Eddie: “I told you: I got drunk.”

Bert: “Sure, you got drunk. That’s the best excuse in the world for losing. No trouble losing when you got a good excuse. And winning! That can be heavy on your back too. Like a monkey. You drop that load too when you got an excuse. All you gotta do is learn to feel sorry for yourself. One of the best indoor sports: feeling sorry for yourself … a sport enjoyed by all, especially the born losers.”

—BERT (George C. Scott) to EDDIE (Paul Newman)
The Hustler (Robert Rossen)

I had just returned from a meeting with Eddie and Fouad when the phone rang late one afternoon. I picked it up and the caller introduced himself as Gary Shusett. He told me he was running a school called Sherwood Oaks Experimental College, had gotten my name from Paul Schrader and wanted to know if I would be interested in teaching a screenwriting class. Since I had never taught a class, I asked what it would entail. There would be about twenty or thirty people, he told me, and all I had to do was talk about screenwriting and answer some questions. And, he emphasized, I did not have to prepare anything. I told him it sounded intriguing but I’d let him know, and we hung up. I went back to work and promptly forgot about it.

About a week later, I got another call from Gary. Would I be able to come one evening next week to talk about screenwriting? he asked. I didn’t have anything to lose except an evening, so I said yes. He gave me the date and the address and suggested I come a few minutes early.

That was the beginning of my relationship with Gary Shusett and Sherwood Oaks Experimental College. Sherwood Oaks was a new concept in Hollywood at the time. “Experimental College” was really a misnomer; in reality, it was a professional school taught by professionals: actors taught acting, producers taught producing, writers taught writing, directors taught directing. The purpose of the school, which didn’t give credits and had no university affiliation, was to provide an opportunity for the professionals of Hollywood to share their experience and expertise with the community. At this time, in the early seventies, this was a radical concept, for it was the unspoken assumption that most people in the film industry would not share themselves in this kind of a public forum. As it turned out, everybody in the business came.

Where else could you take a weekend course taught by Paul Newman called Acting for the Camera”? Or hear director Sydney Pollack talking about film directing? Or attend Lucille Ball’s weekend seminar on TV comedy? Or listen to Paul Schrader, Waldo Salt, Robert Towne and Michael Crichton talking about the art and craft of screenwriting? Not a bad lineup.

As word of the school spread, many of Hollywood’s top talents requested to come to this funky, dirty, run-down, second-floor storefront school, located in one of the most notorious sections of Hollywood. Every night, guests and students would be forced to “run the gauntlet” of the homeless, transvestites, hookers and winos just to get to the school.

The night I had been invited to speak, I went directly from work to Sherwood Oaks. It was located on Hollywood Boulevard, one block west of Hollywood and Vine, above a Florsheim shoe store. The area was so sleazy and shabby I thought I must be in the wrong place. I parked, walked through and around the sightseers, hookers and transvestites, then went up the stairs to the second-floor lobby of what had formerly been a large stock exchange. The lobby was dirty and unkempt and the place was swarming with people. Papers were strewn on the floor and the walls were flaked with chipped paint. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see rats scurrying through the halls. A line from a Bob Dylan song wafted across my mind: “Oh, mama … to be stuck inside of Mobile with those Memphis blues again.”

A man came up, introduced himself to me as Gary, then told me I was late and hustled me through the crowded lobby. He was of average height and wore glasses, but it was his clothes that got my attention. Everything was a mismatch: the jacket didn’t match the pants, the pants didn’t match either shirt or jacket, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if his socks didn’t match either. Every piece of clothing he was wearing was rumpled, as if he’d been sleeping in this outfit for weeks.

I followed him down the hallway and he led me into what had formerly been a conference room, where some twenty or thirty people were waiting. Before I could even say a few words to him, or ask what he wanted me to talk about, he stepped up and introduced me to the people, then turned around and walked out. I looked around the room and wondered what to say. Finally, I gave them a little personal background and talked about my work at Cinemobile and what it was like reading two or three screenplays a day. They asked me questions about the “business,” and I answered as best I could. So began my teaching experience at the Sherwood Oaks Experimental College.

I really enjoyed it. The people were interested in screenwriting and liked hearing stories about the difficulties of breaking into Hollywood. They wanted to know what kind of scripts Hollywood was looking for, how to get an agent, how much money could be made selling a screenplay, how difficult it was to sell a treatment (a short, narrative synopsis of the story) and so on.

When the evening was over, people hung around asking me questions till after eleven. As I was leaving, Gary asked if I would be interested in teaching a longer screenwriting class, maybe an eight-week course. Unwilling to commit to anything, I told him I’d think about it and let him know. As I walked out the door, several people told me they’d learned more in this one class than they had in a full semester at UCLA. It was nice to hear, though I had no idea what I had said or done.

Over the next few days, I kept mulling over the experience. It was obvious that people were starving for information about the craft of screenwriting. But as much as I’d enjoyed the experience, I wondered how I could commit to teaching an eight-week class. I had never taught anything before, and the memories I had of my own teachers were not very flattering. The only effective models I had as teachers were Renoir and one of my English professors; only they had sparked the desire to learn in me. And I remembered a remark Renoir once said: a teacher is someone who teaches the student to see the relationship between things. Could I do that? Did I want to do that? And then the bigger question—what would I teach and how would I go about doing it?

I think part of my hesitation was knowing that I was just beginning to explore the craft of reading a screenplay. Yes, I had spent seven years writing nine screenplays, but as I was discovering, that didn’t help me much in reading and evaluating a screenplay. So how could I be expected to teach a screenwriting class?

Then a few weeks went by and I didn’t hear anything from Gary so I assumed it wasn’t going to happen and I forgot all about it and got back into the rhythm of my life and work.

But I’d underestimated Gary: he had the ferocity of a bulldog. He started calling, and when I became wishy-washy not saying yes, not saying no, he kept calling back. He wouldn’t let go. After several calls, I finally agreed to teach an eight-week class during the next session, even though I didn’t know what I was going to do or how I was going to do it.

The more I thought about it, the more I saw that I could draw upon my experience as a writer and a reader. If this was going to be a course on screenwriting, how would I approach it? That was my start point. I saw I could approach the screenplay in terms of its evolution, from the inception of the idea to the finished script. I saw that if I did that, I would have several topics to discuss. I contemplated my own writing experience and the many discussions I’d had with Renoir and Peckinpah about converting the idea into the screenplay. I thought about my acting experience and retraced my steps in creating characters, and contemplated the various problems of writing in the proper screenplay form. It seemed everyone wanted answers for these questions.

I had eight sessions to prepare, so I broke the class down into specific categories: finding the idea, developing the characters, writing in screenplay form, building the scene and sequence and so on. When I finally walked into that first class and stood in front of some fifty or sixty people, I felt pretty confident I knew what I was doing.

But there was one thing I hadn’t thought about: my attitude. Without being aware of it, I stepped into that class thinking I was going to be the “teacher.” That was my position. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be standing in the front of the room presenting this material, would I? It didn’t take long for me to see that this attitude wasn’t working, that all my thinking and preparation might go for naught. I found myself being righteous, opinionated and judgmental, and by the end of the third session people started leaving. The harder I tried, the worse it became. By the end of the eight weeks almost 80 percent of the class had left, numerous complaints had been lodged and a few refunds were being requested. I was devastated.

Gary thanked me for my efforts and told me he’d give me a call if he was going to offer another class. Which we both knew wasn’t going to happen, because I had done such a terrible job.

I went back to reading my two or three screenplays a day, trying to define the elements of a good screenplay. But the teaching experience really rankled. What did I do wrong? I wondered. Should I have been more prepared? Less opinionated? More patient? Listened better? The more I thought about it, the more I saw that as I stood in front of that class I was mirroring the same attitude as many of my old teachers. Somehow, I realized, I must have expressed this attitude, either consciously or unconsciously, in my opinions and mannerisms, and that must have been why so many people left the course. When I thought about it from this perspective, the more convinced I became that this was what had happened.

This insight was a revelation. If I ever got the chance to teach again, I told myself, I was going to enter the classroom as the “student” and see what I could learn from my “teachers.” When I decided that, I called Gary and told him that I’d be interested in teaching another eight-week class. He said he’d think about it, but he asked whether in the meantime I’d like to be the moderator for a screenwriting seminar that was going to be held the following month. I said yes immediately, and the next week he offered me the opportunity of teaching another eight-week course at Sherwood Oaks during the next session. I accepted on the spot.

The weekend seminar I moderated was one of many I did over the next few years. The Saturday morning panel I had been asked to moderate was with screenwriters Colin Higgins (Harold and Maude), Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin (Mean Streets). It was a fascinating experience, and it began a new kind of relationship with Hollywood screenwriters.

A few weeks later I was scheduled to start the new screenwriting course, and I began to spend a lot of time preparing for it. I made extensive notes about the screenplays I read at work, and noted the elements the writer must focus on when he or she sits down to write a screenplay.

As I prepared for the class I began to see that the process was helping me understand more about reading a screenplay. The more scripts I read, the more I saw there were two phases in organizing a screenplay: the preparation, and the actual writing itself. I went back into my own writing experience and broke down each of the elements I had used in the preparation of my screenplays, and began to list them as individual categories: defining the idea, building the story, creating characters. I broke each class down into one particular subject for the evening. My intention was to spend about ten or fifteen minutes discussing the subject, then apply it to current movies. I wanted the class to be an open forum where I could weave the subject into the general discussion. I had never been in a class like that, and wanted to see if it could work.

That first night of class, I walked into the large room, introduced myself to the people who were there and told them I wanted to find out what their backgrounds were. Some were writers, some were studio executives, some were in advertising and public relations and a few were professional people. With my mind set on being the “student,” I started asking questions about what they wanted to know and what they wanted to learn during the eight weeks we would be together. I immediately felt an entirely new energy in the room.

In my first teaching experience, the people attending the course had been passive, listless, their body language rigid, tight, constricted. That had all changed. There was an openness now in the room, and once the wall of hesitation and shyness had fallen away, people felt comfortable asking questions, offering opinions, even starting a discussion about a current film. I just let them be. As I was standing in front of these people, feeling this sense of energy and excitement swirling around me, I thought that this must be what teaching is all about—instilling students with a desire to learn. It felt great.

By being the student, by listening and responding to the course participants’ concerns about the craft of screenwriting, I mentally began designing a course based on what they wanted to know. No more would it be “us and them;” there would only be “us.” I called the classroom the “big cooking pot,” because everybody added stuff to it, then took out whatever they wanted to. It was really learning from each other. In addition to having the class experience, I asked them to go see various films of their own choosing. After that, we would have a discussion at the beginning of each class and talk about a particular aspect of a film a student might have seen in relationship to whatever we were talking about that night.

This model, using current movies as examples of different aspects of the screenwriting process, became a viable way of illustrating the craft of the writer. I wanted people to take a look at what they were doing when they wrote their scripts. After a few sessions, I came up with the idea that if everyone in class saw the same movie, we could discuss it together.

With that in mind, I started going over several films I thought would work as teaching examples. Whatever I showed, I wanted it to be a good film, a film we could learn from, so after some consideration, I chose for our first example Robert Rossen’s The Hustler, a movie I had always liked. I think Rossen is one of those forgotten geniuses of Hollywood; Body and Soul, All the King’s Men and Lilith are only a few of his films. The Hustler, written by Rossen and Sidney Carroll from the novel by Walter Tevis, and starring Paul Newman, Piper Laurie and George C. Scott, was made in 1961 and had been nominated for several Academy Awards.

Paul Newman plays Fast Eddie Felson, a pool shark from Oakland, who hustles his way across the country in order to challenge the unbeatable Minnesota Fats, brilliantly played by Jackie Glea-son. In a wonderfully choreographed cinematic pool game, he beats Fats, only to defeat himself by drinking too much booze and succumbing to his own ego. In short, he’s a winner who’s a loser.

When I showed the film to the class, I really didn’t know what their reaction would be. I didn’t have to worry: they loved it. As I watched it in that first screening, I began to really see the intricate nooks and crannies of telling a story with pictures.

What I saw as the story unfolded was a series of movements, very musical in origin. Since I was becoming aware of the importance of setting up the story from the very beginning of the screenplay, I studied the opening of the film very carefully. In the first scene, Fast Eddie and his “manager,” Charlie (Myron McCormick), set up their “hustle” in a small-town bar. What was so striking was the way it was done: Fast Eddie is shooting pool, and it’s obvious he’s had too much to drink. As the money begins piling up on the table, he makes a “lucky shot,” and Charlie bets he can’t make the same shot again. People take the bet; they think he’s too drunk to make it again. The hustle is on.

With the money on the table, we hear the sound of the cue striking a pool ball, then we cut outside as a smiling Eddie holds up a fistful of money. It’s a beautiful little sequence and revealed to me everything I needed to know about Fast Eddie’s character—who he is, what he does and the behavior that exposes his weakness, his inner flaw. In other words, it sets up the characters and the story.

While discussing the film in class, I realized that those first few pages of the screenplay are important because they set up not only the main character but everything that follows as well. Those first few minutes of The Hustler show Fast Eddie’s desire to win “ten grand” in one night, and how he plans to do it by defeating the legendary, unbeatable Minnesota Fats. That’s his motivation, his dramatic need, and his pride becomes the source of his downfall.

I managed to get ahold of the screenplay at an old cinema bookshop, and discovered that one of the things which makes the film so interesting is the way the story unfolds. Each scene is placed in the context of an emotional and psychological progression, and those individual scenes keep the story moving like movements in a symphony.

After the credits, the story begins with almost ritualistic precision. Eddie walks into the Ames pool hall and calls it the “Church of the Good Hustler.” The game is on. The rack is broken by Minnesota Fats, and the Fat Man goes on a spree. We see why he’s “the best there is.” Then it’s Eddie’s turn; he wins game after game. The stakes keep getting higher and higher. At that point, Bert (George C. Scott), Fats’s manager, starts watching the game, while drinking milk. Eddie, knowing he’s got a sure thing, begins drinking, confident in his prowess. He wins every game; his dream of winning ten thousand dollars in one night has been achieved. Drinking too much, Eddie drunkenly challenges Minnesota Fats to one more game, winner take all. Charlie walks out, pissed. Fats looks to Bert; Bert looks at Eddie and tells Minnesota Fats, “Take the bet; the guy’s a loser.”

Eddie is shocked, but too drunk to do anything about it. And this was another illustration for me that action is character; what a person does is who he or she is. I watched as the Fat Man prepares for this final game by performing an elaborate ritual: he takes off his coat, washes his hands, pours talcum powder on his hands, puts his jacket back on and steps forward, ready to play. Eddie laughs, not understanding the significance of the action. But I saw in that one action that Minnesota Fats has more character and class than Eddie has in his entire body. It’s not the lack of talent that beats Eddie; it’s the lack of character. Bert Gordon’s prophecy turns out to be true: Fast Eddie Felson is a loser.

What’s the difference between being a winner and a loser? That’s the question that haunts Eddie as he wanders to the bus station to store his bags. This, I saw, is where the true story of Fast Eddie Felson really begins.

As I read and reread the script, I began to see that it has a definite form, a definite structure. I thought that if I broke the movie down into each of these different movements, I could find a way of defining some of the qualities that make it work.

The first time I showed the film I showed it in its entirety, then discussed with the class what we liked or disliked. The more we talked about it, the more I was able to define the movements of the story. In order to set up the transformation of Eddie’s character from loser to winner, I saw, it was necessary to show him first as a loser; then I could chart his emotional journey to becoming a winner.

What I realized later was that as I was preparing to teach The Hustler, I was expanding my skills of reading. I was still reading my two or three screenplays a day, but now when I read the first few pages, I was looking for the elements that set up the story. I was looking for movements of unfolding action. If I didn’t find them I felt I was under no obligation to read further than the first thirty pages. If it didn’t work by then, it wasn’t going to work at all.

One night after work, I was having a drink with a screenwriter and was sharing my experience about what I was learning teaching the screenwriting course at Sherwood Oaks. As I talked about it, I had a “bright” idea: why not show only a portion of the movie, then discuss that in relation to the whole? The writer thought it was a great idea, because he himself was having difficulty setting up the story in a new screenplay he was writing. I thought that if I isolated the elements of that first act, then showed that portion of the film, I could lead a discussion of what goes into setting up a good movie.

In the next class, I showed only the first thirty minutes, what I termed “the first movement,” of The Hustler. In these early scenes, we see Eddie in action, hustling at a small-time pool hall; we see him playing Minnesota Fats at the height of his pool prowess; and then we watch him, through a haze of booze and ego, plunge into the abyss of the loser. When he leaves his partner Charlie, he is broke and alone. From Eddie’s point of view, it’s a new beginning; now the story can begin.

People loved the class. I didn’t get to leave until almost eleven-thirty, and as I made my way through the gauntlet of street people on Hollywood Boulevard, I felt I was really onto something.

Several days later, as Fouad, Eddie and I were driving to a meeting, I was telling them about the class when Fouad casually mentioned that if I was going to be teaching, I should teach the whammo chart.

Thinking about Fouad’s comment, I realized that if I had showed the first act of The Hustler, maybe I should show the second act as well. I reread the script, only this time I focused on the relationship between Fast Eddie and Sarah, his girlfriend, played by Piper Laurie.

I knew where the first act ended—with Eddie losing everything he had won. That was my start point. In class, we talked about how it was clear at this stage that Eddie didn’t know where he was going or what he was going to do. What was so interesting for me was the locale of the next scene: a bus station. When I raised the question as to whether the location might reflect the emotional state of the character, it dawned on me that a bus station is a place of new beginnings, a place where people come and go, a place of transition. Emotionally, he’s at ground zero, a point of departure, the point of new beginnings.

In the next class, I suggested that the bus station scene really marks the true beginning of the story. When Eddie arrives at the station, he sees an attractive woman sitting alone, drinking coffee, reading. Their eyes meet, then she turns away. “There is a suggestion of tired wakefulness, of self-sufficiency, about her,” the stage directions read. Eddie tries to hustle her, but Sarah keeps him in his place. He drifts off to sleep, and when he wakes, she’s gone. He leaves, heads for a nearby bar and is surprised to find Sarah sitting at a table. They talk and he makes a pass at her—”Let’s you and me get a bottle,” he says. She thinks carefully about it for a long moment, then accepts. As they get up to leave, we see she’s lame.

Does that tell us anything about her character? I wondered. I recalled what Peckinpah did in The Wild Bunch when he gave Pike Bishop, the William Holden character, a limp. That reflected an emotional state of mind. Could it be the same here? Sarah is lame, a cripple. It’s very clear, I saw, that she has very little self-respect or self-worth. She drinks too much and has no sense of purpose in life, and her limp underscores her emotional qualities in a visual way.

Eddie’s relationship with Sarah unfolds like a symphonic movement through the course of the second act. About halfway through this unit of action, Sarah says, “We never talk about anything—we stay here in this room, and we drink, and we make love. We’re strangers. What happens when the liquor and the money run out, Eddie?”

This is the next story point: Sarah’s remark moves the story forward. A few scenes later, Eddie’s money does run out, and Bert Gordon offers him a deal. He’ll stake Eddie in pool, but the split will be 75/25. “Who do you think you are, General Motors?” Eddie asks. “How much do you think you’re worth these days?” Bert asks. “You think I can lose?” Eddie asks. “I never saw you do anything else,” Bert replies.

Pissed, his pride affronted, Eddie storms out, and finds himself in a shabby pool hall in a game with another hustler. As I shared with the class, it’s this behavior that reveals Eddie’s tendencies as a loser. Eddie, incensed at these small-time pool hustlers, angrily loses control and rashly shows them what real pool playing is all about. When the game is over, Eddie tries to collect his winnings, but the players declare they don’t like “pool sharks” and drag him into the men’s room. We don’t see anything except his silhouette, as they beat him mercilessly. Then we hear Eddie scream. Silence, then another scream, as they break both his thumbs.

This scene, I now understood, is really the centerpiece of the movie. Eddie starts high, loses control and crashes to rock bottom. There’s nowhere else to go except up. Eddie stumbles back to Sarah’s apartment, broken in body, mind and spirit. As Sarah cares for him over the next few weeks, we see a change in her behavior: the apartment is clean, she stops drinking and she studies industriously for her college courses. Eddie changes too: he begins to open up to Sarah and share his true feelings.

The next scene has Eddie and Sarah on a picnic and is pivotal in terms of the story’s progression. With both thumbs still in casts, Eddie asks Sarah if he’s really a loser. Reading the script again, I felt this scene embodies the essence of his character. Eddie shares with Sarah what Bert Gordon told him: “Some people want to lose, and are always looking for an excuse to lose.” Sarah asks if Bert is a winner. Yes, Eddie answers. What makes a winner? she asks. In frustration, he holds up his broken hands and says, “Why did I do it? I coulda beat that guy, I coulda beat him cold. He never woulda known. But I just had to show ‘em, I just had to show those creeps and those punks what the game is like when it’s great, when it’s really great … like all of a sudden I got oil in my arm. The pool cue is a part of me … [it’s] got nerves in it. It’s a piece of wood but it’s got nerves in it. You can feel the roll of those balls. You don’t have to look. You just know. You make shots that nobody’s ever made before. And you play that game the way nobody ever played it before.”

“You’re not a loser, Eddie,” she says. “You’re a winner. Some men never get to feel that way about anything.” And she confesses that she loves him. Eddie’s response is simple: “You need the words?” “Yes,” she replies, “but if you ever say them I’ll never let you take them back.”

I saw this as the beginning of Eddie’s transformation, because it moves the story forward to the next level. At this moment Eddie undergoes a change in character; it is the first step in his shift from being a loser to being a winner, and it begins the next movement. With his thumbs healed, Eddie tracks down Bert and admits he’s “not such a high-class piece of property right now. And a twenty-five percent slice of something big is better than a hundred percent slice of nothing.” Eddie knows that in order to rise above his situation, he must first acknowledge the truth about it.

At this point I began to understand that each story “movement” has a specific dramatic function. When I went back and reexamined the film, movement by movement, I saw that Eddie’s character is set up through his behavior in Act I. The second movement deals with his self-destructive behavior; he is broken both physically and spiritually. Only when he can confront the truth of who he is can he begin healing and thus initiate his transformation. The third movement completes that transformation.

As I was studying the script in preparation for the next class, I focused on the third and final movement of the film, and realized that the picnic scene between Eddie and Sarah spins the story around into the resolution of the film. The night before Eddie leaves for Kentucky with Bert, he takes Sarah out to dinner and tells her he’s leaving the next morning; Bert is staking him. She does not bear it well: “If you were going to come back you wouldn’t have taken me out tonight. You’re hustling me, Eddie. You never stopped hustling me.” He tells her it’s not true, that he’s coming back. “What do you want me to do?” she says. “Just sit here and wait? Faithful little Sarah. Pull the shades down and sit.” “What’s your idea of love? Chains?” Eddie replies. She breaks down and confesses she’s scared because “I wanted you to be real, Eddie.”

Caught between his feelings of love and guilt, he agrees to take her with him. The next morning Eddie arrives with Sarah at the train, something Bert does not appreciate. As the train pulls away from the station, I saw that the train is a symbol of transition; in this case, it takes us into the third movement.

Arriving in Kentucky, Eddie plays his first match. He loses game after game and Bert wants to call it a night. “I still think you’re a loser,” Bert tells him. Eddie literally begs Bert for the chance to play another game as Sarah tells him not to beg. Eddie responds by playing with his own money, and loses again. He tells Sarah to go back to the hotel, and she tells him that if he keeps playing for Bert “he’ll break your heart, your guts.” Bert finally gives in and lets Eddie play. The game lasts all night and finally Eddie wins, redeeming himself in his own eyes. But the price he pays is very high.

When he returns to the hotel, he learns that Bert had seduced Sarah, and that Sarah committed suicide. Eddie stares, disbelieving, and looks at Bert, who turns away. It was then that I understood that Sarah was the sacrifice necessary for Eddie to complete his transformation. In the final scene, Eddie returns to challenge Minnesota Fats.

Eddie seems different—poised, confident. It’s a fast game. Eddie wins everything in sight. Fats finally quits; “I can’t beat you, Eddie,” he says. Bert decides he should get half of what Eddie has won. “What happens if I don’t pay?” Eddie asks him. “You’re gonna get your thumbs broken; your fingers, too,” Bert replies.

Eddie confesses to Bert that he loved Sarah, and “traded her in on a pool game…. You don’t know what winnin’ is, Bert. You’re a loser. ‘Cause you’re dead inside, and you can’t live unless you make everything else dead around you…. The price is too high…. You tell your boys they better kill me, Bert. They better go all the way with me. Because if they just bust me up, I’ll put all those pieces back together and so help me, so help me God, Bert … I’m gonna come back here and I’m gonna kill you.”

Eddie turns his back on Bert and pays homage to Fats: “Fat Man, you shoot a great game of pool.” Eddie takes his cue case, takes a last look around, and walks out.

Fade-out. The end.

When this session of the class ended, I started thinking about what had worked in the film and what didn’t. Breaking The Hustler into units of dramatic action and presenting it in terms of different movements, I think, was significant. Not only did I learn to analyze film in a new and effective way, but teaching it in this way actually supported and expanded my reading experience at Cinemobile. Only then did it dawn on me that in the process of teaching others I was really teaching myself.

When I could acknowledge this to myself I had a deep-seated feeling that I was on the verge of gaining a new insight into my understanding of the movies. It didn’t matter whether I was teaching, writing or reading, I just knew I was on the verge of something. I didn’t know what it was, I didn’t know what it looked like and I certainly didn’t know how to explain it; all I knew was that I had to be patient and wait for it to be revealed. It wasn’t a question of “if” or “how” or “what;” it was a question of when.