The Hustler
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The Hustler was a 1959 novel by American writer Walter Tevis, later made into a 1961 film of the same title.
The Novel
The novel The Hustler tells the story of a young pool player ("Fast" Eddie Felson) who challenges the legendary Minnesota Fats but loses.
Eddie could spiral down to the scrapheap, but he meets Bert. Bert teaches him about winning, or more particularly about losing. Tautly written, it is a treatise on how someone, with all of the skills, can lose if he "wants" to lose; how a loser is beaten by himself, not by his opponent; and how he can learn to win, if he can look deeply enough into himself.
The book was followed by the sequel The Color of Money.
The Film
The film version of The Hustler starred Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson, Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats, Piper Laurie and George C. Scott as Bert Gordon.
The movie was adapted by Sidney Carroll and Robert Rossen from the novel by Walter Tevis. It was directed by Rossen and was his second sports movie after Body and Soul (1947). Like Body and Soul, it can be seen as an attack on the soul-destroying power of greed.
At another level, it is about winning or losing, or what makes a winner and what makes a loser. In his first match with Minnesota Fats, Fast Eddie Felson is convinced he is the better player and that he will win. Bert (played by George C. Scott in one of his finest roles) however spots the personality flaw and quietly tells Fats that Felson is "a loser". Bert proves to be a master coach of character, and subsequently moulds Felson into a winner, even if not into a better person.
The novel The Color of Money was also adapted into a film.
The typical reputation of this film is that of a macho pool film, primarily centered around Eddie Felson's struggle to overcome being tagged as a "born loser." But that is only a surface read of the story and its characters. Underneath is the story of a young man who learns how to love someone else, despite a mutual tendency toward self-destruction and self-loathing. It is about two broken people in a broken world, where the hustle is about much more than being a pool shark. It is also cracks open the theme of the young man emerging on a scene that, as usual, is controlled by older, jaded men, who care about nothing but money and winning at any cost. It is the battle of the "purity of the game" of pool, where pool is merely a vehicle to express the love for art in action. For living in the moment. For the Jazz of the time. Stunning shots in an empty bus station coffee shop set the stage of loneliness and isloation. In truth, Felson's tag by George C. Scott's character as a "born loser" is nothing more than the manipulation by the older man as a way to prey on the youthful talent of Felson. And underneath that, you have the story of the up-and-coming actor, Paul Newman, where pool becomes the act. The dialog is frought with cracks and emptiness. This film has nothing to do with pool.
Awards
It won Academy Awards for Best Art Directions-Set Decoration, Black-and-White and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Paul Newman), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (George C. Scott, who refused the nomination), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Jackie Gleason), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Piper Laurie), Best Director (Robert Rossen), Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.
Newman played the same role of "Fast" Eddie Felson as an older and wiser man in the 1986 film The Color of Money (also adapted from a Tevis novel), directed by Martin Scorsese.
The original film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
In 2006, the screenplay by Sidney Carroll and Robert Rossen was selected by the Writers Guild of America as the 96th best motion picture screenplay of all-time.
External links
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