> Competition is part of human nature and not strictly a capitalist conceit,
> though capitalism does corrupt the competitive urge.
Bingo. Would that more leftists acknowledged this to be true...
-- Luke
I don't see the
> struggle between Newman & George C. Scott as a "pissing contest," but one
of
> exploiter and exploited. Scott doesn't have Newman's talent, but he has
> power and can make conditions such that Newman has little choice but to
play
> it Scott's way, or he won't be able to play at all.
>
> "The character who goes furthest to question the competition ethos and the
> notion of 'winners' and 'losers' is the woman (Piper Laurie)-- but she is
> finally sacrificed to a world that cannot understand anything but
> competition. If the movie were cast as _her_ tragedy, it would in fact be
a
> critique of Capitalism; but instead, the movie is cast as the triumph of
its
> hero and winds up being more of a 'Rocky' type movie, allbeit about a
> hundred times better than Rocky."
>
> As William Burroughs once put it, this is a War Universe -- winners and
> losers all the time. Piper Laurie's death has a profound effect on
Newman's
> character, and gives him the strength to buck Scott's control at the risk
of
> his own demise. Laurie's "sacrifice" is a tragic moment and a reflection
of
> the ugliness around her, and this is noted in the film. Pretty hard to
miss,
> actually. In any event, "The Hustler" has no reason to break out of the
> "capitalist ideological circle" since it focuses on the basest forms of
> greed and exploitation (and it's nothing at all like "Rocky"). Why should
it
> hit viewers over the head with some Solemn Message about the horrors of
> competition? Just watching the film is enough.
>
> DP
>
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