And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?---Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground There are certain people of whom it is difficult to say anything which will at once throw them into relief—in other words, describe them graphically in their typical characteristics. These are they who are generally known as “commonplace people,” and this class comprises, of course, the immense majority of mankind. Authors, as a rule, attempt to select and portray types rarely met with in their entirety, but these types are nevertheless more real than real life itself. For instance, when the whole essence of an ordinary person’s nature lies in his perpetual and unchangeable commonplaceness; and when in spite of all his endeavours to do something out of the common, this person ends, eventually, by remaining in his unbroken line of routine—. I think such an individual really does become a type of hi
THE HUSTLER (1961)
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"This is one of the few American movies in which the hero wins by surrendering, by accepting reality instead of his dreams."The Hustler opens with a great hustle. Eddie Felson, brilliantly played by a young Paul Newman, leans low over a barroom pool table, inspecting the cue ball and another ball pinned together on the side rail less than a foot from the end pockets.
An impossible shot.
His partner in this con game is a chubby fella with name of Charlie (Myron McCormick), who has the perfect look of a man so well-acquainted with losing he can see it coming a mile down the pipe and who lays a bet against his boy repeating the magic shot. Eddie tries and misses.
The film follows Eddie Felson for his match against billiards champ Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason) as he falls in love with Sarah (Piper Laurie), an alcoholic aspiring writer and part-time prostitute, and falls under the influence of Bert Gordon (George C. Scott), a successful gambler who offers to take Eddie under his wing and teach him how to play big game.
There are only a handful of movie characters so real that the audience refers to them as touchstones. Fast Eddie Felson is one of them. The pool shark played by Paul Newman in "The Hustler" (1961) is indelible--given weight because the film is not about his victory in the final pool game, but about his defeat by pool, by life, and by his lack of character.http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-hustler-1961
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Release date: September 25, 1961 (USA)
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- Release date: September 25, 1961 (USA)
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