Throughout the film Catch Me If You Can, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Frank Abignale, Jr. peels the labels off of bottles. Off the top of my head, a few examples are in the opening scene while his father is giving a speech, at the engagement party, and at his house in LA. In the hotel room where he first meets Hanratty, there’s a shot of a table stacked with bottles, all with the labels removed.
What is this? Did the real Frank Abignale, Jr. peel the labels off of bottles obsessively, is there some symbolism I’m missing, or what?
Content versus package label mirrors what Abignale was doing with his confidence games. The airline uniform/doctor’s scrubs are the label. It’s what inspires consumer confidence.
Very little distinction between an ad-man and a con-man.
(Frank also carried labels in his wallet, where you usually keep your “ID”, to reinforce it.)
This motif was not present in the book, if I recall correctly.
The bottles had nothing to do with copying company logos, NoClueBoy, it was just an eccentricity of the character invented by whoever wrote the adaptation of the book. I don’t know if I buy Larry Mudd’s symbolic explanation (I tend to be a skeptic when it comes to claims of symbolism), I just think it was a simple visual tool to show that Agent Hamratty is familiar with Frank Abignale’s behaviour, and therefore knows he’s at the wedding reception when he spots a wine bottle with the label peeled off.
NoClueBoy was talking about the scene where he soaks the Pan-Am toy planes and uses their stickers as the Pan-Am headers on fake checks, I believe. That I understand perfectly, it’s his habit of peeling of wine/soda labels that I’m wondering about.
Thanks for your take on it, Larry Mudd, that makes sense. I’d noticed he’d put some labels in his “wallet,” but I thought there had to be more of a purpose than to fold them up as filler. I like your explination.
Friedo, that was what my family and I were thinking.
I think it may have started as a habit. And became a way to make sure he was doing the logos right. It goes to show his intent.
So, either definintion works for what I saw in the movie.
ftr, I have the habit myself. And I’m not a counterfietter. But, I really do think the movie meant to show us something about his fascination with logos.
I like Larry Mudd’s explanation, and I am usually quite skeptical about symbolic meanings. However, this one seems fairly logical, and I believe Speilberg is a talented enough director to do something like this intentionally. I get sick of “The bouncing camera indicates the lack of stability in the protagonists psyche” bullshit. The bouncing camera indicates a lack of funds to get a Steadicam.