The Hustler
This week the From Below Microcinema presents *The Hustler *(1961) on Thursday, January 23, at 7 pm.
Here is the link to reserve a seat. Doors will be at 6:50 and we’re starting the movie at 7:10!
This is the film in which Paul Newman truly becomes the dashing, squinting, smirking Paul Newman you know. He’s Fast Eddy, a bravado-filled, tough-on-his luck rascal eking out a living hustling pool, enraptured by his fantasy to be the greatest billiards player of all time. Alongside incredible, career-defining performances from Piper Laurie, who plays Catherine in *Twin Peaks, *the ever-menacing George C. Scott, and Jackie Gleason, who stalks the tables as the folkloric pool hall legend Minnesota Fats, Newman’s Fast Eddy struggles to lead a life of meaning and love. Undoubtably the greatest movie about pool, Robert Rossen’s beautifully filmed noir-tinged drama of torment, longing, and compulsion will stir your gambler’s wiles.
Formerly an active rank-and-file member of the writers’ union, and a card-carrying member of the Communist Party for 10 years, Rossen was blacked-listed from Hollywood in the McCarthy era. Eventually Rossen struck a bargain, like Elia Kazan, to turn informant for HUAC and gave 57 names of other Hollywood players involved in Party activity in exchange for the right to make films again. *The Hustler *is the great jewel of his short, post-black-list resurgence before his death. The meaning of a work art is not reducible to an artist’s biography, but I can’t help but wonder this time whether through his tormented characters we see manifestations one way or another of an apology, the anguish of a snitch’s guilt, or a rat fink’s self-consolation.
We’ll be hawking From Below merch at this screening and all foreseeable future ones to help cover costs for a sound system upgrade. Charlie’s been hard at work in his home studio behind the From Below cranking out a whole wide array of shirts and posters for your enjoyment.
Finally, we’ll say more on this in the coming days, but I must at least briefly mention that this week will be in fact the one year anniversary of the first From Below screening. From the bottom of our little From Below hearts, we love this community that has blossomed in our basement, and so greatly appreciate all of the work, resources, and time people have put into making it thrive.
To one year of the From Below and to 200 more, Stefan, Stark, and Charlie.