Frank William Abagnale, Jr. is a real-life trickster who has been immortalized in film through Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can. The movie starts with a fictional game show with three Frank Abagnales. The actual plot, however, begins by introducing the two main characters of the myth: Frank Abagnale and Carl Hanratty, an FBI agent who works for the financial crimes division. Hanratty is trying to get Frank, who is very sick in a rural French prison, back to the US. The story then flashes back 6 years, where Frank is a happy 16yo living with his parents.
It is revealed, however, that Frank’s father, whom he idolizes, is a liar who is being investigated by the IRS for tax fraud. They eventually lose everything. Soon after Frank catches his mother having an affair, his parents announce their divorce, prompting him to run away. Frank begins his career as a con artist by passing off bad checks. Then, he impersonates a Pan Am pilot and not only starts counterfeiting checks, but also gets himself free flights all over the country. Meanwhile, Hanratty notices Frank’s activities and begins to track him down.
The two meet at a hotel room, but Frank outsmarts the older man. Frank then switches his con and pretends to be a doctor, forging his diploma. Then, in getting engaged to Brenda, a nurse at the hospital, he pretends to be a lawyer and works for Brenda’s father, after legitimately passing the bar. Hanratty catches up to him, forcing him to leave Brenda during their engagement party. When they arrange to meet later at the airport, Frank recognizes Hanratty’s trap and devises a ruse to hide in plain sight, allowing him to leave the country. He jumps from country to country, passing counterfeit checks as he goes.
Eventually, Hanratty catches him at his French mother’s hometown, where he had been printing the checks. On the way home, Frank learns that his father has died and, after escaping one last time, sees his mother’s new family. Although Frank is sentenced to 12 years in prison, Hanratty works to get Frank released into his custody for the remainder of his sentence, to work for the FBI investigating check fraud. Analysis: Frank Abagnale’s myth is enhanced through many layers of story telling. The movie is based on a ghostwritten autobiography, in which Abagnale presumably enhances and downplays certain parts of his history.
This then serves as an “inspiration” for the movie, which in turn took its creative license with the real story to fit the narrative. When one watches the movie, however, it is hard to remember that Frank is a criminal, much like how it is hard to remember that Odysseus cheats on his wife and murders people. One of the many themes of the story is a cultural truth-value that reverberates well with Americans, especially today. Basically, there is an implication that the government (which can be considered a contemporary version of “fate” or “the gods”) is some evil entity that takes advantage of good, honest men.
This is part of the narrative that forms the myth of Frank’s father. Throughout the movie, his father blames the IRS for the breakdown of their family and his steadily degrading situation in life. Thus, this is seen as one of the Frank’s motivations in the movie. He wants to “get everything back” that the government supposedly took from them. Thus, he takes special pleasure in outsmarting the government and its agents, like Hanratty. Of course, the consistently dependable and honest Hanratty proves that the government is not some faceless evil.
Hanratty, in fact, can be seen as a combination of Poseidon and Hector to Frank’s Odysseus and Achilles. Another cultural truth-value that exists in the movie is the idea that there is no such thing as a truly bad guy. Frank is the criminal in the movie, yet he is also the hero. In fact, Frank is the perfect example of the anti-hero. By beginning his history with his family, the audience sees the origin story of his myth. His parents both lie to him in different ways. One of the biggest influences on Frank, however, is his relationship with his father.
The role of his father, in fact, can be likened to Zeus’ role in Perseus’ mythology. It is shown how Frank learned some of his most basic con artist tricks from his father. Frank is driven by his belief in his father’s myth: his victimization by the IRS and his great magical love story with Frank’s mother. His family, therefore, serves, as both his motivation and his weakness, much like Odysseus. Frank is obviously haunted by some misguided idea of bringing back the myth of his perfect family, which, after a while, he no longer seems to believe.
In fact, it is interesting to note that it is his parents’ divorce that first causes Frank to run. It is what “chases” him. Therefore when he learns of his father’s death and sees with his own eyes his mother’s new family (and consequently the crumbling of his illusion of his parents’ romance), he no longer feels the need to run. When he stops running, he is “rewarded” by a legitimate job that he is good at and a friend, the first person in his life to both always be there and never lie to him. Frank, Thus, is vulnerable and a product of his tragedies, which does not make him bad, only human.
Another interesting cultural truth-value in the film is the idolization of certain professions, which means in some way Frank can do almost anything like super hero. Frank impersonates a pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer, all professions that carry so much prestige that the credibility and trustworthiness of a person who wears the label is not questioned, but always assumed. For a long time, Frank passes himself off as a pilot without ever showing that he can fly a plane. He passes himself off as a doctor and kept a high-paying job supervising other doctors and nurses without showing that he has an iota of medical knowledge.
This shows our culture’s valuation of credentials. A person only has to have the right credentials to make it in the world and be trusted by total strangers. In the movie, it is implied that Frank is attracted to these roles because they carry with them the prestige often attached to a mythological “hero. ” This is supported by his short imitation of James Bond and his use of The Flash’s real name as an alias. As a trickster, Frank impersonates heroes to manufacture respect and credibility in the real world. Ironically, his tricks and escapes while pretending to be a hero show him to be a hero in his own right to the audience.
