When constructing stories about troubled and flawed characters, it can be difficult to portray them in a way that leaves the audience sympathetic, but not accidentally glorifying their faults. After all, stories are exciting - people watch them to be taken to another world, to see life through another person's eyes and engage with the world in a new way. In doing so, it becomes easy, usually by design, to empathize with the characters, especially the protagonist, and from that empathy often comes respect or even admiration.

Some solutions can be found in 1974's The Gambler. The Gambler is a sort of crime thriller, following a college professor named Axel Freed (James Caan) who, when not teaching philosophy, spends his time and money on high stakes gambling. The movie begins with Axel finding himself in deep debt after a particularly bad run, and the rest of the film is about him trying to find a way to pay back that debt — without having to give up the addiction that caused his problem in the first place. Freed goes to every length he can to acquire the money he needs, at one point even getting the money just handed to him by his concerned mother, only to lose the money by gambling again in the hopes of paying off the debt with cash to spare. Like many people in similar situations, he wants to have his cake and eat it too, which lands him in hot water over and over again through the course of the film.

The Gambler-1974

It would be extremely easy to do a version of The Gambler that hits all of those same basic plot beats, including the ostensible message of how devastating Freed's addiction is to him and the people around him, while accidentally glorifying Freed in the process. High stakes gambling is exciting, after all, with its huge exchanges of cash, intense highs, and terrible lows. And, of course, winning feels good, whether you're doing it yourself or watching someone else. Usually we want to see the hero of our movies win, whether they be superheroes or underdogs. We're practically wired to expect that, since that's just how a typical movie goes.

As if made to prove this point, the 2014 remake of The Gambler starring Mark Wahlberg does exactly this. It has all the familiar tones and beats from the original film, but the 2014 movie frames Wahlberg's equivalent character, Jim Bennett, in a totally different way. Bennett gambles in cool, dark underground casinos. His nonchalance about his situation comes off as cool and collected, making it clear that Bennett even understands how dire his situation is.

The Gambler-2014

The third act of both films takes place prominently at an important college basketball game that the protagonist hopes to fix in his favor. In the 2014 film, it is shot like a modern fight scene, with lights and colors filling the screen, directing your eyes to the action and completely distracting from what a low point Bennett is at to be manipulating one of his students to be helping him illegally bet and win on college ball. And when the film ends, Bennett, barely a free man, gets a literal victory lap, running to his freedom with glee. He may have spent the whole movie in the deepest dregs of his own making, but by the end, the film seems to want us to believe that he has really done anything wrong at all.

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The 1974 film is a stark contrast to this. Axel is constantly gambling, but we never focus on the actual playing of the game. His gambling takes place in dirty, everyday casinos; we see him roll the dice, flip the cards, win and lose, but the camera is solely focused on Freed. Freed's expressions and his body language are telling the story during these moments instead, telling a story of a man in a constant fight between the short-lived highs his gambling gives him and the nervous reality of the rest of his life. He is visibly shaken when he is losing, and even when he has money he is never calm, because winning means he has the means to keep going, against his better judgment and even safety.

The key basketball game in the final act is shot plainly, focusing not on the game being played but on Freed nervously sitting in the rafters, eyes darting between his student in the game and the scoreboard. When he succeeds here, he is a sweaty mess; his friend who attends the game with him can't understand why he looks so dejected, but by that point the audience doesn't need to be told. At the end of the movie, he is safely out of debt, but at his lowest point yet, with a final shot of his slashed face after a seedy encounter gone awry, once again by his own fault.

The Gambler-1974-2

The difference that makes the 1974 version of The Gambler such an effective vehicle for a story about a man who is constantly sabotaging himself is clear here. The original film refuses to show the world directly from Freed's perspective — the only perspective from which he can come off as cool. The camera is focused entirely on him from an outside, objective point of view. The appealing parts of his life, like the money and games, are just out of frame the whole time. We are made to focus entirely on Freed himself, and when he is isolated from his surroundings, a sad picture is deftly painted. Yet, by focusing so closely on him, we can still understand his motivations, and therefore sympathize with his plight even as we understand his actions to be undeniable mistakes. These are the key techniques to crafting a protagonist who is flawed yet interesting character whose life we can find empathy in without accidentally endorsing.