Hello everyone! This blog was posted a couple of days later than the schedule in my last blog stated it would be posted. I wanted to take the time to truly enjoy spring break. I had a lot of fun over break and stepping away from school work was definitely what I needed. But I’m back and ready to get back to working on this project. In this blog I'm going to be going over my thoughts and observations about the film.
I watched The Hustle and it was a good movie! The main characters in this film were referred to as con artists but the femme fatale trope was utilized.
Josephine is sophisticated, elegant, witty, charming, and intellectual. She has made an impressive career out of being a femme fatale as she lives in a large mansion on the coast of France. She has expensive taste and is extremely rich. She’s a businesswoman that’s taken the money she gets from scheming and has invested it so that she continues to generate wealth and assets. Since she is a businesswoman and scheming is a large part of her job, she works with a small team that ensures her operations run smoothly. She’s mastered the art of manipulation which helps her go undetected and remain prosperous.
Penny is obnoxious, uncoordinated, and ungraceful. She’s impulsive which is an issue because her uncalculated moves always end up getting her in trouble. In the opening scene of this film, her scheme fails and it appears that she is not the best at her job. She doesn’t have any class which most likely contributes to her failed attempts of scheming for money. This is why she decided to go to France, she is looking for more opportunities to make more money. This is when she meets Josephine and their relationship begins.
The movie started off showing Penny, who is deemed the lower class femme fatale, using one of her schemes to get a man to give her money. She fails and is chased by police. This incident prompted her to make the decision to travel to France because there are supposedly a lot of rich men there. I loved how the stark contrast between Josephine and Penny’s level of scheming men was conveyed. Josephine is on a much higher and advanced level than Penny in terms of being a con artist and the scene used to convey this idea was fascinating. In the scene, the stakes were higher, Josephine had a team working with her, and she was successfully able to steal the expensive bracelet from the man. Josephine is a pro femme fatale and Penny is a rookie.
A similarity between my film and this one is that both Penny and the younger sister want to be taught how to be a successful femme fatale. Another similarity is that the women are trying to use a scheme on a tech billionaire in order to get money. This film has some similarities to my film but there are many differences. The women that are mentoring them, their reasons for being taught, as well as the relationship between the characters are different. Josephine was apprehensive about mentoring Penny but she was being blackmailed by Penny. The older sister in my film isn’t being blackmailed by her younger sister, she’s willingly mentoring her.
Even though a similarity is that the women are scheming a tech billionaire, their intentions for doing so are different in my film. The women in this film were scheming him out of money because they had a competition going on and whoever lost had to leave France while in my film the sisters are scheming him out of money because they want financial freedom.
In this film it was never discussed how either of these women became con artists/ femme Fatales, it just shows how they use their femininity to swindle men out of their money. Discussing how both of the sisters in my film became femme fatales is going to be crucial for me to incorporate into the trailer(s).
In terms of mise-en-scene, the setting of this film took place primarily in France. There were different locations used in this film like hotels, resorts, mansions, and restaurants. Since I live in South Florida it won’t be hard for me to find potential film locations that are high-end and expensive-looking if I decide to use different locations.
The costuming fit the character’s personality traits and conveyed their differences perfectly. I’ll be discussing costuming in greater detail in a later blog. The lighting used in this film was high key lighting. There wasn’t any manipulation of shadows or lighting which makes sense for the tone of this particular production. The color palette of the film was warm and natural.
This film gave me a lot of things to think about which I am glad about. I enjoyed watching it and it was interesting to think about my project and what aspects of this film inspired some of my creative choices. I’m going to go into greater detail on the choices I’ll be making soon. There is a lot more to be researched, planned, and discussed so I’ll do my best to blog and update as frequently as possible! See you in the next blog!
