A Study in Passion, Character, Victory and Love

Rating: 10/10 (9 January 2015)

Robert Rossen's "The Hustler" is a classic that not only is a great film but an influential piece of our cultural heritage. Paul Newman plays Eddie Felsen, a pool hustler who has his eyes set on a match with Minnesota Fats, the country's best. He meets up with Fats and is up $18000 after playing all night, but wallows in booze and glory until he has lost it all back to Fats. He ends up deserting his manager and sleeping in a bus station, where he meets the love of his life but has trouble realizing it. Most of the story involves Eddie trying to negotiate his relationship while at the same time summoning enough resources and self-respect to go at Fats again.
The notion of "character" is important in this movie, and I credit the movie with being one of the primary constructors of this value in our society. Eddie is a better pool player than Fats, but he loses because Fats has more staying power, determination, and level- headedness. The notion of a protagonist finding character has become such a common feature of movies (Rocky anyone?) that we forget that the idea, especially in sports movies, first really came to fruition here.
But the movie is richer than this--Eddie's pursuit of the whatever- it-is that will help him beat Fats ends up having grave consequences, and we see that the movie is also about the rewards and dangers of passion and obsession. Eddie is passionate about pool and obsessive about winning, and this makes him blind to elements of the story that are very sinister.
And the movie is also about love. Eddie is not a sympathetic character--one might even say he is an arrogant, insensitive, immature weasel. And yet Sarah loves him, holding out some hope that he will mature. But the maturity that leads him to victory in pool is not quite the same as that required of him to return her love, and the film helps us see this conflict brilliantly.
This richness in themes, along with great technical and acting achievements, make this a film for the ages. We learn all about winning and losing, love, passion, skill, and character. It almost seems like the whole world is in this movie.