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October 12, 2003
Heist Movies
Just a very tentative gesture toward a potential future project: I've been fascinated by the recent popularity of heist films (Heist, Ocean's Eleven, The Italian Job, The Score, and the popular re-release of Le Cercle Rouge, just to name a few). I'm not sure if I can offer a clear definition of the genre that I'm trying to describe, but these films usually align our identification with a crew of master criminals who are trying to cash in at the end of their careers, whether out of desperation, exhaustion, or some other need. Given the amount of money involved these films are almost always about get-rich-quick fantasies, and our identification with the criminals is partially a desire to share in their cleverness, their ability to "control" the narrative of the crime, as well as the narrative of the film itself (in this regard, The Usual Suspects might be seen as a complicated cousin of the heist film, especially given the revision of our identifcation with the Kevin Spacey character over the course of the film).
More significantly, I think that heist films are about the symbolic power of money in the age of digital reproduction. In a conversation with Mike this afternoon, he mentioned Walter Benn Michaels' argument about the decline and end of the gold standard (which produced a previous generation of heist films), but I'm beginning to think there might be another representational question at stake in the more contemporary cycle of these films, one based on the "virtualization" of money associated with ATMs and day trading, for example. I'm not sure how yet, but I'm also hoping to distinguish these heist films, which usually entail some physical risk, from hacker films, which usually involve only mental dexterity (although I think there are some connections).
This idea has been simmering for a few weeks and came back to the surface when I was re-reading William J. Mitchell's City of Bits while working on another paper, specifically when he discusses e-commerce. I'm still sorting these ideas out, but if anyone has any suggestions (books, movies, connections), I'd love to hear them.
Posted by chuck at October 12, 2003 6:04 PM
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Comments
I'm working on a paper outlining genre parameters of the heist film as well as the semiotics. I'm fascinated by these little bits in your blog. I'd like to chat.
Posted by: Todd Petersen at January 11, 2005 11:21 PM
Todd, I'd be happy to talk about heist movies, either via email or here in the comments. Haven't thought about this entry in a while, so I'll be curious to find out what aspects you found interesting about it (and about heist films in general).
Posted by: Chuck ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://chutry.wordherders.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 12, 2005 12:46 AM