Paul Newman @ 100: "Hud"
Tuesday, January 21, 2025 at 4:00PM
Martin Ritt’s 1963 revisionist Western Hud is remembered these days for mainly two things: for Patricia Neal’s Best Actress-winning performance (one of the shortest in Oscar history) and for hailing one of Paul Newman’s seminal works as an actor, two years after his Oscar-nominated turn in The Hustler. Hud further solidified Newman’s film star persona, now with indelible iconography within an all-too American genre. However, Newman’s performance as well as the film’s overall prickliness help the film transcend surface-level memorializing...
It is important to note the timing of the film’s release. The 1960s after a decade of epics, musicals, and Westerns, mostly shot on wide lens and in lush color photography, mainly to combat the largely feared effects of television on the filmgoing audience’s viewing habits. Factor in the onslaught of foreign imports coinciding with the slow death of the Hays Code, enticing audiences to the world of morally ambiguous characters in narratives no longer indentured with conservative sense of justice.
This is the cinematic landscape in which the film exists in, a somber Western shot with wide aspect ratio but in chiaroscuro black-and-white, stripped of sweeping triumphs while unspooling the journey of its antihero. Centering on the life of the titular self-absorbed man (Newman) as part of a family of three, including his father Homer (Melvyn Douglas) and nephew Lonnie (Brandon deWilde). Together, they comprise the three generations of men confronted with the harsh realities of agriculture. It plays out as a deconstruction of the male hero figure common to most Westerns.
In fact, the film’s intention of unmasking the Western hero kicks the film forward. Instead of a sweeping orchestral music, mournful strings by Elmer Bernstein open as the film declared Paul Newman as the film’s lead. A rumination of what the modern-day American frontier has become. Once action begins, we see Lonnie going around the town in search of Hud’s whereabouts. It takes a while before we meet him, but Hud’s trail of trouble informs us of a recurring theme in his effects on the people around him.
A broken glass from a pub where Hud stopped by last night and a loose shoe of a woman in the pathway, presumably removed in the throes of a sexually charged encounter, are our first clues to who this man is. Sex and violence. Things that other films might utilize to signify his brazen machismo while the film dignifies this, but the film foregoes that sexist mythologizing. They play out more like omens scattered around town. And yet, when he bursts through the screen - as he pushes the door aggressively - an uncanny distance is already established.
We see Newman, fixing his clothes while asking about his father’s need to call him. Contrast Newman’s stern voice, imposing physical ease, and Brandon deWilde’s meek façade and the clash already begins. Hud is abrasive and he gets control by being unapologetic about it. His charm is not even there to soften these edges; instead, they further highlight his contempt to genuine connection. Either he thrives in interactions that do not go beyond the casual and emotionless (like his affair with a married woman) or he activates his odious behavior whenever he is crammed with people who know him beyond his composed exterior (notice those car scenes where either he avoids eye contact with the other person or the other person rarely meets him in the eye). He is living in a self-imposed cocoon of isolation.
Newman aces this. He pushes the abhorrent boundaries of his character without falling into facile antagonism. In fact, it is in his skill that a character like Hud is even given the unspoken complexities necessary to understand a character so stubbornly against being understood or read. A complication between Homer, Hud, and his deceased brother gives us hints to the reason for his detachment from the nucleus of this family, but Newman gives more complications to the mystery of this character.
Director Martin Ritt and cinematographer James Wong Howe capture Newman in varying states of isolation. The clearest demonstrations of his emotional exile is brought to life by several shots where we see him in physical isolation. In these moments, the effects of Hud’s dismissal of human connection is clear. Newman allows for contradicting readings on these moments.
Is this alienation only the consequence of his actions or was this a self-determined choice to save himself? Does he even yearn for connection with his family? Thing is, while these questions might be inferred, Hud remains fascinatingly opaque. What Newman does, however, is to make us lean closer to the possibilities of this character. Even in the most sordid of human beings, there is a smidge of humanity waiting to be explored. That’s what fascinates me about his creation of this character.
Even in shots where Newman is situated against his environment with other people, whether it be the expanse of the Texas terrain or even the confines of a house kitchen, Hud’s estrangement persists. In fact, the blocking of these scenes heightens it. Despite Hud’s physical presence in these moments, you can easily carve him out of his family’s life and it would even be for the better. And when he actually faces them during conversation, it always feels like a confrontation.
Newman effortlessly unleashes Hud’s venom around his family while the other actors - in finely calibrated ensemble work - demonstrate how each character responds and rejects Hud’s actions. Homer is all about doing the right thing (Hud calls him “a man of high principles”), Hud has disdain for whatever right even means (Homer calls him ”an unprincipled man”), and Lonnie is the young man caught between the clash of these opposing forces.
Perhaps that’s probably one of the reasons why he perversely gravitates towards Alma (Neal), the housekeeper of the family. While the two engage in cryptic periods of sexual tension and with Alma’s seeming capacity to go toe-to-toe with Hud (or any man in the house, for that matter), it is clear that the lopsided power dynamic between the two informs this relationship.
Here, Newman weaponizes his sex appeal in terrifying ways. His bouts of flirtation demonstrate a titillating ease, but always teetering towards taking it a step into unwelcome aggression. Meanwhile, Neal illustrates Alma’s subtle maneuvering of these interactions with masterful trickiness. A woman made expert by her unfortunate history with the wrong men.
Take that scene where Hud visits Alma in her cabin. He smokes a cigarette with her as he circles around her room. Like a predator taking on a liking with a potential prey. And yet, Alma is no prey. She might just be the most alert character in the film and Hud knows that. He probably even likes the challenge. Alma knows she can match Hud, but to what extent? Newman’s swerves in this conversation are effortlessly strategic. He asks him about her interactions with men, past and present.
As she tells him her ex-husband was only good to scratch her itch, he asks her boldly: “still got that itch?” He does this while taking out the cigarette as he plays one of Alma’s flowers in his mouth. And then, he unleashes a smile both highly suggestive and sinister. It’s a master stroke from Newman, unleashing his sexual prowess while teasing both an irresistible prospect for seduction laced with danger that comes with Hud’s persona. As we know, this will unravel in the worst way possible.
Hud also takes Lonnie under his wing as he shows him how he navigates his ways. On a night out at the local pub, he nudges Lonnie into flirting with a woman who is already with another man. Lonnie gives in, getting the two of them involved in a brawl. Again, sex and violence. In this stretch, Newman and deWilde showcase an uneasy dynamic. While there is a pretense of congeniality between the two, notice how Newman steers the scene.
Hud is not interested in connecting with anybody with him unless it via submission. A burst of physical violence gives him a consuming satisfaction, enamoring Lonnie in the moment, but this won’t last long. It’s a brutal truth of the character, but Newman plasters it with deliberate use of his ease and charisma. It’s menacing to see his manipulation in action. As a piece of acting, it’s sly and volatile.
“You don’t care about people, Hud”, Homer tells Hud as he clocks him with his apathy. Smacked with the realization that his macho exterior - the stuff in which the male hero is built on - is nothing but a hollow defense mechanism. This catches Newman off-guard, in one of the rare moments where he loses control of the narrative. It’s not a sudden collapse but one that slowly works its way towards a hardened core until he is suddenly left emotionally naked. It’s astonishingly played by Newman.
Alas, this makes him descend even further. With a seeming defeat in his confrontation with Homer and Lonnie losing his allegiance to him, he decides to assert his floundering power by attempting to rape Alma. As this eerily quiet sequence unfolds, you see the intensity of both Newman and Neal come head-to-head in a harrowing act of violation. The sexual energy that Newman exerts in earlier scenes is perverted, showing how rotten Hud is in his core. When Lonnie stops Hud from assaulting Alma, Hud’s response was to try to also physically attack Lonnie. Yet again, sex and violence. Whatever left unsaid is already exposed. Hud will destroy and repel anyone around him, even those who care about him.
“You’re rough on everybody”, Alma says to Hud right before she leaves for good. Indeed, no one will be able to stand what Hud is and does. Left with an empty farm and house, Hud is left to suffer the consequences of his actions by the film's somber denouement. True to his father’s words - “you live just for yourself, and that makes you not fit to live with” - Hud ends up in a purgatory of his own making.
The indictment of this character would have only been as successful with Newman in this role. In a role that maximizes everything in his faculties as an actor, Newman utilizes subtle expressivity, suggestive physicality, and commanding screen presence to excavate the depths of a man (and rarely in closeups, for that matter). He doesn’t sand the edges of this man while giving the nuances that humanize a human being on the verge of repulsiveness. It’s a challenging character brought to life by one of the best to ever do it.
Paul Newman Centennial Tribute:
Reader Comments (3)
Still my favorite Newman performance. As much as I love Poitier, I wish he had been nominated and won in '61 or '67, because HUD is just something else.
Paul Newman deserved the Best Actor Oscar for this role over the person who got it.
Fantastic classic,Persoanlly I would have given that years Oscar to Richard Harris in This Sporting Life,that film is almost a British version of this tale.
Patricia Neal Lead or Supporting,deserving of the Oscar or not.
Melvyn Douglas deserved his and De Wilde would've been a worthy nominee,Ritt had a great rapport with actors.
This part of the USA never looked so dusty and bleak.