Frozen In Time: Nobody’s Fool

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

- William Faulkner

Legendary Actor Paul Newman bestowed one of the best performances of his illustrious fifty-year plus career thirty years ago in Director Robert Benton’s “Nobody’s Fool.” Newman was sixty-nine years old at the time and had already created a lifetime of work that he could have walked away from and still lost no shine. Always seeming to be younger than he was on screen. In “Nobody’s Fool” Newman was the oldest he’d ever been on screen to that point. What Newman does in Nobody’s Fool is simply polish an already sterling career to a perfect luster. In Nobody’s Fool Newman plays Donald Sullivan who everyone in the town knows as Sully. Sully is an aging blue-collar jack of all trades sort who is still stuck in the past. A past that he thought he ran away from. Still doing odd jobs around town to make a living Sully continues to run from his responsibilities, his children, his wife and the pain of his own childhood. As he tells his now adult son “I only got about four blocks.” Sully didn’t get very far In terms of physical distance but measuring the detachment in the amount of time that he lost and the emotional damage on himself and others he caused as his son responds, “You Midas well have gone to the moon” In the world of Nobody’s Fool time seems to stand still. The sleepy town of North Bath in upstate New York during a whiteout winter is a divine setting for people stuck in the past as the holidays are inexorably pulling them toward each other. It’s the kind of town where everyone takes their coffee black because with cream and sugar it just tastes too good. Thanksgiving pulls us together whether we like it or not and whether we get together with family and friends or not is like were with each other anyway. It’s a sense and an emotion that you can’t escape even if you physically escape sitting at the table staring at the dish of frightening looking vivid purple cranberry sauce. Thanksgiving is gnawing at Sully in the form of his grown son and his children. Sully’s two grandkids he has never met. They’re back in town to spend a reluctant thanksgiving at Sully’s ex-wife’s house. They’re also stuck in a marriage that’s clearly at it’s frays end. It’s falling apart, like Sully, like the whole town. Sully is having a hard time finding anything to be thankful for. The town hasn’t changed much since Sully was his son’s age, and neither have the people in it. They all get older, but they never grow, all remaining locked in whatever was the biggest mistake any of them made years ago or last week. They’ve all abandoned something or someone to evade obligations or someone else’s expectations for them. Sully abandoned his wife and kids. Sully’s son’s wife is abandoning him. The son of Sully’s landlord abandons the town after he unwisely falls into the trap of a real estate conman who takes him and the town’s investors for a huge bilking in an elaborate Ponzi scheme. He gives all the town’s money to a grifter for a theme park he’s never going to build ironically called “Ultimate Escape” He’s not a part of the town so he is allowed to get away. For the people who are really apart of the small town of Bath escape routes are dug and even used but nobody ever really leaves. Time has frozen them in the state of their last attempted getaway. Nobody’s Fool, just like a gorgeous jewel box happens to be filled with gemstones and charms of treasured writing, characters, filmmaking, and performances by some of our greatest film performers. In one of his most understated and unappreciated turns Bruce Willis plays Carl Roebuck, the owner of his own construction company who Sully works for when they can stand to get along with each other. Carl could be a younger version of Sully. He hasn’t abandoned his family, yet. He’s just starting one with the wife that he’s cheating on. He’s abandoned his marriage vows, if not his marriage. Willis at the time was a full-tilt Box-Office superstar his role in is almost a special appearance and was one of the nice surprises of his career and of that particular film season. The legendary and remarkable Jessica Tandy in one of her most beautiful and rich roles plays Sully’s landlord who asks him “Doesn’t it ever bother you that you haven’t done more with the life god gave you?” She isn’t afraid to bet on Sully even though he represents a longshot, but he has to pay off for her at some point because the odds have got to kick in sooner or later. Just like the trifecta at the track, Sully himself is always trying to hit betting on it everyday rain or shine. The two eminent careers of Newman and Tandy are a perfect metaphor for Nobody’s Fool and its theme of the past still being with us. These two remarkable performers were still with us after all these years. The chemistry they have together is enchanting. Playing two characters still in the game and still relied on heavily after all this time to come through. Every character in Nobody’s Fool is waiting for their magic ships to come in and also on the verge of leaving, threatening to go but never doing it. Because eventually now is gone. The present is the past and it’s too late. The ever-present now in Nobody’s Fool is one of its many charms. Honesty emanates from the picture as much as it does in the characters that fill it. Nobody has time to lie to anyone as it has already cost them too much before. If someone doesn’t like you, they’re going to tell you. If they are your best friend, then they’ll let you know. If your annoying trait of chewing with your mouth opening or smacking your gums bothers them or always borrowing money bothers them, they have no problem telling you. They aren’t going to try and tough it out just to be polite. Bitterness has a way of diluting any politeness that might still hang around. If someone leaves and doesn’t come back, well, then they’re gone. Melanie Griffith plays Bruce Willis’ wife, and a potential affair opens up in the possibilities between she and Sully. She’s well aware of her husband’s philandering with other women but whether he is or not she’s just not the type of person who carries on in affairs. She’d rather be at the kitchen table at happy hour drinking Jack Daniels straight out of the bottle doing her toenails after a long day. She and Sully are two people who could have been something had fate, time and pressure not had other plans. Mistakes, regrets and missed opportunities make us all what we are throughout life as we see the same faces in the same places and muse as all the experiences and all the people who have come in and out of our lives flash like moving pictures in our eyes again. Life is full of changes; life is magical but we’re all so used to it sometimes we just simply fail to notice. “That could have been my wife” “That could have been my husband” “That could have been my life” but “I was the wrong man” “I was the wrong woman.” “I was just too late” “I said the wrong thing” “I was just too early” “It all happened so fast” Just like the Town of bath everyone is broken down. Emotionally and physically. Sully is still doing hard manual labor at his age nursing an ailing arthritic knee. His friends have artificial legs and are on heavy medication and fresh out of open-heart surgeries that’s wiped them out financially while they’re still keeping busy playing poker and drinking all night hoping it doesn’t interfere with their blood pressure and cholesterol medications and passing out while bellied up at the bar. Only one day when one of them simply just doesn’t show up will they know that person is probably dead. Even at funerals there’s no time for goodbyes. There was barely time for hello and the present is too soon the past. Like living your life in the town. Nobody’s Fool a movie that takes a piece of you with it when it’s over. The only way to get the missing part of yourself back is to watch it again. It’s a timeless picture that never matters when it takes place. It’s all happening right now. It seems like you could drop in on Nobody’s Fool today and twenty years from now and it would still be exactly the same. No past, no future, just today. Paul Newman himself seemed to be the polar opposite to Sully. Newman never abandoned anyone. Married to the same woman for fifty years his wife actress Joanne Woodward. Newman raised his family and never allowed them to want for anything. He could have had any role he wanted in any film. Newman’s was there for everyone. Marching for and speaking out for civil rights and also becoming a brilliant philanthropist. He started Newman’s Own, a series of grocery and retail products of which one hundred percent of the profits still go to charity and a summer camp for terminally ill children. A large swath of society, from generations of terminally ill kids to the decades of dedicated fans are grateful for the life and the career of Paul Newman and “Nobody’s Fool” is his perfect gift for the holidays. Happy Thanksgiving.