The Hustler and Chinatown

I was extremely bored today. I read several pages from Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, but I will get to that another day. I went to the library for an hour, or so, and started working on a film project. I hope to do a lot of writing while I am home for vacation. Then I decided to watch two movies back-to-back. And may I say, two great movies.

The first film I watched was The Hustler. I am not sure how much people know about cinema or what people do know, but The Hustler is probably not well known among my generation. Sure, there will be people who have heard of it, but they're the kind of people who smoke this stuff - if you know what I mean. Anyway, The Hustler is a must see. It's ranked 200 and something on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They top 1000 films list. And it is ranked 209 on IMDB's top 250. Frankly, I believe the film should rank a little higher, but who am I?

The Hustler was produced and directed by Robert Rossen, whose work includes the original All the King's Men. Paul Newman plays Fast Eddie Felson, a pool hustler whose only ambition is to beat Minnesota Fats. Fats is brilliantly played by a cool Jackie Gleason. Every shot Gleason is in, you can't help but think, "Damn, he's too smooth, too cool. No wander he's the best." Fats is the best pool player in the United States and he hasn't been beaten in 15 years. Fast Eddie's first attempt to beat Fats leads to a 30 hour pool game; however, Eddie loses his cool a day into it, but Fats remains calm and cool. After recklessly losing his money, Eddie ditches his "manager," and heads for the bus station. That's where he meets the beautiful but complicated Sarah Packard. Sarah's complexity derives from her obsessive drinking problem and her disability, she's somewhat "lame." Neither Eddie nor Sarah reveal much about their past, but nonetheless, they spend most of the present together. Eventually, George C. Scott's character, Bert Gordon, takes Eddie under his wings but for a deadly price.

The film's dark. It's shot in black and white. The reason may be because the characters lack a heroic side. Each character is plagued by a horrible ambition to out do the other. The film was shot in 1961 and the language is tame, but the ideas coming across through the acting and the dialogue are anything but tame. Eddie's always hustling. As much as Eddie is hustling, Bert is hustling at least twice that. Sarah is an unlikely lady. She drinks excessively, she speaks her mind too quickly, and she lacks a sense of loyalty. Then again, maybe she feels betrayed by Eddie.

By the end of the movie, the audience may be cheering on Eddie, but his journey to the top is overshadowed by his own guilt and his own epiphany. Life isn't about winning to beat the winner. It's about winning what you might lose. In the end, I would consider Eddie a winner, but ultimately he lost more than he bargained.

The second film I watched was Chinatown. My friend, Luke, had been raving about the movie for the last several months. I've heard of it before, but I never had the opportunity to watch it. I am glad I did. Because the movie is a film noir, I am not going to give anything away. The movie was directed by Roman Polanski in 1974. Jack Nicholson plays J.J. Grittes, a private detective who has been hired by Faye Dunaway's character, Evelyn Mulwray, to find the truth about her husband's death. The film's writer, Robert Towne, presents many unexpected twists and turns which lead the audience shaking their head in disbelief by the outcome. But his writing isn't about the twist, that's what Shyamalan's for; it is about the characters and how they interact with each other. It's about a past we don't want to remember and a future we don't want to endure. "The future," cries John Huston's character, Mr. Noah Cross. A dim future it is.

Certain aspects, and specifically the end, of the film reminded me of Scorsese's Mean Streets; however, Chinatown has a cleaner script and a straighter plot. I am not talking about story line similarities, rather, I am talking about the feel. The way the characters come across; the way the audience relates to the characters. In that way, both films felt similar. Plus, there is an eeriness to both endings.

Polanski's directing felt very "ahead of the times." As I was watching the movie, I completely forgot that it was directed mid-seventies. Many classic films seem, well, classic. You turn the DVD player on and your first reaction is "Oh, yeah, definitely filmed in the 50s." Chinatown did not have that feeling. I enjoyed the movie, but the ending was hard to take. I am not surprised that it is in the top 50 of many movie lists.

P.S. Faye Dunaway was absolutely beautiful in the movie.

Night,
Christian Eriksson