pulled off in a relatively brief period of time, limiting the con man’s exposure to detection or risk. In contrast, a long con can take days or weeks to unspool, as in the scenarios created to cheat Roy and Margaret in our two film-stories. Compensating for the increased danger of the long con, however, is the prospect of a bigger payday.

3 This is also evident, for instance, in the lonely lives (separately) led by both Roy and his mother, Lily, in Stephen Frears’ The Grifters (1990).

4 The illusion of violence is also at work in the cons of The Sting, The Last Seduction (John Dahl, 1994) and Gone Girl; whereas, all too real violence marks several incidents in The Grifters, especially its grisly finale.

5 In George Elliot’s tale, Silas is a miserly recluse whose hoard of gold is stolen but is providentially replaced by a foundling baby girl whose golden locks resemble it. The monetary treasure seems to Silas converted into a precious, living gift, something the loveless Silas needs far more than a store of coins.

6 The scene plays as farce as the gun used as a prop is clumsily revealed to be a water pistol when liquid leaks out onto the poker table. The gambler who had been threatening Mike with the pistol comically protests that he couldn’t convincingly brandish a gun that was not “loaded.”

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Joseph Kupfer

Joseph Kupfer is University Professor of Philosophy at Iowa State University, where he teaches ethics, aesthetics, and medical ethics. Recent articles deal with virtue, care, sainthood, and philosophy in film. His latest books are Meta-Narrative in the Movies: Tell Me a Story (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and Aesthetic Violence and Women in Film: Kill Bill with Flying Daggers (Routledge, 2018).