Newman

In Nobody’s Fool, Newman’s character Sully seems at first a lovable type–smart-assed, generally good-spirited, prone to teasing and stiff-upper-lipping and too much drinking. But, throughout, Newman uses his eyes as props pointing to real anger, real anguish, real shame — the surface bluster revealing great storms at the character’s heart. It’s a great performance, greater yet for being so internal, so unshowy.

But I probably love any randomly-named fifteen of his performances at any given moment.

5 thoughts on “Newman”

  1. I would recommend the 1972 movie Pocket Money for one of Newman’s lesser-known films. It’s one of those great loose 1970s character studies.

  2. I would not recommend Newman’s work in Robert Altman’s 1979 fatuous sci-fi freezefest Quintet. Man, I actually saw this clunker in a cinema.

  3. That movie does suck. Newman’s work in Altman’s Buffalo Bill and the Indians is very interesting to watch, but perhaps the movie’s an ambitious mess (like much of Altman–and shut up Arnab, that’s not all of Altman). Newman had a string of intriguing experiments in the ‘seventies — I really dug his Judge Roy Bean in the John Huston film, too, even if that film also kind of fell to pieces. I second Michael’s nod to Pocket Money, and I’d point to his work as Harper (in the eponymous film from the ‘sixties and more darkly reappearing in The Drowning Pool) as favorites.

  4. This doesn’t belong here, but Michael’s reference to character studies prompted it. I just watched ‘Scarecrow’, a Gene Hackman/Al Pacino movie. I don’t think it really worked, and there is a horribly degrading, simpering performance from Ann Wedgewood. Pacino is given very little to do except act the minstrel until the last 20 minutes. But Hackman’s class shows through. I find myself yearning for this kind of failure. Far too many safe films out there.

    On Newman, I like the quirky stuff (especially ‘Left Handed Gun’), but, to be honest, I prefer the popular movies. I grew up on ‘Butch Cassidy’, ‘The Sting’, ‘The Hustler’, ‘Cool Hand Luke’.’ Newman had a great face, and the charisma to carry even the crappiest movie.

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