Do The Hustle

I was watching The Hustler recently. It's a film at odds with itself.  This doesn't prevent it from being a great film.  In fact, it's a common formula in Hollywood.  Think of gangster films, where we get to enjoy the outrageous lifestyle of the criminal before he gets his comeuppance, and we can pretend we've been taught a moral lesson.

In the case of Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman), he's not exactly a crook. Perhaps you could call him a lowlife by the standards of the day--rather than seek a respectable job, he earns his keep hustling pool.  And, in the end, it destroys his life--his girlfriend kills herself and he himself will be leaving the game.  But this fights against the essence of the film

Because Eddie is a great pool player, and that's worth something.  It's a specialized skill, and it lights up his life when he's playing the game at a high level.  In the most truthful speech in the movie (as opposed to the scolding ones from his girlfriend Sarah (Piper Laurie)), he says:

Anything can be great.  I don't care--bricklaying can be great.  If a guy knows.  If he knows what he's doing and why and if he can make it come off.  When I'm goin', I mean, when I'm really goin' I feel like a...like a jockey must feel. He's sittin' on his horse, he's got all that speed and the power underneath him...he's comin' into the stretch, the pressure's on him, and he knows...just feels...when to let it go, and how much.  Cause he's got everything workin' for him, timing, touch.  It's a great feeling, boy, it's a real great feeling when you're right and you know you're right.  It's like all of a sudden I got oil in my arm.  The pool cue's part of me. You know, it's a pool cue, it's got nerves in it. It's a piece of wood, it's got nerves in it.  Feel the roll of those balls, you don't have to look, you just know.  You make shots that nobody's ever made before.  I can play that game the way nobody's every played it before.

Even girlfriend Sarah tells him he's a winner at that point.  He may just be a pool hustler.  And it may bring him into the orbit of nasty people like Bert Gordon (George C. Scott), who bankrolls him.  But it's an exalted feeling that few get.  So why, when his girlfriend spends a lot of time trying to argue him out of it, does the film expect us to agree?

Of course, The Hustler has it both ways.  Fast Eddie gets one more chance to face Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason) and beat him before he has to put away his stick.  But in the end, we're supposed to see that he's learned a lesson and he's right to move on.  Except that the heart of the film argues against it.