Sprits move among us that teach us how to be born, how to live and how to die. Paul Newman was such a spirit. I have often written that Art by its nature is subversive. No Artist in the history of film has been more subversive than Paul Newman. A man of indescribable beauty, intellect, wicked sense of humor, and maybe the sexiest man ever born. Newman belongs in the same category as Brando.
The world changes because one man stands up and says I am different and my right against that of the group is just as important. It was Newman’s portrayal of such characters that makes his career so rich. In the opening scene of Cool Hand Luke, when Luke stands on a Memphis street drunk breaking off the top of parking meters, it is a simple act of rebellion.
In Hombre, Newman's performance is understate and seething with anger at the impact of racism on the Apaches that has raised him. No other film from that era removed the lie of the noble white man taming the west. When Newman s character moves to kill the Reservation Manager for stealing , The bureaucrat with the air of certainty tells Newman character: “Something you don t understand about white people is that we stick together. “
He helped changed acting, he marched with civil rights, took on the Vietnam War, gave sick children a place to go and be children and and settled down with one of the most extraordinary women of her generation. Not a bad life.
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