The motion picture, based on Hemingway's autobiographical "Nick Adams" stories, depicts the picaresque experiences of an aspiring writer (Richard Beymer) who leaves his home in 1917 to learn about life
Near the beginning, the young man, thrown off a freight train, encounters the punch drunk fighter and his black manager and friend, Bugs (Juano Hernandez). The Battler, in his fifties, was once a top fighter, but he declined into second-rate matches, prison and panhandling (Rocky Graziano in reverse!).
As he and Nick sit in the woods by a fire, the pitiful, half-alive Battler speaks roughly, sometimes mumbling incoherently, about his life He searches pathetically for his thoughts and memories, makes useless swinging gestures in the air, and reflexively punches his fist into his palma man barely in control of his mind or muscles
This is the kind of self-effacing, grotesque-makeup part critics often like, and many thought he brought compassion as well, as physical reality to it Others believed that he overplayed it almost to the point of caricature; Bosley Crowther of The New York Times said, "It is Paul Newman's very good fortune that he isn't recognizable for he is simply terrible."
Near the beginning, the young man, thrown off a freight train, encounters the punch drunk fighter and his black manager and friend, Bugs (Juano Hernandez). The Battler, in his fifties, was once a top fighter, but he declined into second-rate matches, prison and panhandling (Rocky Graziano in reverse!).
As he and Nick sit in the woods by a fire, the pitiful, half-alive Battler speaks roughly, sometimes mumbling incoherently, about his life He searches pathetically for his thoughts and memories, makes useless swinging gestures in the air, and reflexively punches his fist into his palma man barely in control of his mind or muscles
This is the kind of self-effacing, grotesque-makeup part critics often like, and many thought he brought compassion as well, as physical reality to it Others believed that he overplayed it almost to the point of caricature; Bosley Crowther of The New York Times said, "It is Paul Newman's very good fortune that he isn't recognizable for he is simply terrible."