The Hustle Essay

Extract – The Hustle

The opening shot of Hustle straight away introduces the rude and almost bored shot of the shop assistant; the camera is kept at his eyelevel to show the audience that as it’s his shop, he is in control of what is going on. The woman who walks into the shop is wearing a black suit, which connotes that she is a sly person and quite serious. When showing the response shot of the assistant talking to another customer, it pans to a close up of the ring (which is of importance at a later date) to her face and the stereotypical blonde wig. She speaks alluringly to the shop assistant and her stance shows that she is using her body to get her own way which conforms to stereotypical representations of a woman, the other customer has a common accent and the camera line is never on her level to show her lack of status and her clear binary opposition (Levi Straus 1969) to the blonde woman. This sequence establishes the characters and the narrative to help the audience to understand the plot.

There is a parallel narrative going on in the second scene, the pub scene is a stereotypical place for men to be; compared to a woman shopping. There is no music, so the audience know that what the men are talking about is of more importance than of the woman in the shop (upbeat music is played throughout to connote her stereotypical excitement about shopping and buying a dress – Laura Mulvey) the camera angles between the two men are quite simple, just using a two man shot and an over shoulder shot so the audience concentrates more on what they’re saying than what they’re doing. This scene also shows that the man is using his intelligence to hustle the rich man whereas the woman is using her body and over-acting (stressing when losing the ring) to trick the shop assistant, also the use of ‘I’m late for my hairdressers appointment’ shows another feminine trait that she is a typical woman alongside her stress of ‘my husband is going to kill me!’ to show that she may be a rich woman but her husband is still in charge and has a power over her.

Even though the shop assistant is shown to have more dominance over the lady hustling him, as soon as the other man who is part of the scam enters, the dominance instantly switches. The camera pans upwards to the blonde man who has a laid back approach to the situation, the camera level keeps to his eye line from that point onwards as he has the upper hand. This also subtly shows that even though the woman is in a team with this man, he still is pulling the narrative forward – by carrying on the hustle and getting the money from the now subdominant shop assistant. Also in the end scene, the woman is seen on the phone and you hear the person on the other end saying ‘keep him occupied for a few more hours’ meaning she’s still being used within the group.

Transactions are used significantly within the sequence to show that these events are occurring at the same time, when the shop assistant goes and looks for the dress it does a black foggy sweep to the two men talking (one of which is smoking and creating a ‘foggy’ atmosphere) later on in the pub scene there is a quick sweep transition to a wide shot to show the two men have become comfortable and moved to the sofas, the music is also upbeat to say that he has the man hooked now so what he says is no longer important to us. It also keeps with the upbeat panic of the woman, who’s ‘lost’ the ring, The shot is a close up and tracks along with her to show her hurry and typical feminine worry about the smallest of things – before this shot, you have a point-of-action shot to show the assistant putting the dress in the shopping box and her reaching for her purse without the ring on her finger.

Direct mode of address is used twice within the sequence, initially by the woman telling the audience that she’s sure she can rely on the shop assistant, the second by the blonde man who walks casually towards it mumbling ‘three, two, one’ then smiling and making eye contact. Even though both hustlers did this, you can see that the male character has the upper hand, as he’s more laid back about the situation and talking as if he knows the shop assistants reaction before it even happens, whereas the woman’s comment was just in passing to finish the scene.

Overall male and female stereotypes are really established within this sequence, especially as it progresses. The men are the dominating characters throughout the clip – even though the shop assistant becomes the lower hand, he does start off with the dominance to the two women. Moreover the hustler woman chose a character to play that’s stereotypical; she is still a subdominant character in the sequence as she doesn’t push the narrative forward.