POP UP CINEMA BRIGHTON

White Wall Cinema presents

FRIDAY OCTOBER 9TH

MARTIN SCORSESE'S
THE COLOR OF MONEY
 TOM CRUISE SEASON

DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese

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STARRING: Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Helen Shaver, John Turturro, Bill Cobbs, Forest Whitaker, Robert Agins, Elizabeth Bracco, Keith McCready, & Iggy Pop.

If we were gamblers, our bet would be that this is the year Tom Cruise wins his first competitive Oscar. But why has it taken so long? It can't be understated just how deep and broad Cruise's prowess as a movie star is, nor the exceptional quality of the creatives he has worked with. For our Tom Cruise season, we take a look at three different maverick directors' treatments of Maverick himself.

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The first film in the season comes from master director Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street, Killers of the Flower Moon). Considered by many to be one of the most underrated films in the great man's filmography, The Color of Money is a revisiting of a character that Hollywood great Paul Newman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, Cool Hand Luke, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) played 25 years earlier in his career in the 1961 classic The Hustler.

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Not a direct sequel, (and you don't need to have seen The Hustler), the film brings back "Fast Eddie" Felson, now a jaded pool pro who has sworn off the game entirely. Eddie stumbles upon a young, highly talented but extremely cocky pool player, Vincent (played by an electric Tom Cruise), and his partner, played by the excellent Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (The Abyss), who was nominated for an Oscar here. Eddie takes the pair under his wing to teach them the tricks of the hustling trade, but the uneasy trio soon starts to show cracks at the seams.

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The first and only Oscar-winning role for Paul Newman, he is undeniably brilliant in the part. But it's the firecracker performance from Cruise that shows us the promise of the soon-to-be unparalleled movie star he would become, as well as the underappreciated actor he is. Filled with breathtaking cinematography from Fassbinder/Scorsese collaborator Michael Ballhaus (never has Scorsese's camera had such fun) and a score by Robbie Robertson of The Band, The Color of Money is undoubtedly THE key inspiration for the recent Josh Safdie / Timothée Chalamet film Marty Supreme, and the kind of kinetic drama that has only improved with age.

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Powered not by sentiment but by the flawed human nature of its characters, The Color of Money is a joyful expression of two cinematic masters at the height of their talents, Newman and Scorsese, while simultaneously giving us an early glimpse of the extraordinary screen presence and raw energy that would come to define Tom Cruise. The direct lineage between this bombastic performance and the one featured in Alejandro González Iñárritu's 2026 film Digger couldn't be clearer.​