The Sting

The sting is a movie about con mans and their how they stole money.  Then after they stole 11,000 dollars the policy is after them.  It involves a dirty cop who they end up paying off with counterfeit bills because they spend all of their money they stole.   A bookie from Chicago named Shaw steals/cheats his way into 15,000 dollars from Lonnegan, the main character. 

                This movie has a few less interesting parts in it, this could be because it is an older movie and I have a hard time getting into older movies.  Also there are so many characters in the movie that it is hard to keep them all straight and keep what they are doing in order.  Some qualities that I am going to talk about are the sound effects and dialogue, the musical side of the film, and the acting in it.

                The sound effects and dialogue in the movie were at the top of what was available at that time and did all that it could do to add to the film.  But I didn't like some of the choices that were made in it.  During the poker game I thought it was hard to hear and understand what was going on.  The dialogue was a little troubling to understand and the sound effects didn't do justice to the atmosphere it was in.  I believe that they were not able to keep the rhythmic patterns in tact because of what the movie did with the dialogue; the movie was rather choppy and didn't flow as well as it could have.  The potential with this kind of movie is way higher than what I got out of the movie, partially I think because the dialogue.  The sound links that helps transition from scene to scene were, in my opinion, the best parts of the sound effects and dialogue.

                The musical side of the film was good.  The audio of a movie is important because it helps the audience relax.  If there is too much silence in a film the audience will get restless and feel weird.  In the book it talks about how the musical score of a film is very important and for a couple of reasons.  The first of which is how it strengthens the emotional content of the image, this helps leave a lasting impression on the audience and allows them to take more from each individual scene.  The second is how it stimulates the imagination; sometimes the visual effects are not enough to do this, so we rely on the music to do it for us.  I believe that the film did a good job using the audio of the movie to stimulate imagination.  The third and final is how it suggests emotions that cannot be expressed by visuals alone.  This takes some responsibility off of the film itself and gives it to the audio.  It is easier sometimes for the music to do this because it allows us to use our own imagination and it draws on us personally.  Also, because many people are so driven/moved by music it makes stimulating emotions easier. 

                The acting of the movie was alright.  It was probably some of the best acting for that time but since we have such good actors now it is hard to compete.  The primary goal of acting is to convince us that the character is real, I just wasn’t getting this feeling throughout the movie.  I thought that they could have put more effort in their performances to make me believe what they were trying to do.  I also believe that the acting in the movie was more stage styled acting rather than actual movie acting.  The best thing that the actors did was how they reacted to what happened in the film, I liked how Lonnegan reacted when Shaw cheated him out of 15,000 dollars in poker.  I liked it because it was relatable, when someone beats me in something I get very upset when I thought he did well.