It turns out I did have more to say about Paul Newman, after all. It ended up in my weekly film column for the NOW site. Perhaps you’d like to read it.
Warning: Political commentary! (I’m such a maverick.)
3 thoughts on “Nobody’s Fool”
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As perhaps a soft tribute to the Mighty Paul Newman, my three-year-old’s current-favourite movie is ‘Cars’ (having overtaken ‘My Neighbor Totoro’). Now that I think of it, Newman could’ve made a damn good Totoro voice…
I’m going to suggest adding Road to Perdition to your excellent suggestions of The Verdict and Nobody’s Fool – another later Newman movie where he excellently played against type.
Also, just saw Religulous. Loved it! Although the mockery you mentioned was certainly there in force, I thought that the movie did show legitimate inquiry at other points…when talking with his mother and sister, for example, or in his acknowledgement that for people who have nothing or are in dire circumstances faith can be an understandable response. This separates the movie from such recent books as The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins or God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens which treat faith as stupidity. Maher does point out the dangers of zealotry – “Grow up or die” – but he also included intewviews with a few (very few) people who were more moderate in their views, such as the priest working in the Vatican observatory and the utterly delightful priest he met after being kicked out of the Vatican. But mostly, it was about the mockery, which is what will get a movie like this an audience.
Paul Newman was that rare Hollywood bird, a real class act, who was always true to himself and his beliefs. Only Gregory Peck and Charlton Heston come to mind as other examples of that kind.