Catch Me if You Can: Comparison of The Fiction and The Film

Have you ever heard the name Frank Abagnale Jr? He is known for his background as a former con man, check forgers, and imposter while he was between the ages of 15 and 21. He became one of the most notorious imposters, claiming to have assumed no fewer than eight identities, including an airline pilot, a physician, a U.S. Bureau of Prisons agent, and a lawyer. His true story was written as a fiction which is co-written by Stan Redding, and was adapted to a 2002 film of the same name by director Steven Spielberg, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Abagnale and Tom Hanks as an FBI agent who pursues him.

Though the fiction and film both based on Frank’s story, they made change in their plot. However, fiction and film all saved some similarities. For instance, the speaker, Frank Abagnale Jr, was the same between the two, even though the situation he was introduced into was different. The audience was also the same; Frank Abagnale wanted to tell his story to the world. The purpose of the book and movie the similar as well. To tell people of Frank Abagnale Jr and his impressive heists and cons. The contents shown in the movie were all shown in the book, except for a few scenes, and both were centered around the famous saying.

And I think these two both highlights the destructive of the divorce of parents. In the film 16-year-old Frank faced a life test, this one was not the plight of his father's family on the verge of bankruptcy, not his difficulties from the aristocratic school into ordinary high school, but the divorce of his loving parents. At the request for his lawyer, he had to write down whether to choose a father or a mother as his guardian. It was a choice he could n'nosed, he wanted to choose a whole family, and his fond memories were fixed on the moment his father and mother danced gracefully on the stall at home. He chose the third option from two options, and he ran away.

Also, there are some sentences in fiction described his family situation before he left. “I left home of sixteen, looking for me. There was no pressure on me to leave, although I wasn’t happy. The situation on my dual home front hadn’t changed. Dad still wanted to win Mom back and Mom didn’t want to be won. Dad was still using me as a mediator in his second courtship of Mom, and she continued to resent his casting me in the role of Cupid. I disliked it myself. Mom had graduated from dental technician’s school and was working for a Larchmont dentist. She seemed satisfied with her new, independent life. I had no plans to run away. But every time Dad put on his postal clerk’s uniform and drove off to work in his old car, I’d feel depressed. I couldn’t forget how he used to wear Louis Roth suits and drive big expensive cars.”

According to two paragraphs I make a conclusion. Perhaps in Frank’s perspective his father's bankruptcy did not defeat him, what really defeated him was the broken family. This was the scarf which may take Frank’s whole life to heal , so this very sad young boy from then on began his own 'lonely and crazy' wandering.

Since there are similarities, there must be differences. Actually, I found lots of deferences to fiction and film. Screenwriters added an original character in , an FBI agent named Carl Hanratty. The creation of Carl was based on FBI agent Joseph Shea, the person that grabbed Frank in France at last. Carl's character was very sedate and full of tenacity, grabbing Frank was the goal he want to achieve. To manage this goal, he worked hard everyday, however, he always deceived by frank's tricks and made frank disappear from his sight. His appearance made the main character in the film no longer Frank alone. The narrative angle also changed from Frank's perspective to a back and forth between Frank's exploits and Carl the FBI agent on his tail. Such behavior brings a good effect on the film's dramatic conflict.

Dramatic conflict is the constant tension and motivation that produces the content of the story. It can also be said that nothing will move forward unless there is a conflict. Dramatic conflicts can be described as equivalent to problems in design practices or amazing opportunities that designers find in research. A dramatic conflict can be seen as a struggle or struggle, taking into account the excitement of the narrative, in which the protagonist and the opposite are engaged in a long struggle. ( website )

As the plot of a movie develops, more and more differences appear. Frank had a totally different family condition in film. He was the only child of his parents. His parents really loved each other and whole family lived in a happy and warm life. Their house was full of laughter and music at that time. Unfortunately, the peace was broken soon. Because Frank's father's stationery shop had a tax evasion problem, no bank was willing to lend old Frank money. Desperately, the Franks moved to a smaller house. These various things caused mother's close relationship between his father emerged a deep rift, and eventually she chose to divorce from the old Frank. In choosing who to live with in the future, Frank couldn't accept the sudden excitement, then ran out of the house. Frank has three other siblings in the fiction. His parents divorced because of conflicts of their different opinion when he was a child. In order to take care of his father’s emotions, Frank chose to live with father. No matter which version, both Franks had a big negative impact on the issue of parental divorce. It was just the film amplifies the negative effects, focusing on the image of a helpless, sad, angry young man.

As a chain reaction to changing the family situation, Frank's first deception was different. Frank's first act of deception in the film appeared when he was bullied by other boys after he moves to a new school. Because no one knew his true identity, in retaliation, he pretended that the French teacher let the boy who led the bullying of him read the text in public, and even drove away the real French teacher. Amazingly, his disguise was not discovered until a week later, during which he lectured the students in his class and wanted to organize a tour. In fact, the fiction appeared that Frank pretended a teacher, but the subjects and time were somewhat different. The depletion described in the fiction take place after his father gave Frank a Ford. He conspired with the tire shop clerks to pretend to buy the necessary equipment for cars such as tires, batteries and gasoline, but secretly let the clerks sell the equipment and work together to win. The fiction used some sentences to describe this scene — “How much would it cost me for a set of whitewalls?” I asked. “For this car, $160, but you got a good set of treads,” the man said. He looked at me and I knew he sensed he was about to be proposition. “Yeah, I don’t really need any tires,”I agreed. “But I got a bad case of the shorts. Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll buy a set of those tires and charge them on this card. Only I don’t take the tires. You give me $100 instead. You’ve still got the tires, and when my dad pays Mobil for them, you get your cut. You’re ahead to start with, and when you do sell the tires, the whole $160 goes into your pocket. What do you say? You’ll make out like a dragon, man.”

If you compare the two scams horizontally, you'll find that the scams in the movie are like malicious jokes by a childish child, with a lot of revenge and a joke. Such behavior gave Frank a great sense of satisfaction, as if he were the source of his happiness. Adding this entertainment to the film is to add a sense of humor to the film, so that the audience is relaxed in serious content.

I prefer the movie version of 'Catch Me If You Can' than fiction. Because I am a unimaginative person, it is difficult for the characters depicted in the fiction to form a very specific image in my mind. This time I was very distressed, but the emergence of the film effectively solved my troubles. Through the superb performances of the actors, a different personality appeared on the screen, impressive. Like the film's two protagonists, the world-famous fraudster Frank and FBI agent Carl.

In Frank’s spiritual world, a passage was deeply imprinted in his mind. ' Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse, wouldn't quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out. Gentlemen, as of this moment, I am that second mouse.' When the old Frank Abagnale became a life member of the club, he took to the stage to thank the speech. He was a businessman who didn't follow the rules, and his business went bankrupt because he was investigated by the government for tax evasion. His life was not successful, but his attitudes to life was a bad demonstration of his son, Frank Abagnale Jr. This line deeply affected Frank. When he was abandoned into adult society, just as a rat falling into the cream, he does nuns, but uses fraud to stir society and escape its own predicament. First by impersonating airline staff to fly more than 3 million kilometers free of charge, forged airline checks set nearly $4 million, and then became a hospital pediatrician, most amazingly, through self-study, within two months to obtain a lawyer's qualification and become an assistant to a state attorney, In the end, he became the youngest and most daring liar in American history. If you don't talk about the hero by means, and leave Frank in the movie breaking the law, he's one of the smartest people of his time, and it's fair to say that he's done the second mouse into a magical thing.

Although, in the film whether Frank sitting on the beautiful or flying around the world, his heart wasn’t actually as seen on the surface which full of entertainment for life. In fact, it was a kind of displacement of loneliness and helplessness. Living under lies, he really can enjoy the money and deception brought him a rich life of the moment very few, most of the time he was worried, playing cat-and-mouse game with police. What behind the entertainment life was pain and uneasiness. What Frank can't bear is that a man has nowhere to tell the truth and the loneliness of wandering around, living in no place. So every Christmas, Frank calls Carl, the only agent that could talk to him.

Carl is the other protagonist in the film, he wasn’t a typical agent, had neither the majesty, nor the style, Carl didn’t have these federal agent's classic image, but his character full of woody and dull boring. But he had the same careful and delicate mind. But he had the same careful, delicate mind. In fact, Carl in the movie gave me a big surprise. Although the film's description of Carl's life was not detailed than Frank's, his character was more three-dimensional than the novel. His middle-aged marriage failed, his daughter was taken care by his ex-wife, and he was as lonely as little Frank, who devoted himself to his work to relieve loneliness. So agent Carl and the suspect Frank have been friends of the enemy. The moving plot happened to every Christmas, their fixed greeting. Even if it seemed like a sarcasm, a provocative, a satire, the derision. But both of them knew from the bottom of their hearts that in the dimension of loneliness, they and their opponents actually pity on each other, could only discharge loneliness. He wasn’t only pursued and captured the young fraudster, but through several 'confrontations' between them, he felt Frank's heart, read Frank's soul, finally he understood him.

Carl actually understood Frank's emotions and criminal motivations early, he knew that Frank was just a lost child, that his relationship between little Frank began to transform, and that he was going to bring the lost child home. According to the paper, ink, printing technology and other factors of the check, the banking experts inferred the printing place of the cheque should be in Europe, most likely in France. As the person that had already very well understood Frank, Carl judged that he was hiding in the French Morid, because that place was his mother's hometown, his parents met here and fell in love with each other. There was the source of Frank’s love, was his inner longing for his parents, all family reunion. And Frank did hide in the printing house next to the church in the town of Montreu. At this time, he had grown up, gradually understand that no matter how much wealth he cheated can not let parents, let the family back to the way it used to be. So he was actually desperate, completely desperate, he was even a little tired of drifting. It was here that Carl caught him, no, Carl found him.

In fact, it was also a self-rescue for Agent Carl. I felt that Carl treated Frank more like his own children, he was the one that took him home of the exotic country on the edge of illness and death; he was a man who went to see him in prison on a lonely Christmas; he was also the person that gave Frank a second life; and he was the only one that understood Frank's child-heart. He had a heart-wrenching heart of Frank that he had not thought of. He understood that in Frank's heart had always been longing for the warmth of affection and family reunion. Only he knew Frank best, and Carl eventually led him to the right path. So at last Frank came back, and he knew there was another man who care about him and love him. No matter how much Frank squandered his youth and escaped punishment, he seemed to be unable to get rid of the step-by-step pressure on him, which is not so much a pursuit as a liability, a duty. And Carl with Frank's extradition home, almost a clear metaphor, misguided teenagers, wandering through the years of prodigal son, finally go home, finally rescued. Although Carl didn't guard his home, but to create a new home for the lost Frank, why isn't it another perfection?

There's another reason I love this movie, it's more specific and vivid about Frank's family. Cynicism, recklessness, this 'elite fan's shyness' is probably the common character of father and son. Seeing here, the audience seems to have found the reason why Frank's father and son can be relaxed in any urgent and dangerous situation. Because they are natural darlings, handsome, eloquent, with far superior to ordinary people's high emotional intelligence, high IQ, and outstanding ability, including information collection, phenomenon observation, detail control, logical reasoning and accurate grasp of human weakness, but also perseverance, calm. Even have a focus and determination on any of the key things. So they didn’t admit their failure, facing the fact that the bankrupt cause, the cheating mother, the broken family, the stress response of the father and son is essentially convergent. The father chose to complain about the government, and his son chose to escape from reality.

I think the best part of the movie is Frank's journey to the house after he's away from home, and finally pretending to be a pilot. All this is also the beginning of Frank's crime. The film's more detailed description of the plot also reinforces Frank's psychological changes. In fact, at first, Frank was not immediately familiar with the light and the spring breeze. He was left homeless and swept out of the hotel. He began to forge bank checks, alter and paste, pretend to be company clerks, compliment bank clerks, and imitated his father to perform bribes, but failed repeatedly in detail. He said all lies, like brought his grandmother's birthday, textbooks was stolen, he owned illness and so on the reasons for sympathy. However, these excuse can not let the unknown check to be cashed. Young Frank first tasted the miserable and cold of the world, and repeatedly hit the wall. One day, Frank suddenly had a brainstorm, and he found out what was wrong! The problem was the uniform! The problem was the sac! It all started with a chance encounter at a hotel that day, when the two well-dressed young captains were almost as sought after as stars. A uniform, meaning the corresponding status, Frank deeply understood this way — the apple of sodom.

Century fraudster's brilliant career as a fraudster, and his inner loneliness. In fact, he never wanted to hurt a specific person, principled and restrained. He even deeply loved with a girl, fancied to settle down, but on the wrong side of the road he only in short, whether it is the novel or the emergence of the film. However, on the wrong path, he could only chose to scam more money again and again, he can not stop. So he kept walking along his lonely path with a poor fantasy — 'repair his family and let parents return to the original '.

I am very grateful to the film crew, the directors and the actors, and to the writers of the novel. Without their hard work, there would be no such classic masterpieces.