Every once in a while on my old blogs, I would whip out one of these movie posts because 1) I like watching movies and writing about them, and 2) People always like recommendations. I haven't written about movies in a while, and I miss it. Therefore, I have created a world dedicated to the movies. Yay!
If anyone wants to recommend a movie for me to watch and write about, feel free to do so in the comments. I'm open to anything from any era in any language in any genre about anything. I've watched enough movies to know that preconceived notions mean jack shit -- if a movie is good enough, it will be enjoyable regardless of what it's about.
And here is a rough list of the movies I've seen for anyone remotely interested. I'm pretty sure I've forgotten a few, so it's not complete, but it's as complete as my memory is likely to get.
My sole caveat is that I only write about movies I like. I'd rather this world did not turn into some festering den of negativity. The lone exception to this is if I REALLY hate the movie and think I could make something funny out of the post (which would explain when I posted about Oldboy, haha). Like the Library of Loons, I'm also open to having guest posters contribute -- we all have unique frames of reference regarding movies, so it'd be nice to have multiple voices contributing to this world.
Anyway! On to the first post ... (These posts will all include minor spoilers, by the way, but nothing major. Trust me.)
"Fast Eddie" Felson (Paul Newman) is a small-time pool hustler with big-time talent. He scratches a living by traveling America with his manager, feigning a lack of talent and cleaning out everyone in pool halls. But that is not all Felson is searching for.
One night, Felson enters a pool hall and waits. Later in the evening, the greatest pool player in the world, Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason), steps inside and agrees to play Felson at $200 a game. Felson loses at first but soon pushes Fats to his limits and increases the stakes to $1,000 per game. Fats' manager, pro gambler Bert Gordon (George C. Scott), watches the match unfold and supplies Fats with more money as Felson wins game after game.
However, Felson's arrogance prevents him from beating Fats. Felson refuses to end the game; he wants Fats to cry mercy. After a marathon match, Fats eventually breaks down Felson and cleans him out of everything but $200. Felson hightails it out of town and works at dives all around, hustling more small-time money and dreaming of once again challenging Fats and claiming his title of greatest pool player in the world.
The Hustler is an amazing portrait of pure obsession and destruction. Beating Fats is all Felson can think about afterward; Fats took away the thing that made Felson more than just another man, and he made Felson a nobody. Felson humiliates himself by playing in the most run-down, filthy pool halls to keep himself alive. But he never loses his desire to avenge his defeat and crush Fats through any means possible.
Felson does have a way out, though. He meets a young woman, Sarah Packard (Piper Laurie), at a bus terminal and eventually moves in with her. She's just as broken as he is, but in Felson she sees someone who can help her become whole again, and she also believes she can help him repair his life after first resisting him.
Some of the best scenes in the movie involve Felson and Packard trying to make their relationship work but failing, because Felson's obsession swallows up every part of his life. Later in the movie, Felson does something that essentially guarantees the destruction of his relationship with Packard, and her reaction to it is heartbreaking. It's obvious why Piper Laurie was nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this -- the desperation she feels in pulling her life together and holding on to Felson is always apparent, but she doesn't go over the top with it or devolve into melodramatic nonsense.
Can't say enough about the other actors, either. Paul Newman is almost always great. He plays Felson with just the kick of arrogance he needs, and beyond the surface, there's that look in his eyes that betrays the fear he feels that everything he worked for will amount to nothing. Jackie Gleason is cool and confident as Fats, and, interestingly, he's kind of melancholy too. He knows the life Felson is working for; it's not a good one. George C. Scott is just an evil, evil bastard as Gordon. He's just a straight-up legitimately awful human being.
Besides the great story and acting, though, I also love the whole look of the movie. Great use of the black-and-white film medium. The scenes in the pool halls are basically lit with dinky swinging lamps, and they provide some cool looking shadows in those scenes. The way the pool scenes are set up is also interesting -- they're played through fast, with angles changing constantly. That frenetic pace shows the tenuous grip the pool players have on their place in the world and the energy they must expend to keep their place at the top. Watching Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason play pool doesn't get boring, although it helps that the movie doesn't have too much pool in it.
The Hustler is an excellent movie with a story that will never be dated because it deals so strongly with themes of obsession, desperation and broken humanity (the only thing that dates it, really, is the amount of money Fats and Felson play for, haha). It's a movie that deserves to live on and continually be recognized for the strong movie it is.
