Be careful what you wish for

Rating: 10/10 (21 January 2013)

Sarah: What does he do, this Bert Gordon? Eddie: He's a gambler. Sarah: Is he a winner? Eddie: He owns things. Sarah: Is that what makes a winner?
As unfounded as the McCarthy era witch hunts proved to be, much of the artistic output of the so-called "communist sympathizers" did have this in common: an indictment of the American Dream (or perhaps more accurately: the American Dream as a cautionary tale). Robert Rossen's THE HUSTLER no doubt falls into this category.
More than anything, Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) wants to be the best pool hustler there is. And that means beating Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). "It's like a morgue," Eddie's partner comments as they enter the pool hall where he's to do battle, "the pools tables are like slabs they lay the stiffs on." Act One ends with Eddie lying on the floor--broke, dead drunk, having lost the pool game--the latest corpse sacrificed on the altar of 1961-era Corporate Greed.
Act Two begins with him meeting Sarah (Piper Laurie): a lost soul (much like Eddie) who provides solace & wisdom and who nurses him back to health after the beatings given to him by Minnesota Fats(figuratively) and a bunch of thugs he meets at the pool hall ARTHUR'S (literally). It is Sarah, in fact, who understands Eddie better than he understands himself when she tells him he's a winner. Not because he's rich. Not because he's the best. But because he's alive—alive with the pure, unadulterated, incorruptible joy he gets when he uses his God-Given talent. "The pool cue's a part of me," he tells her. "I just had to show'em, what the game's like when it's great. When it's REALLY great. How anything can be great. Bricklaying can be great. If a guy KNOWS." This after Bert Gordon (George C. Scott) has told him he's a born loser.
Bert Gordon: Cynical. Greedy. Student of human moves. He knows Eddie's the best pool player he's ever seen. "I never saw anybody shoot pool the way you shot the other night against Minnesota Fats," he tells Eddie. But he still calls Eddie a loser. Why? Because by the end of the game, Fats has all the money. "This game isn't like football. You don't get paid for yardage," he tells Eddie. And so THE HUSTLER is really about a tug of war. For Eddie's soul.
Bert is pulling him one direction—towards being successful at all costs. Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing. You keep score real simple. At the end of the night, you count up to see who has the money. Sarah is pulling him in the opposite direction. She knows the real score. He achieves his dream in the end (beating Minnesota Fats) but at what cost? Fast Eddie comes to realize there are more important things than winning. But by then it's too late.