Thursday, December 28, 2017

Catch Him If You Can

Frank Abegnale Jr, played by Leonard DiCaprio, was the subject of Stephen Spielberg's film Catch Me If You Can.  This past October, Abegnale, for the past 41 years an FBI employee, spoke to an audience at Google.   When I came across the video I debated whether to watch it at all, decided to listen for a few minutes, and ended up watching the entire hour.  It's fascinating to hear Abegnale talk about the movie, his life, the meaning of family and manhood, as well as his observations on cybersecurity, the subject he's worked on for the past twenty years.

If you listen carefully you also realize how subtle and adept Abegnale is on avoiding questions he does not want to answer.  At a couple of points he references Spielberg's comments on him and you are left wondering if those comments are accurate portrayals of Frank's life or whether Abegnale is using Spielberg's version to avoid commenting on whether the director's portrayal is really accurate.

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