Hustle

by Peter Tonguette

Peter Tonguette is a staff writer for The Film Journal. His writing has also appeared in Senses of Cinema and Bright Lights Film Journal. You can visit Peter Tonguette's personal review site here. He is also a founding member of the Central Ohio Film Critics Association (COFCA).

Hustle, his new TV movie chronicling the downfall of Pete Rose, is Peter Bogdanovich's third consecutive film to revolve around a character (or characters) drawn from real life. It comes on the heels of The Cat's Meow (which included among its characters William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, and Thomas Ince) and The Mystery of Natalie Wood. The difference is that The Cat's Meow and Natalie Wood are Hollywood stories. Hustle is quite obviously not. But the topic all three films have in common is not the sole property of the movie business any more so than it is that of the world of baseball. That topic is celebrity and the tragedy which can sometimes spring from celebrity.

When looked at from this perspective, Hustle is not the surprising departure for the director which it appeared to be on paper. The film's view of fame and fortune is consistent with Bogdanovich's earlier films devoted to the topic, as is his basic sympathy for the character at the center of it all. While the script concentrates on the period of Rose's life during which he gambled on baseball as manager of the Cincinnati Reds, through Bogdanovich's direction (as well as Tom Sizemore's commanding performance as Rose) the audience is able to glimpse the decency of this man, as well as the foolishness and greed which led to his fall, and we don't walk away hating him. This is quite an accomplishment of direction and acting given that there are very few scenes which, as written, show Rose's positive attributes as a human being.

Like all of Bogdanovich's films, the mise-en-scene of Hustle verges on perfection. Very often in his films, scenes are seen from the perspective of a particular character. As in Hitchcock, this is achieved by cutting from a close-up of a character to shots of what that character is looking at. In the key scenes in which Rose is in the dugout receiving hand signals from his gofer, Paul Janszen (Dash Mihok), who is in the stands, we take Rose's point-of-view. Bogdanovich begins with a close-up of Rose. He then inter-cuts those close-ups with a shot (done on a long lens to indicate distance) of Paul in the stands. Rose turns away at several points to observe the game itself, at which point Bogdanovich inter-cuts Rose's close-ups with long shots of the game. It's a tremendously effective scene because Bogdanovich's montage gives us the sense that we are observing the world from Pete Rose's point-of-view.

As the film progresses, Bogdanovich also puts us in the shoes of Paul, as well as Rose's wife, Carol (Melissa DiMarco.) A particularly expressive aesthetic touch occurs during a heated argument between Rose and Carol. Bogdanovich at one point shows Carol alone in the frame in a tight profile shot. She is speaking to an off-camera Rose, but might as well be speaking to nobody at all, for she is isolated in the image. This shot alone says volumes about the miscommunication and deceit going on in this marriage.

Appropriately for a film as dark as Hustle, Bogdanovich gave a film noir-like tint to a tense scene between Paul and Rose's bookie, Ron Delaplane (Alex Karzis). The setting is a diner where the two are supposed to meet. Paul, clearly nervous, is seated at a table. Ron enters the diner. From Paul's perspective, we see Ron approach the table in long shot, at one point almost totally covered in darkness. (Incidentally, this shot recalls one in Bogdanovich's episode of The Sopranos, "Sentimental Education," in which Tony Soprano is seen standing in darkness.) As the two meet and Ron becomes increasingly confrontational, the shadows which envelop the scene become that much more reflexive of its content.

Another favored Bogdanovich visual on display in Hustle are dramatic dolly-ins during crucial moments. Because Bogdanovich uses them so sparingly, their impact is noticeable to even the most inattentive of audiences. For example, at the moment when Rose decides to place a bet on his own team, Bogdanovich moves in from a medium shot to what amounts to an extreme close-up. Rose is thinking, debating with himself what to do. Bogdanovich cuts to an insert shot as he writes down the bet. He cuts back to the close-up and the camera begins to move away from his face, Rose's decision having been made and his fate, for all intents and purposes, having been sealed. A nearly identical dolly-in occurs towards the end of a scene depicting an infamous Rose press conference wherein he resolutely denies betting on baseball. The camera move feels absolutely confining.

This is flat-out great filmmaking, further proof that Bogdanovich's directorial gifts are such that he can excel with almost any project, personal or not.