Catch me if you can


Artykuł pochodzi z pisma "Guardian"

The con man isn't unknown in European literature and popular culture - there's Thomas Mann's Felix Krull, Confidence Man, for instance, and the hero's father in John le Carré's A Perfect Spy. But from Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man through Huckleberry Finn to The Sting, he's had a peculiar grip on the American imagination. In the US context, he's as much a chameleon as a charlatan, as much a benefactor as a criminal, and is an extreme case of the fluidity of the national character and the freedom to recreate the self.
I was once escorted around town by the head of an American university department in which I was teaching, and wherever we went - a secondhand car lot, a bank, an insurance office - he'd cast off his academic demeanour and take on the colour of his surroundings, becoming a car salesman, a banker, an insurance broker.
Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can is about this phenomenon, and tells in a lighthearted manner the real-life story of Frank Abagnale Jr (Leonardo DiCaprio), who, as a teenager in the Sixties, led the FBI's fraud squad on a merry dance across the continent and to Europe as he adopted a variety of guises - airline pilot, doctor, lawyer, schoolteacher, federal agent - and forged cheques to amass a $2million fortune, only a small amount of which he actually spent. In the end, so we're told, he turned gamekeeper and was released from a long jail sentence to share his knowledge with the FBI fraud squad.
The movie establishes its style and is located in its period by beginning with animated credit titles in the flat, hard-edged Sixties style of The Pink Panther, showing men in hats pursuing an elusive quarry. This is followed by a segment of the popular Sixties TV quiz show, To Tell the Truth, in which the panellists have to guess who is real and who are the imposters out of three people dressed as airline pilots and claiming to be Frank Abagnale. This is the programme that gave us the catchphrase 'Will the real whatever-he's-called please stand up'.
Like many Spielberg characters, Frank comes from a broken home. His father (Christopher Walken) is a failed businessman in thrall to middle-class values and the American Dream; his mother (Nathalie Baye), a Frenchwoman he met while serving in the army, wants a life her husband can't provide. From this Frank's identity problems derive, as well as his need for money to pay his way and to impress his father.
His first impersonation comes when he poses as his father's chauffeur to impress a bank, the second when he moves to a new school and turns the tables on a pair of bullies by posing as a supply teacher, a job he holds for a week. More serious impersonations and four years on, the run begins when he skips his home outside New York rather than commit himself to living with either parent. We are always on his side rather than that of his uptight would-be nemesis, FBI special agent Carl Hanratty, a clever, kindly, serious, and deadly dull man played with droll exasperation by Tom Hanks.
One reason we are sympathetic towards Frank is because he's such an appealing, vulnerable kid. Another is that he only takes money from large corporations and airlines and works hard doing it. No little people are involved and no one is put in danger. As a doctor and a prosecuting attorney, he draws on behaviour and language he has learnt from watching Dr Kildare and Perry Mason, but he keeps clear of doing more than encouraging the interns under him to act with confidence. In this respect, he's unlike a much more extraordinary real-life con man, Ferdinand Demara, played by Tony Curtis in The Great Impostor, who passed himself off as a prison warden, a Trappist monk, and a naval surgeon performing tricky operations at sea during the Korean War.
Catch Me If You Can is overly complicated in its flashback construction and too long for a movie that scarcely digs at all into its protagonist's character. Did he, for instance, suddenly give up his fantasy life and become a responsible citizen as a result of working for the FBI and becoming a family man? There is also the problem that it's difficult to believe that DiCaprio's Frank Abagnale would fool anyone.
But still, it's amusing and high spirited, the best line coming from his prospective mother-in-law, a leading New Orleans socialite, when she discovers that he's lied about his religious beliefs, his Harvard medical education and his law degree from Berkeley - 'You mean you're not a Lutheran?'


to amass to get a large amount of sth by collecting it over a long period of time, zgromadzić
attorney lawyer, prawnik; prosecuting attorney - prokurator
to cast off to leave, opuścić, porzucić
catchphrase a phrase which is often repeated and therefore becomes connected with a particular organisation or a person, powiedzonko, powiedzenie
chameleon a lizard that changes its skin colour to match its surroundings so that it cannot be seen, kameleon
con man a person who deceives other people by making them believe something false or making them give money away, oszust
demeanour a way of looking and behaving, zachowanie, postawa, styl bycia
droll amusing in an unusual way, zabawny, śmieszny w zaskakujący sposób
exasperation anger and annoyance, irytacja, rozdrażnienie
fluid(ity) flowing, not solid, changing, płynny, zmienny
to forge to make an illegal copy of sth in order to deceive, podrobić, sfałszować; forger - oszust, fałszerz
fraud squad a department which discovers and takes action against business frauds, wydział ds walki z oszustwami gospodarczymi
gamekeeper a person whose job is to take care of the wild animals and birds kept on someone’s land to be hunted leśnik, gajowy
grip (on imagination) hold, wpływ na wyobrażenia
guise the appearance of someone or something, especially when intended to deceive, przebranie, to disguise - przebierać się za, udawać,
impersonation a copy of someone’s characteristics, przebranie za kogoś, odgrywanie czyjejś roli; to impersonate - naśladować (kogoś), grać
imposter, (also: impostor) a person who pretends someone else in order to deceive others, oszust, szalbierz
intern someone who is finishing their training for a skilled job by obtaining practical experience of the work involved, praktykant
nemesis punishment that is deserved and cannot be avoided (in Greek mythology – the goddess of retribution and vengeance), someone seeking revenge, nieubłagana sprawiedliwość, mściciel
peculiar unusual, found only in particular people or things, specyficzny
to pose to pretend to be someone or something that you are not, grać, udawać
protagonist an important character in a story , play or film bohater, postać (w filmie)
to skip to leave quickly, opuścić, odejść nagle
socialite a person who is famous because they go to a lot of parties and social events which are reported in the newspapers, bywalec salonów, człowiek należący do elit towarzyskich
thrall slave, bondage, niewolnik, niewola; in thrall to sth - w niewoli czegoś,
uptight nervous, anxious, worried about something, nerwowy, niespokojny
warden a prison governor, strażnik więzienny, dyrektor więzienia


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