Paul Newman gives cocky men enough vulnerability to keep us interested. We value his ease just as much in comedy, where an exaggerated character can sound comfortable with lines that have been polished too hard.
Fi1m perspective
Paul Newman seems comfortable with the exaggeration of Sidney J. Mussburger in The Hudsucker Proxy (1994). The Coens’ comedy has lines polished until they sound as though nobody could have thought of them in the moment, yet Newman seems at ease saying them. We laughed at Mussburger because that ease makes the excess funny rather than merely fussy. He is a considerable asset to a comedy we like despite its over-rehearsed manners. It is a useful place to begin with an actor whose understatement can conceal how much he contributes.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) established Newman as a leading man, and The Hustler (1961) gave him Eddie Felson, cocky and vulnerable. We are more interested in that vulnerability than in the cool by itself. His recurring work with director Martin Ritt in character-driven dramas belongs to this side of his acting. The attraction is being allowed to enjoy these flawed men while still noticing what is wrong with them.
There is also the pleasure of Newman in company, with Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973). Later came a return to Eddie Felson in The Colour of Money (1986), then the older supporting part of John Rooney in Road to Perdition (2002). Those older roles suited an actor whose composure could suggest more feeling than he chose to display.
Back in The Hudsucker Proxy, the limit is clear enough: Newman’s assurance cannot make the whole screenplay sound as relaxed as he does. The Coens and Raimi sometimes polish away the possibility that anyone might surprise us. The film also struggles when it asks us to care about Tim Robbins’s innocent, a problem Mussburger cannot solve from his corner of the comedy. We recommend it for its performances and elaborate sets, with that reservation about the writing. Start there if screwball comedy is your sort of evening; give the fussier exchanges a little patience.
Biography
Paul Newman was an American actor. He was born on 26 January 1925 in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and died on 26 September 2008. After serving in the US Navy during the Second World War, he studied drama at Kenyon College and the Yale School of Drama before training at the Actors Studio in New York.
Newman made his film debut in 1954 and appeared in more than sixty films. He is known for roles in The Hustler (1961), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Sting (1973), The Color of Money (1986) and Road to Perdition (2002). In 1994 he played Sidney J. Mussburger in The Hudsucker Proxy. He also voiced Doc Hudson in Cars (2006).
Newman won an Academy Award for Best Actor for The Color of Money. He was also a racing driver whose teams won multiple championships, and he co-founded Newman's Own, donating all post-tax profits to charity.
