It is a side of the 1960’s much overlooked in films in favor of the hippy freedom of the age, it is the side of the wild and free in a different way than anti-war. It is the free spiritism of the age of scamming the man instead of bringing him down.
Throughout Spielberg's adventurous crime dramedy Catch Me If You Can the look and feel of not only the daredevil 60’s but also Frank Abagnale Jr.’s mental and physical state (Leonardo DiCaprio) is brought to constant attention through the set design as well as costume design.
The set design is imperative in this period piece to clue the audience into where Frank is both physically and mentally, reflecting the constantly changing situation that is Frank’s life. In the beginning of the film, Frank is shown as a young and innocent boy who idolizes his shady but loving father, Frank Abagnale, Sr. (Christopher Walken).
Ten minutes into the film a medium shot of father and son is shown, with Frank Jr. laying on the bed and Frank Sr. sitting on the edge of the bed. The importance of this shot lays in it’s rendering of the set design of Frank Jr.’s room, set designer Leslie Pope even saying “The first time we see Frank, we wanted a ‘childish’ feeling, younger than his actual age.
So you see toys, books and games from age 6–8, plus coloring books, balls, and bats” (Coleman 1). As Pope states, all showings of Frank’s youth and naivety in the beginning of the film can be seen through the set design of his bedroom, farther than showing his youth and naivety the set design of the bedroom is this medium shot also serves to use foreshadowing of what is to come.
There are two clues given through the set design of Frank’s room, the first being the airplane wallpaper of his room. The wallpaper symbolizes not only Frank’s flighty nature and free-spiritedness but also heavily foreshadows the upcoming events of the film, such as Frank pretending to be a Pan-Am air pilot. The second clue given would be the stack of comic books on Frank’s bedside table.
The comic books serve to show Frank as still being a child (seeing that he still reads comic books), but when taken a closer look one is able to see the comic books being shown are of the Flash. This Skiera 2 particular fact foreshadows the instance of Frank and Carl Hanratty’s (Tom Hanks), the F.B.I. agent trying to “catch” him, first meeting. Frank pretends to be a secret service member also trying to catch Frank Abagnale Jr. (himself) and persecute him for his frauding of checks.
With the name Frank using as this “secret service agent” being Barry Allen, the Flash’s civilian name. The one set design of Frank’s bedroom in the first ten minutes of the film serves to not only show a naive, young, and unjaded Frank but also to foreshadow events to come in the rest of the film.
Along with set design costume design is crucial throughout the film for showing Frank Jr.’s state mentally and physically due to his constant role reversals; however, the costume design also helps to depict and isolate Frank from other character’s in the film, particularly Carl Hanratty.
Just with the set design of the bedroom, as a young boy, Frank is seen wearing clothes that show him as innocent and clean-cut, mainly slacks for pants and button-up or sweater-like shirts all of them in neutral, suburban colors.
The first cue of costume design correlating to Frank’s con-man character is evident in the scene when Frank pretends to be a substitute teacher to his French class on his first day at public school. Now “costuming also provides a way of revealing character, creating subliminal messages about the person wearing the costume” (Prince 97), it was possible for Frank to play the role of the substitute teacher because he was still wearing his blazer from private school.
In turn, this costume design creating the subliminal message that Frank is a guy who can get away with whatever he wants so long as he is wearing the right costume for it. Each costume Frank dons is another way of isolating him from the norm of society, the exact opposite of Carl Hanratty’s costume design which consists solely of a plain black suit, white button-up shirt, and black tie.
Frank’s isolation through costume design is evident in an birds eye long-shot of him with the pilot’s cap on. The whiteness of the pilot’s cap on the street serves to greatly stand out against the mundaneness of the other every-day, average people that surround him, their costume design obviously being way less extravagant than Frank’s.
