American Hustle

AMERICAN HUSTLE
Montana, USA – 2019

We discovered this bar in the middle of nowhere on a little road to a hamlet called Amsterdam which is about 6 minutes south of Bozeman, Montana. As soon as I set foot inside this treasure trove on a bleak and cold Sunday morning in January, I kNew that I would have to film inside - it was effectively a microcosm of the original wild west - the centre piece being a pool table that looked as if it belonged to the gold rush era. The caved pattern in the leather rim hinted at many hours of skilled craftsmanship.

The bar had never been used as a filming location before and what better person to baptise the premises than perhaps the most coveted and acclaimed American model of my generation - Cindy Crawford?

Cindy is a total professional and holds a room, but I wanted her to take a journey away from her comfort zone and play the role of “the bad ass Hustler”. When someone is asked to play a role, as opposed to model, the intelligence of the individual becomes a key variable and I know Cindy Crawford is very smart - so she killed the look.

Compositionally, I kNew that Cindy must be the focal point of the whole vignette and that meant placing here directly behind the pool table and then arranging the contextual characters as best as the tiny space could afford. Every inch of the image had to sweat even before we brought in the wolf.

It was an ambitious idea for sure - a wolf and Cindy Crawford playing pool in a dimly lit mountain bar in the middle of nowhere in Montana. I wanted to convey the idea that anyone from out of town entering this bar, would leave with fewer dollars in their pocket than when they arrived. They had been hustled.
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