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Paul Newman, dead at 83
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For many, Paul Newman represented the ever-youthful rebel. By the time he played such defiant American characters like Fast Eddie Felson, Luke Jackson, or Butch Cassidy he was already deep into his 30’s. Yet that didn’t matter, Newman’s talent as an actor got audiences to concentrate on the reality of the characters he played and not on the trivialities of how good he looked in each scene.
In many of his roles his characters ended up defeated and, most often than not, dead. Yet it was in the defeat where the characters he played attained greatness. In the Hustler the character of Fast Eddie Felson starts out as an ego driven pool player who already thinks of himself as the best pool player in the country and has to merely convince the naysayers of his abilities. He will do whatever he must do to take his dreams and make them into reality.
Yet like all great characters he has one fatal flaw; his Achilles heel is that as much as he pushes down his emotions, be they anger, jealousy, or happiness, he cannot excise the feelings of love and regret for a girl that cared for him and then was driven to death by his callousness. He succeeds in his goal to be the best, but the greater achievement for his character is the realization that being labeled the best is an empty title if a person has to deny the very things that make them who they are.
For the character of Luke Jackson in the movie Cool Hand Luke, Paul Newman played a character that refuses to follow the rules of a prison camp and suffers for it. Many have read the movie as anti-establishment and also linked Newman’s character with that of Jesus, but there’s much more to it than that. Luke has gained the respect of the inmates by suffering. He pushes back when Boss Godfrey and the prison guards try to beat the independent spirit out of him. He escapes and keeps getting caught.
Whereas most would quit, Luke trudges along to his fate. Luke keeps fighting in an attempt to rouse his fellow inmates to push back against the brutality, but they never do. All they seem to be capable of doing is admiring, from a distance, their hero. The great tragedy in the story is not so much that Luke dies, but that his fellow inmates can only remember the superficial, his face and casual grin, and not his fighting spirit.
Paul Newman was a movie star who never fell under the usual clichés of being a movie star. He has been married to his second wife Joanne Woodward, also a respected actor, for fifty years. When not acting he donated money and himself to help causes that he believed in. Although the movies he made still exist, audiences will surely feel sad to know that a great talent is no longer with us.
