Death of a dream

Movie: Chile, Obstinate Memory
Year: 1997
Director: Patricio Guzman

Imagine if everything you knew about your country was a lie. If not an outright lie, then at least a lie of omission. Imagine friends, family members, teachers, classmates who simply "disappeared" at one point, never to be seen again. Imagine asking questions and never getting any answers. The truth is out there, but how to get it? How to know?

That is the crux of "Chile, Obstinate Memory." Twenty-plus years on from the making of the epic political documentary "The Battle of Chile," Guzman returns to his native land to screen the film and see what has changed. Frighteningly, in some cases, not much. We are told early on that even 25 years after the coup that ousted and murdered president Salvador Allende, Chilean distributors are afraid to touch "Battle." The movie is almost like a myth in its own country--often heard of but rarely seen.

We see the impact that the coup has on Chilean society today through the people we meet. Guzman himself is an central character as we see him returning to the Estadio Nacional soccer stadium were he was interred for a time after the coup. We meet the doctor friend who treated Guzman ("I remember you asked me to reassure your wife.") We meet one of the guards who survived the death battle at La Moneda on Sept. 11 and watch as he returns to the palace disguised as a member of Guzman's crew.

Strikingly, we meet Allende's widow Hortensia Bussi (who died in July of 2009 at the age of 94), who shares her sadness. All she wants is for her family keepsakes to be released, perhaps so that she can give her grandson a sweater or a tie belonging to his grandfather. Predictably though, the release will never come. We meet the 80-year-old father of cameraman Jorge Muller Silva, who was "disappeared" like so many others and whose despair is palpable.

Perhaps most interesting are the reactions of the younger generation, those who weren't even born or who were too young to remember the events of Sept. 11, 1973. We see a group of female students arguing whether the government was right or wrong to overthrow Allende, while their teacher confesses her shame at having been a member of the right back then. We see the profound despair of another student, who breaks down in uncontrollable sobs while recounting that for him, Sept. 11 was just a day to miss school. In a film with many powerful images, perhaps he is the most vivid, the most haunting.

The central question in "Chile, Obstinate Memory" is what is a memory, exactly? Is it what we are told or what we know? If you come from a dysfunctional home, you will easily recognize this conflict. And in a sense, Chile is a dysfunctional home, with some covering up the truth while others scream to be heard. Just 58 minutes in length, the film powerful reminisces with the dark, troubled Chilean past. Ultimately, we are left feeling hopeful though as the students who finally get to know what really happened seem determined to keep fighting the good fight so that dictators like Allende's successor, Pinochet, and his torture rooms and prison camps are never allowed to flourish again.

Want to discuss "Chile, Obstinate Memory?" Leave a comment.

The Battle of Chile: A further look

Not an analysis as such, but an interesting article on Patricio Guzman's epic documentary, originally published in The Guardian in 2002 and written by Andy Beckett.

Three years ago, when I started researching my book on the arrest of General Pinochet and its underlying causes, one of the first things I did was go and see The Battle of Chile. The famous but little-shown documentary about how the dictator seized power in 1973 and destroyed the unique socialist government of Salvador Allende was being screened at a small film festival in south London.

It was a Saturday afternoon, the first sunny one of the spring, but the screening was sold out. As soon as I walked into the cinema, I began to understand why. Half an hour before the film was due to start, the gloom of the auditorium was alive with chatter: some in Spanish, some in fast, Spanish-accented English, some in the earnest murmur of London's politically engaged classes. In the seats and in the aisles, arguing, clustering and greeting each other, were middle-aged men and teenagers, women with immaculate make-up and men with straggling beards, people in new suits and people in old hippie scarves. About half were Chileans and half were Britons, but everyone was expectant, like a devout church congregation. In the front row, a grey-haired Chilean man just sat, hands clasped, staring silently at the blank screen and waiting for the film to start.

This three-part, four-and-a-half-hour documentary, which is to be shown in full tomorrow at the Conway Hall in London to mark the 29th anniversary of Pinochet's coup in Chile, remains the sacred text of the general's opponents at home and abroad. It is also the source of many of the images by which the wider world has, intermittently, tried to understand Chile ever since its famous political convulsions in the 70s. Lastly, the film is an example of a valuable but increasingly rare kind of political film-making, which links the rise and fall of ideologies and politicians directly and dramatically to the society around them. It is hard to watch The Battle of Chile and still see "politics" in the modern way, as just an unappealing abstract noun.

Part one begins with the burning hulk of the presidential palace in Santiago on the day of the coup, smoke pouring through the balustrades - the perfect metaphor for Pinochet's termination of a century and a half of almost continuous Chilean democracy. Other scenes soon appear that were replayed on the news around the world throughout the 70s, and again after Pinochet was arrested in London in 1998: white-faced civilians running for cover during the coup; tanks crawling up Santiago's avenues like great, malevolent beetles; roaring jets beginning their bombing runs overhead.

But The Battle of Chile is a more complex work than its title and climactic sections suggest. After a few minutes, the story switches back to 1972, the year before the coup, when Pinochet was just another general in the Chilean army and the Allende administration was an experiment with an apparent chance of success. There are interviews with ordinary-looking Chileans accosted in the street. At first these seem conveniently pro-government ("Thanks to Allende, I've got a lovely house," a smiling woman says). Other interviewees have no feelings about Allende one way or the other; a socialist revolution may be sweeping the country, but they are not even reading the papers.

Yet some people are openly furious. Businessmen, taxi drivers and middle-class housewives lecture the camera about how Allende is ruining Chile. They are not challenged; instead, the camera wanders with irreverent curiosity away from their faces and over their respectable, buttoned-up clothes and tensed bodies. The film becomes, in part, a study of conservatism and what happens when it is threatened.

As 1972 turns into 1973, and Allende's opponents move from rhetoric to parliamentary sharp practice to plotting to overthrow democracy altogether, the film-makers still move freely among them, but the ominous glances they now receive at meetings of right-wing politicians and at military gatherings suggest that the freedom to make probing documentaries may not exist for much longer.

Everything about the style of the film - the restless camera, the short scenes, the present-tense voiceover - indicates that its makers suspected this as well. Patricio Guzmán, the director, was a young left-wing Chilean who had been studying film in Europe and arrived back in Santiago in 1972 with a year's supply of film stock and the conviction that history was being made in Chile and could be captured. This sense of great but fleeting possibility was shared by the government: in one scene here, the bookish-looking Allende, in his thick spectacles, grips the lectern at a massive outdoor rally, as flags flutter above the absolutely silent crowd, and he shouts: "We can feel history here!"

Part of the lasting appeal of The Battle of Chile, and of the Allende administration, has always been the vivid but beleaguered quality of the Chilean revolution. At the same time, the look and structure of the documentary act as reminders of a more risk-taking, expansive time in film-making. Often Guzmán will show an image for many seconds before the voiceover comes in and explains its relevance; sometimes he does not explain it at all. At one point, a line of white-coated street vendors pedalling white food carts and blowing through paper cones suddenly appears. The context and their defiant expressions suggest this is a pro-Allende demonstration, but no one says so. You can relish it as a revolutionary metaphor, or simply as a droll piece of cinema.

In between its moments for aesthetes and romantics, the film makes more specific political points. Pinochet's slyness is well illustrated by a glimpse of him a few months before the coup, sunglasses on, helmet pulled down, dressed like an ordinary soldier as he saunters amicably along with some other officers, who are still loyal to the government and have just put down a premature army rebellion. Meanwhile, the difference between Allende's "Chilean road to socialism" and more authoritarian, Soviet-inspired versions - a difference denied to this day by Pinochet's supporters - is made disarmingly clear by a confrontation between Allende and a crowd of left-wingers, who are chanting for him to close down parliament. He refuses, and the protesting whistles are fierce for a time. Then the crowd goes quiet and listens.

Stretches of the documentary are closer to orthodox leftwing polemic. Trade unionists and factories are sometimes filmed from heroic angles. The final part, which focuses on everyday life under Allende as if the coup had never happened, includes lines of voiceover such as: "By mid-October the workers' organisational capacity has surpassed all expectations." There are scenes of people distributing sacks of onions in poor areas - the less photogenic side of the revolution. But even these sections have an intriguing instability to them: people are always stopping to argue about the way forward for Chilean socialism. Disputes are not neatly resolved for the camera.

The film ends with a shot of the Chilean desert, as two workers wonder off-camera about the likely fate of the revolution. Barren dead-end or boundless opportunity - you can interpret the film's final verdict on the Allende period as you wish. Just don't expect the audience to leave the Conway Hall quietly tomorrow.

Power to the People

Movie: The Battle of Chile
Years: Part 1: The Insurrection of the Bourgeoisie (1975); part 2: The Coup d'Etat (1976); part 3: The Power of the People (1979)
Director: Patricio Guzman

For Chileans, the date September 11 has the same tragic resonance as it does for us in the United States. It was on that date back in 1973 that the democratically elected Marxist president of the country, Salvador Allende, was killed when a military coup (backed by the red-fearing U.S. government) storm La Moneda palace in Santiago and overthrew the government. This film, rarely seen in Chile and still something of a mystery in most of the world at large, chronicles Allende's death and the events that led up to it. It was a heady time in Chile and Guzman and his brave crew--who were often themselves on the front lines--do a superb job in chronicling the turbulent times. In fact, one cameramen, the Argentine Leonard Hendrickson, was killed filming a street skirmish between troops and protesters, capturing the face of his killer--a hard-assed military type--in the final flickering seconds of his life.

The film begins with in March of 1973. Citizens of all stripe are questioned as to their opinions on the upcoming election. Allende--having been elected fair and square--has already been in office two years by this point and has been trying to reorganize Chilean society along democratic socialist lines.

The opposition, consisting of the right-wing Partido Nacional (National Party) and the more centrist Christian Democratic Party defined the elections as a plebiscite on Allende's government and are hoping to emerge with enough seats in Parliament to impeach the president. The opposition did indeed make strides but not enough. So therefore a change in strategy was needed--force--to unseat Allende.
Part 1 ends with a failed coup attempt from June, 1973. At this point, the military wasn't entirely on board with the idea that it should be the one to overthrow Allende. The death of Hendrickson is incredible--both for the cold-bloodedness on the part of the military man who kills him and for Hendrickson's unflinching devotion to his duty as a filmmaker. How could he stand in the line of fire like that, possibly (probably?) knowing what the consequences were? Bravery and courage somehow seem like insufficient words to describe Hendrickson's act. And it was important too in the sense that it foreshadowed much of what was to come in Chile as the military gained more and more power and bloodlust.

The second part picks up at that point, and is equally gripping. One of the highlights is a debate between General Carlos Prats and Jose Toha, the Minister of Defense (both of whom were murdered by the military following the events of Sept. 11.) about how to proceed. It is a fascinating exchange--how often are we allowed to see the inner workings of a government, any government, at the highest levels?--and is another of the many examples of stupendous work by Guzman and his crew. Really, it can't be stressed enough the dedication they showed to seeing their project through. They were seemingly at every rally, every protest and every government meeting.

The key question in part 2, though, is this: Knowing, as many people then did (at least theoretically) that the opposition and the U.S. government were planning a coup, what was to be done? The film accurately presents the debate that existed within the left. Should it accelerate the process and prepare for an armed confrontation or, alternatively, should it attempt to build an alliance with the PDC and prevent it from siding completely with the right? The filmmakers' sympathies for the former option are clear.

In interviews with individuals and through footage of the mass, pro-government demonstrations that punctuated the months prior to the coup, the filmmakers convey the impression that the majority of base level supporters wanted a mano dura (firm hand) against the "momias" (literally the mummies or the bourgeoisie, the dead and dying class). As they march the people chant "crear, crear, milicia popular" (create, create, a People's Militia). In interview after interview, workers question the government's timidity and make it clear that they want weapons to defend themselves.

A second theme of this and the other two sections is poder popular (popular power). In the industrialized sections of Santiago workers took over their factories and set up "cordones industriales," organizations which united workers in the same industrial belts, specifically Los Cerillos, Vicuna Mackenna, and Puente Alto. The "cordones industriales" were both an expression of workers taking control of their work situation and a means to defend themselves against attacks from the opposition. The workers' initiative and development of the cordones industriales led some party and government officials to ask whether or not the workers were forming parallel organizations, a possibility that much of the government and CUT (Central Unica de Trabajadores, the Central Workers Union which grouped together the unions supportive of the government), disagreed with.

In one memorable scene, a CUT official meets with workers to discuss the issue of the workers taking over their factories and initiating the cordones industriales. One worker challenges the CUT official's disapproval of the workers' actions by asking, "Don't you have faith in popular power? Doesn't the president have faith in the organizations we create?"

In one particularly powerful scene, we witness the memorial service for commander Araya Peters, Allende's naval aide-de-camp, whom the right most likely murdered. As the camera pans the faces of the top military officials gathered for the service, a dirge plays. The film clearly conveys that we are watching the death of the Popular Unity government, not just that of one loyal military officer. Part 2 concludes with Allende's final speech, the bombing of La Moneda, the presidential palace, and the Junta's declaration upon seizing power.”

Part 3 changes the pace in a sudden and interesting way. The first two parts followed the events leading up to the coup chronologically; in the third section, Guzman--who was in this point in exile in Sweden having spent time interred at infamous concentration camp set up at the Estadio Nacional--instead chooses to honor the achievement of Allende’s government by backtracking in time and documenting in greater detail the mechanics of popular power within. This is the shortest and in my opinion weakest of the three sections, but only because the immediacy and potency of the first two sections is so overwhelming.

In her famous review in the New Yorker, the legendary Pauline Kael makes an interesting point about "Battle:" "How could a team of five - some with no previous film experience - working with ... one Éclair camera, one Nagra sound recorder, two vehicles ... and a package of black-and-white film stock sent to them by the French documentarian Chris Marker produce a work of this magnitude? The answer has to be partly, at least; through Marxist discipline..The young Chilean director and his associates had a sense of purpose. The twenty hours of footage they shot had to be smuggled out of the country ... the cameraman, Jorge Muller, hasn't been heard of since his imprisonment. The others fled separately, assembled in Cuba, and together with a well known Chilean film editor Pedro Chaskel, ... worked on the movie ... Aesthetically, this is a major film, and that gives force even to the patterning of its charges ... It needs to be seen on public television, with those (U.S.) government officials who formed policy toward Allende explaining what interests they believed they were furthering."

I agree; it is impossible to view this film without reflecting on the dedication and courage of the filmmakers. We hear of those who "sacrifice for their art," but what does this really mean? Does it mean putting your neck on the line or does it mean a few less nights out because funds are low? Whose side are you on? For Guzman it's simple, in every frame, with each magnificent shot, he strives to bring Allende's persona and the dedication of the people, the workers and the "good guys" in the government to the fore. As a chant heard throughout the movie says: Allende, Allende, el pueblo se defiende! (Allende, Allende, the people will defend you).

A better political documentary you will never see. Honest, brave, passionate filmmaking that would be very hard to surpass in these self-indulgent times.

Want to talk about "The Battle of Chile?" Leave a comment.

Long distance runaround

Movie: Run Fat Boy Run
Year: 2007
Director: David Schwimmer

I approached this movie a little hesitantly because it doesn't fit in snugly with my "I'm more obscure than you" view of the arts. I mean, look at the director--you can't get anymore mainstream than one of the "Friends." Nevertheless, I felt compelled to watch it because I too, am a fat boy.

As a child, a wore the "Husky Plus" sizes from Sears. In my teens, I grew out of it but by the time I got to college I had porked up again. Living alone in a strange city with a grocery store literally 50 feet from your apartment will do that for you. In my adult life I've weighed anywhere from 330 (an estimate because my scale only went up to 320) and 170 pounds. It is a constant battle and something I will always have to be mindful of. I can literally go from fit to fat in the course of a day. I have also been a runner. In fact there was a time not so long ago when I was hammering out 20-30 miles per week, just for the exercise (I was not training for anything.) I'll always remember the bemused expression of the security guard who worked at my building went I went out for my nightly torture sessions. Rain, sleet, snow, freezing cold--you name it and I was there and he would always shake his head and chuckle at my dedication/stupidity. Like the non-running characters in the movie, I often asked "why?" Like I said, I wasn't training for anything so why throw perfectly good free time after work? I didn't truly WANT to do it--I never enjoyed it much and I never really got any better at it. Who knows--maybe it was some sort of penance for my earlier heavy days? Punishment? Whatever the reason, I can certainly relate to the characters in this movie who ask why but still try.

The main character of the movie is Dennis (Simon Pegg in a really funny role). The movie starts five years in the past--in a huge upset, Dennis is engaged to marry Libby (Thandie Newton), who is already pregnant. Something gets to Dennis on his wedding day (fear of commitment, fear of failure, lack of confidence, all of the above) and he takes off like Usain Bolt leaving his fiancee at the altar. Flash ahead to the future, Dennis is a lowly security guard at a Victoria's Secret-type store. He's going nowhere fast in life but has one redeeming quality--he's a kind and caring, albeit somewhat irresponsible, dad. Libby has a new man in her life, corporate hot-shot Whit (Hank Azaria). Whit is everything that Dennis isn't--successful and wealthy but also arrogant and condescending. When it becomes apparent that he's losing Libby for good, Dennis hits upon a half-baked plan to win her over--he'll run and complete the same marathon that Whit is training for. Of course complicating this fact is that Dennis is, as he says, "unfit."

With the aid of his best mate Gordon (Dylan Moran) and neighbor Mr. Goshdashtidar (Harish Patel), Dennis sets about training for the race of his life. Both Gordon and Mr. G. have a vested interest in Dennis' success and their scenes together are the funniest and also most moving of the movie. There's really no suspense here--if you can't see where this one is going then you've probably seen even fewer movies than I have. But that's fine, the ride is really enjoyable, the characters are warm and likable (except for the obnoxious Whit) and it's all good clean fun.

Want to discuss "Run Fat Boy Run?" Leave a comment.

Cool Hand Look: An analysis

Here's a thorough analysis of "Cool Hand Luke" by Tim Dirks of Filmsite.org.

"Cool Hand Luke" (1967) is the moving character study of a non-conformist, anti-hero loner who bullheadedly resists authority and the Establishment. One of the film's posters carried a tagline related to the character's rebelliousness: "The man...and the motion picture that simply do not conform." With this vivid film, director Stuart Rosenberg made one of the key films of the 1960s, a decade in which protest against established powers was a key theme. One line of the film's dialogue from Strother Martin is often quoted: "What we've got here is...failure to communicate."

This superb, crowd-pleasing film was based upon a screenplay co-authored by ex-convict Donn Pearce (and Frank R. Pierson), from Pearce's own novel of the same name. The main character Luke (played by Paul Newman) was inspired by real-life convicted safecracker Donald Graham Garrison. Telly Savalas was originally considered for the role, and Bette Davis was also considered for the part of Luke's mother.

The chain-gang prison film (e.g., I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932) has a long history in American films, and this one also provided entertaining performances, especially with Paul Newman in one of his best roles as masochistic Luke, after playing similar anti-heroes in The Hustler (1961) and Hud (1963). Other stars who played convicts in the chain gang in smaller roles included Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton, Ralph Waite, Wayne Rogers, Joe Don Baker, and Anthony Zerbe.

Rich religious symbolism, references and imagery are deeply embedded within the narrative, with some critics arguing that Luke represents a modern-day, messianic Christ figure who ministers to a group of disciples and refuses to give up under oppression. The film's theme - of an outsider-protagonist who transforms the occupants of a Southern chain gang institution and tragically sacrifices himself at the end - resembles the anti-hero character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).

The film was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Actor (Paul Newman, who lost to Rod Steiger in In the Heat of the Night (1967), Best Supporting Actor (George Kennedy in a break-out role), Best Adapted Screenplay (Donn Pearce and Frank R. Pierson), and Best Original Music Score (Lalo Schifrin) and won only for Best Supporting Actor.

In the opening scene, set in the South in 1948 [the film was shot on location in Stockton, California], Lucas "Luke" Jackson (Paul Newman) is arrested for the minor offenses of being drunk and destroying two long rows of parking meters in a defiant act of rebellion. As he lazily cuts off the heads of the meters with a pipe cutter, the red, two-hour time limit VIOLATION warning pops up, foreshadowing his own imminent arrest. Luke is detached toward police when they arrive at the scene and arrest him for social defiance - under a streetlight's glare, he laughs at them with a big grin. The next scene, playing under the credits, is of the typical, grueling road work forced upon prisoners - an imprisonment which reflects the authentic horrors of life on a chain gang in a Southern prison.

The vehicle bringing Luke and three other prisoners to a correctional Southern prison is reflected in the mirror-lens sunglasses of one of the guards. In a lineup in front of the main prison guard, the authoritarian Captain (Strother Martin), the new inmates are taught obedience: "You call the Captain 'Captain'...and you call the rest of us 'Boss', you hear?" [The scene has been compared to Christ's appearance before Pontius Pilate.] Luke is there for "maliciously destroyin' municipal property while under the influence." The soft-voiced Captain is astonished at the uniqueness of Luke's irreverent crime: "We ain't never had one of them before." Luke describes his own feelings about destroying bureaucratic, regulatory property: "I guess you could say I wasn't thinkin', Captain." Although he performed well in the war, a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and a couple of Purple Hearts, and attained the rank of Sergeant, he "come out the same way" he went in: "Buck Private." Ultimately alienated, Luke had often fought the system - and lost: "I was just passin' time, Captain."

The reticent loner is given a two year sentence to work on a chain gang (Division of Corrections, Road Prison 36) with forty-nine other prisoners. He is instructed in the preliminary line-up:

You gonna fit in real good, of course, unless you get rabbit in your blood and you decide to take off for home. You give the bonus system time and a set of leg chains to keep you slowed down just a little bit, for your own good, you'll learn the rules. Now, it's all up to you. Now I can be a good guy, or I can be one real mean son-of-a-bitch. It's all up to you.

Luke is placed in an isolated environment with strict rules, guards, and regimentation and his fiercely individualistic spirit immediately clashes.

In the bunk house, a litany of rules are delivered by a strutting, cigar-chomping, broad-waisted, white-uniformed guard-floor walker named Carr (Clifton James). Each infraction is rewarded with "a night in the box":

Them clothes got laundry numbers on 'em. You remember your number and always wear the ones that has your number. Any man forgets his number spends the night in the box. These here spoons, you keep with ya. Any man loses his spoon spends a night in the box. There's no playin' grab-ass or fightin' in the building. You got a grudge against another man, you fight him Saturday afternoon. Any man playin' grab-ass or fightin' in the building spends a night in the box. First bell is at five minutes of eight...Last bell is at eight. Any man not in his bunk at eight spends a night in the box. There's no smokin' in the prone position in bed. If you smoke, you must have both legs over the side of your bunk. Any man caught smokin' in the prone position in bed spends the night in the box. You'll get two sheets. Every Saturday, you put the clean sheet on the top and the top sheet on the bottom. The bottom sheet you turn into the laundry boy. Any man turns in the wrong sheet spends a night in the box. No one will sit in the bunks with dirty pants on. Any man with dirty pants on sittin' on the bunks spends a night in the box. Any man don't bring back his empty pop bottle spends a night in the box. Any man loud-talkin' spends a night in the box. You got questions, you come to me...Any man don't keep order spends a night in the box.

Carr immediately senses Luke's cool contempt: "I hope you ain't gonna be a hard case." Hulking boss convict Dragline (George Kennedy) bullies one of the new convicts with his own top-dog attitude: "Boy, you're new meat. You're gonna have to shape up fast and hard for this gang. We got rules here. In order to learn 'em, you gotta do more work with your ears than with your mouth." Luke soon draws the attention of Dragline and is eyed suspiciously as a con-artist - he is treated as a hostile, spirited and flippant outsider. The newcomer is advised: "You don't have a name here until Dragline gives you one." As the acknowledged leader of the gang, Dragline has a preliminary name for Luke and they have their first sparring:

Dragline: (About Luke) Maybe we ought to call it No Ears. (To Luke) You don't listen much, do ya, boy?
Luke: I ain't heard that much worth listenin' to. There's a lot of guys layin' down a lot of rules and regulations.

At dawn, the shackled men quickly assemble to be driven to work. During the drive in the van, Dragline continues to belittle Luke, the "war hero," about his crime:

Dragline: Tearin' the heads off of, what was it, gumball machines? What kind of thing is that of a grown man?
Luke: Well, you know how it is. Small town. Not much to do in Eaton. Mostly was just settlin' an old score.

In the searing hot sun, the road-gang convicts endure back-breaking physical labor - chopping dusty weeds by the side of the highway. The men must ask permission, e.g., "Takin' it off, boss," when they want to do something out of the ordinary, such as remove articles of clothing in the heat. They are closely eyed by one of the impassive, impersonal yet sadistic guards - the 'man with no eyes' Boss Godfrey (Morgan Woodward) - a nameless boss with reflective sunglasses who never speaks. Their main mid-day meal is a pile of beans and a slab of cornbread. Even Luke's eating habits are distinctively non-conformist - he takes a bite and leaves the spoon sticking out of his mouth.

One of the new inmates, Gibson complains about his job assignment (after being promised to switch to an easier job in a set-up) - he is given "a chance to think about it" with an overnight stay in the box - "a very valuable lesson." Dragline disavows responsibility for the cruel joke, but Luke is tersely sarcastic:

Dragline: He ain't in the box because of the joke played on him. He back-sassed a free man. They got their rules. We ain't got nothin' to do with that. Would probably have happened to him sooner or later anyway - a complainer like him. He gotta learn the rules the same as anybody else.
Luke: Yeah, them poor old Bosses need all the help they can get.
Dragline: You tryin' to say somethin'? You got a flappin' mouth. (His words are drowned out by the last bell). One of these days, I'm gonna have to flap me up some dust with it.

Carr accounts for all of the 50 prisoners after the last bell: "Forty-nine, one in the box, Boss."

One day while the men are digging a ditch in the scorching sun, a blonde-haired, shapely and sexy young woman (Joy Harmon) in a neighboring house prepares to wash her car, sending the men into a voyeuristic frenzy. She brings out a radio and turns it on, signalling the beginning of her sexual act. One of the convicts asks permission to clean his glasses: "Wipin' off here, boss." As she opens up the nozzle on her watering hose, a particularly-apt phallic symbol, the men perk up and attentively spy "the scenery." One of the prisoners can't endure the lustful suffering she is creating: "Oh man, oh man, I'm dyin'." One man can't endure the lustful suffering she creates: "Oh man, oh man, I'm dyin'." The woman wets down the car and then lathers and caresses white, frothy soap suds over the car's surfaces. She tempts and stimulates the men even further in the symbolic simulation of the sex act. She looks into the car's rear view mirror and into one of the tire's shiny hubcaps to look back to see how the men are being pleasured.

Her loose-fitting blouse with well-endowed breasts begins to open up and taunt them. Gambler (Wayne Rogers) observes: "She ain't got nothin' but, nothin' but one safety pin holdin' that thing on. Come on safety pin, POP. Come on baby, POP." The men dig more vigorously as she heightens her own cleansing activity. Dragline prays to the heavens to sustain his eyesight just a little longer for the girl he names Lucille: "Hey Lord, whatever I done, don't strike me blind for another couple of minutes. My Lucille!...That's Lucille, you mother-head. Anything so innocent and built like that just gotta be named Lucille." Knowing that she has a ripe and attentive audience, the blonde rubs the car harder and harder. In the most blatantly sexual act of all - the orgasmic conclusion to her show - she squeezes the white foam out of her sponge and rubs the soap suds across her abdomen. Luke (Paul Newman) knows what she is doing:

Convict: She don't know what she's doin'.
Luke: Oh boy, she knows exactly what she's doin'. She's drivin' us crazy and lovin' every minute of it.
Dragline: Shut your mouth about my Lucille.

She gently drinks from the end of the penis-shaped hose. While washing the roof of the car, her soaped-up, ample breasts are squeezed as they rub back and forth across the car's window.

Later that evening while the men take a communal shower, their frustrated and already-heightened sexual-aggressive tendencies flare up. In the hot-house barracks as the men lie in their bunks, they sweat profusely. Dragline remembers the afternoon's entertainment and fantasizes while frustrating the other prison-mates: "Did you see how she was just about POP-in' out of the top of that dress...And down below, man, that thing didn't reach no higher than...She liable to catch cold runnin' around like that. It was stretched so tight across her bottom, I do believe I saw one of them seams bust loose. And the openin' got wider and wider and wider." Luke brings him back to reality, causing Dragline to take a particular disliking toward him:

Luke: Forget it, man.
Dragline: Whaddya mean, forget it?
Luke: Stop beatin' it into the ground. It ain't doin' nobody no good.
Dragline: OK, new meat. You get some sleep. And save your strength, cause you're gonna need it. Tomorrow.

The ventilation fan in the bunkhouse spins and cuts to the next day's weekly boxing sparring, where Luke is challenged to a showdown - the weekly knock-down, drag-out boxing fight in front of the other men. Characteristic of his indomitable spirit, in the middle of a circle of convicts, Luke is severely bloodied and beaten by Dragline but won't stay down. The other convicts sensibly advise him to stop and survive the epic pounding: "Just stay down, Luke. He's just gonna knock ya down again, buddy...It's not your fault. He's just too big...Let him hit you in the nose and get some blood flowing. Maybe the bosses will stop it before he kills you." Mockingly, strong-willed Luke replies: "I don't want to frighten him."

Ignoring their suggestions, Luke taunts Dragline as he doggedly keeps fighting without surrendering. In the bloody fray, he takes the brutal punishment upon himself, suffering for their entertainment at first, and then taking the blows that could lead to his own death. Repelled by Luke's mindless, 'who-cares' attitude, Dragline eventually implores Luke to drop and quit so that he won't be killed:

Dragline: Stay down. You're beat.
Luke: You're gonna have to kill me.

By not submitting his spirit, Luke 'wins' the fight when his opponent walks away, although Dragline convincingly overpowers him physically. Luke's iron will earns the grudging respect of Dragline and other convicts.

He also proves himself a hero and endears himself to the inmates during a poker game. With a winning hand of 'nothin', easy-going, stone-faced Luke successfully bluffs his opponent. After winning the pot, Luke is anointed with his prison name:

Dragline (laughing): Nothin'. A handful of nothin'. (To the losing, card-playing convict) You stupid mullet-head. He [Luke] beat you with nothin'. Just like today when he kept comin' back at me - with nothin'.
Luke: Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real Cool Hand.

[Luke's dependence on "nothin'" and the many parallels between Luke and Jesus Christ recall the Biblical reference in Luke 1:37: "For with God, nothing shall be impossible." Luke's prisoner number was also 37.]

Dragline begins to establish a friendship, luxuriating in the reflective glory of Luke's exuberant victories. He develops a nickname for Luke - while sliding over near him: "Move over. I'm gonna sit in here next to my boy - Cool Hand Luke." The label signifies Luke's cool-headed, independent, individualistic spirit that won't submit to the powers that be.

Luke's sickly, dying mother Arletta (Jo Van Fleet) visits one Sunday afternoon to say goodbye, stiffly and painfully propped up in the bed of the pickup truck - it is presumably their last time together. Driven by her respectable son John, Sr. (John Pearce), she is chain-smoking a cigarette while coughing [with lung cancer or consumptive TB?]. Arletta still cares and expresses warm affection for her wayward yet favored son - but with guarded words. Although she is disappointed about how he turned out (and feeling guilty about her role as caregiver), Luke tells her that she'd done her best raising him as a single mother. In the tragic scene which implies much about her son's broken childhood and upbringing, the terminally-ill Arletta expresses regrets and resigns herself to "let go" of her independent-minded son who tried to live like she did - "free and above board." In the poignant conclusion to their conversation, she plans - after her death - to give her inheritance to her less-loved son John:

Arletta: I always hoped to see you well fixed. Have me a crop of grandkids to fuss around with.
Luke: I'd like to oblige you, Arletta, but uh, right off, I just don't know where to put my hands on it.
Arletta: You know, sometimes, I wished people was like dogs, Luke. Comes a time, a day like, when the bitch just don't recognize the pups no more, so she don't have no hopes nor love to give her pain. She just don't give a damn...(She hands him the pack of cigarettes)
Luke: You've done your best, Arletta. What I've done - myself is the only problem.
Arletta: No, no it ain't Luke. You ain't alone. Everywhere you go, I'm with you. John too.
Luke: You never thought maybe that's a heavy load?
Arletta: Aw, why, we, we always thought you was strong enough to carry it. Was we wrong?
Luke: I don't know. There are things just never the way they seem, Arletta. You know that. A man's gotta go his own way.
Arletta: I guess I just gotta, gotta love you and let go, hmm?
Luke: I guess.
Arletta: Well, I ain't askin' what ya gonna do when you get out because I'll be dead and it don't matter.
Luke: You never did want to live forever. I mean, it wasn't such a hell of a life.
Arletta: Oh, I had me, I had me some high old times. Your old man, Luke. He wasn't much good for stickin' around, but dammit, he made me laugh.
Luke: Yeah, I would have liked to have knowed him, the way you talk about him.
Arletta: (after coughing) He'd have broke you up. Luke?...What went wrong?
Luke: Nothin', everything's cool as can be. Arletta, I tried. I mean, to live always free and above board like you. And, I don't know. I just can't seem to find no elbow room.
Arletta: (takes his hand) Oh now, you always had good jobs. And that girl in Kentucky. Oh, I'd taken a shine to her.
Luke: And she sure took off - with that convertible fella.
Arletta: Well, why not? Idea of marryin' got you all, all bollocksed-up. Tryin' to be respectable. You, you was borin' the hell out of all of us. I'm leavin' the place to John.
Luke: That's good. He earned it.
Arletta: Ain't nothin' to do with it. I just, I just never give John the, the kind of, you know, feelin' that I give you, so I'm, I'm gonna pay him back now. Oh, don't feel you have to say anythin'. The way it is, you see, sometimes you just, just have a feelin' for a child...with John, I just didn't.

As Luke is told his time is up for the visit, Arletta encourages him: "Laugh it up, kid. You'll, you'll make out." Luke's nephew John, Jr. (Eddie Rosson) asks why his uncle doesn't have chains, and Luke answers with experience:

John, Jr.: Why can't you have chains?
Luke: ...You know, them chains ain't medals. You get 'em for makin' mistakes. And you make a bad enough mistake and then you gotta deal with the man - and he is one rough old boy. OK?

John, Sr. presents his brother with his last remaining possession - a banjo: "Now there ain't nothin' to come back for." [The Tramp (Harry Dean Stanton) sings the religious song Just a Closer Walk With Thee on the front steps of the bunk house, accompanying himself by strumming a guitar.]

One of the detestable jobs the prisoners must perform is to shovel sandy dirt onto a newly-tarred country road that stretches out into the distance. It is hot, back-breaking work but rebellious Luke makes a frenzied challenge out of it, spurring the prisoners on to work faster and shovel harder. Dragline urges the men to follow Luke's lead: "Use that shovel like it was your spoon...shag it, mac.. Hah!" Boss Godfrey can't walk fast enough down the center of the road to keep up with their progress. Dragline discovers that their enforced labor is fun: "I don't know whether to smile, spit, or swallow." After Luke's sabotage of the system, the guards are embarrassed that the work is completed in record time and there is nothing left to do for the rest of the day. The scene fades out on a red STOP sign.

Dragline: Where'd the road go?
Luke: That's it. That's the end of it.
Convict: Man, there's still daylight.
Dragline: About two hours left.
Convict: What do we do now?
Luke: Nothin'.
Dragline: Oh Luke, you wild, beautiful thing. You crazy handful of nothin'.

As a prelude to the film's memorable, comic egg-eating contest scene, Dragline bets on his boy Luke: "He can eat busted bottles and rusty nails, any damned thing." Luke boldly wagers that he can eat fifty hard-boiled eggs in one hour. [The number 50 becomes significant - since there are 50 prisoners' souls and 50 eggs, Luke's ingesting of the eggs parallels Christ's taking upon himself the sins of the world and bringing about a rebirth. Eggs, the celebration of Easter, and the resurrection are symbolically tied together.] The men exuberantly bet against him, disbelieving that he can perform the miracle without throwing up: "Fifty eggs gotta weigh a good six pounds...A man's gut can't hold that. They'll swell up and bust him open....They're gonna kill him." Remarkably, Luke takes the challenge - it's raining and the activity will pass the time: "It be somethin' to do." After a period of preparatory training, stretching his stomach's skin to make room for the eggs ("What we gotta do is stretch that little ol' belly of yours. Get all this stuff out of the way. Them eggs are coming down!"), and eating speed tests, Luke is about ready. He sits on his top bunk with a towel draped over his head [another Christ image].

Dragline readies the crowd for the contest: "All right. Stand back you pedestrians, this ain't no automobile accident." As Luke's trainer, he peels the eggs before they are eaten, arguing that Luke doesn't have to peel his own eggs within the hour limit: "When it comes to the law, nothin' is understood...I'm his official egg-peeler. That's the law!" The big event begins with Luke's entrance, the removal of his shirt, and his kneeling down in front of the men who surround a table in front of him. One of the convicts observes how quickly Luke pops each egg in his mouth: "He's gonna lose a finger eatin' eggs like that." After 32 eggs, Luke's bloated stomach bows out: "Just like a ripe watermelon that's about to bust itself open." Some of the men bet against him as Luke anoints his forehead with water. Dragline, with Luke in cahoots with him, encourages everyone to wager everything against Luke: "I wanna hear from some big money men. Where's all the high rollers?" Society Red (J.D. Cannon) replies that everything has been bet: "I believe you've got it all, Dragline. Every cent in camp is riding."

As time is running out, and Luke approaches the elusive goal of 50 eggs, Dragline coaxes him on: "Just nine more between you and everlastin' glory...Just little ol' eggs. They pigeon eggs, that's all." The men mimic his chewing action. Up until the last second, it is uncertain whether he has swallowed the last egg. After his winning victory, Luke is laid out on a table strewn with egg shells. The men quickly forget about him and abandon him after using him for their own amusement. Luke is left alone - from an overhead shot, his arms are outstretched, his legs are crossed at the ankle, his eyes are closed, and his head is tilted toward the left - [a symbolic Christ-like crucifixion pose]. An enigmatic grin crosses his face.

When a poisonous rattlesnake in the thick grass along a country road threatens the men as they chop weeds in a ditch, Luke boldly grabs for it and holds it up. The 'man with no eyes' shoots the head off the rattler with one shot from a shotgun. Luke reflects back the boss' expertise in his dark sunglasses: "Man, you sure can shoot." A booming thunderstorm breaks open the skies above the men. While the convicts are permitted to scamper to the truck for cover from the rain, Luke looks up and gestures toward the heavens. In a conversation with God, he challenges God's power over nature and his own life, but he concludes that God's existence is questionable:

Luke: Let him go. Bam, Bam.
Dragline: Knock it off, Luke. You can't talk about Him that way.
Luke: Are you still believin' in that big bearded Boss up there? You think he's watchin' us?
Dragline: Get in here. Ain't ya scared? Ain't ya scared of dyin'?
Luke: Dyin'? Boy, he can have this little life any time he wants to. Do ya hear that? Are ya hearin' it? Come on. You're welcome to it, ol' timer. Let me know you're up there. Come on. Love me, hate me, kill me, anything. Just let me know it. (He looks around) I'm just standin' in the rain talkin' to myself.

Dragline pays off the bets following the egg-eating contest and he brags about Luke, his deceptively cool, witty performer: "That's my darlin' Luke. He grin like a baby, but he bites like a gater." When Luke receives notice in a telegram that his mother has died, he is given space by the inmates to pay his last respects to her in the privacy and quiet of his cell bunk. He strums on a banjo and sings a requiem for her - it's a parody of a raunchy pop-gospel tune "Plastic Jesus," a song that is about finding temporary solace with a plastic Virgin Mary:

Well, I don't care if it rains or freezes, long as I got my plastic Jesus, sittin' on the dashboard of my car.
Comes in colors, pink and pleasant, glows in the dark cause it's irridescent
Take it with you when you travel far.
Get yourself a sweet Madonna, dressed in rhinestones sittin' on a pedestal of abalone shell
Goin' ninety, I ain't scary [sic - 'wary'], 'cause I've got the Virgin Mary, assurin' me that I won't go to Hell.
Get yourself a sweet Madonna, dressed in rhinestones sittin' on a pedestal of abalone shell
Goin' ninety, I ain't scary, 'cause I've got the Virgin Mary, assurin' me that I won't go to Hell.

Early the next morning, the Captain orders that Luke be put in the isolated, windowless prison "box" to keep him from getting "rabbit in his blood" and running to his mother's funeral to pay his last respects. As Luke is led to the cramped box, the guard is sympathetic and apologetic: "I wanna say a prayer for your Ma, Luke...Sorry, Luke. Just doin' my job. You gotta appreciate that." Luke reminds the man: "Aw, callin' it your job don't make it right, boss."

He is let out after his Ma is "in the ground" and advised: "You best forget about it, Luke. Got a day and a half lay in. Tomorrow's a holiday." That night, the men dance to loud radio music during the holiday - Luke can no longer endure confinement and rebels against the system. He saws a hole in the wooden floor of the bunkhouse. Between the first and second bell, his cohorts distract Carr with a trashy novel while Luke escapes - he's counted as missing: "one in the bush." The bloodhounds are given pieces of Luke's clothing for the scent. He eludes and confuses the dogs by wading through water, jumping fences, traversing land by wires, and criss-crossing. He is pursued into a railyard and down train tracks, but escapes by jumping off a train trestle into water.

Dog Boy (Anthony Zerbe), one of the prisoners who religiously tended the bloodhounds, reluctantly returns to camp without his prey, but with a dead bloodhound in the trunk of the Sheriff's car: "He run himself plum to death." But soon, Luke is quickly captured and returned to the road gang. To make an object lesson of the runaway, the Captain of the prison is determined to admonish and break Luke 'for his own good' in front of the other men:

Captain: You're gonna get used to wearin' them chains after a while, Luke, but you'll never stop listenin' to them clinkin'. 'Cause they're gonna remind you of what I've been sayin' - for your own good.
Luke: (back-talking) I wish you'd stop bein' so good to me, Captain.
Captain: (enraged) Don't you ever talk that way to me. (He savagely lashes out at Luke with his stick.)

The Captain, who has now become the authoritarian object of Luke's rebellious will, foreshadows Luke's doomed future. He observes, in the film's most familiar line, that Luke demands more disciplinary rehabilitation:

What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week - which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men.

The men idolize Luke's escape and congregate around him during a lunch break. They learn that he went a mile and a half and then stole a "shiny new buggy" (with keys in the ignition) in a supermarket parking lot. He was pulled over at a stoplight by an inquisitive cop wondering about his incongruous "state-issued" clothing: "That's top-flight police work. That's all there is to it. The fella's probably a lieutenant by now." Dragline advises Luke to 'lay low' for a while: "We're just gonna lay low and build time. Before you know it...everything will be right back where it was. Right, sweet buddy?" Luke eats with a piece of bread sticking out of his mouth - his non-conformist way of answering.

Almost immediately after his first running off, Luke escapes again from the chain gang while having "privacy" behind some bushy trees. To prove he's there in the bushes, he repeatedly calls out while shaking the branches: "Still shakin' it, boss, still shakin'. I'm shakin' it, boss." He tricks the guards by tying a string to a branch and tugging on it from a long distance away. After escaping, Luke speaks to two curious black boys (James Bradley Jr. and Cyril "Chips" Robinson) who ask about his leg-iron chains: "Whatcha got them on for?...How do ya take your pants off?" He dares one of the boys to be strong enough to heft and bring him a heavy axe. The other boy encourages him to take the incriminating stripes off his pants. With a few strokes, Luke chops off the leg irons, and he leaves a lot of "chili powder, pepper and curry" in the path of the bloodhounds on his trail.

After a few days, Dragline receives an issue of Outdoor Life magazine (sent from Atlanta) during mail delivery - inside is a black and white picture of a well-dressed Luke surrounded by two female bar companions [the opposite page has an article on hallucinations titled: "A THING CALLED EARLY BLUR," subtitled "The Illusion That Kills" with a hunter aiming a gun right at Luke's heart]. Society Red reads Luke's writing for the illiterate Dragline: "Dear Boys: Playin' it cool. Luke." Dragline envies his friend's freedom: "Look at that! My baby. We're in here diggin' and dyin'. He's out there livin' and flyin'." Later, he calls the picture: "a true vision of Paradise itself with two of the angels right there prancin' around with my boy."

To their surprise, the inmates turn and see a recaptured Luke dragged back into the bunkhouse - after a second failed runaway attempt. The Captain threatens the lost soul on the floor:

You run one time, you got yourself a set of chains. You run twice, you got yourself two sets. You ain't gonna need no third set 'cause you're gonna get your mind right. And I mean RIGHT. (To the other inmates) Take a good look at Luke. Cool Hand Luke?

The inmates haul Luke's broken and beaten body over to a table and while gathered around him, they glowingly admire and idolize him for his daring escape and dalliance with two women: "You really can pick 'em, Luke...Come on, tell us, what were they like?" Luke tells them the truth, shattering their illusions about his adventure and good times: "The picture's a phony. Cost me a week's pay...The picture's a phony. I had it made up for you guys...Nothin'. I made nothin', had nothin'. A couple of towns, a couple of bosses. I laughed outloud once, they turned me in." He yells at their dumb ignorance, praise, and their insistence that the picture is real:

Oh come on! Stop beatin' it! Get out there yourself. Stop feedin' off me. Get out of here. I can't breathe. Give me some air.

On the road gang the next day, Boss Paul (Luke Askew), one of the guards mistreats Luke, kicking him for his indolence and weakness. At night, he is isolated in the box, and Dragline still boasts about his companion: "That old box would collapse and fall apart before Luke calls it quits." Society Red qualifies Luke's qualities - he has more nerve than brains: "Your Luke's got more guts than brains."

Luke's battered and tired spirit are put to the test when he is given a full plate of rice for dinner - an amount that would be impossible for him to eat by himself. The other inmates take spoonful portions of his food so that he doesn't break the rule: "You gotta clean your plate or go back in the box." [It is an apt metaphor for the way the inmates have vicariously taken pieces of him and fed off him.]

After a full week of work, Luke is humiliated and tormented by being forced to submit to the authority of Boss Paul. To systematically break his spirit in front of the other prisoners, he is ordered to dig a "graveyard-shaped" ditch on the prison grounds. When he has completed the grueling task of emptying the Boss' ditch, he is told to fill it back up again - and then after it's filled to re-empty it again! The men sing "Ain't No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down" in full view of his tortured, groveling humiliation.

To symbolize his own death and the genuine end of his ferocious individuality and defiance, the guard slashes Luke across the head at the end of one end of the ditch, and he is tossed backwards into the open "coffin." Broken and tired, he begs the bosses to accept his cracked will and tarnished pride:

Luke: Don't hit me anymore...Oh God, I pray to God you don't hit me anymore. I'll do anything you say, but I can't take anymore.
Boss Paul: You got your mind right, Luke?
Luke: Yeah. I got it right. I got it right, boss. (He grips the ankles of the guard)
Boss Paul: Suppose you's back-slide on us?
Luke: Oh no I won't. I won't, boss.
Boss Paul: Suppose you's to back-sass?
Luke: No I won't. I won't. I got my mind right.
Boss Paul: You try to run again, we gonna kill ya.
Luke: I won't, I won't, boss.

When Luke returns to his bunk house, the men begin to abandon and turn away from him - one of them rips his phony picture into four pieces now that he is no longer their hero. After confessing to them, "I got my mind right," the prisoners contemptuously ignore him and refuse to help him - and he cries out at their betrayal: "Where are ya? Where are ya now?"

On the chain gang, Luke is forced to slavishly run errands for the guards and to become the water-carrier for the other prisoners. When he fetches a large turtle shot by the boss with no eyes, Luke pulls up the jaw-clenching beast: "Here he is boss. Deader than hell but won't let go." Playing the beaten fool, an instant later, Luke regains his rebellious nature and drives off in one of the boss' dump trucks - with Dragline hopping on the running board. He craftily stole the keys out of all the trucks so that pursuit is delayed.

Dragline admires Luke's bravado and remembers how Luke 'fooled' them about being broken. Without embellishment or heroic pride, Luke accepts and admits that he was broken:

Dragline: You're an original, that's what you are. Them mullet-heads didn't even know you was foolin'.
Luke: Foolin' 'em, huh? You can't fool 'em about somethin' like that. They broke me...
Dragline: Aw. All that time, you was plannin' on runnin' again.
Luke: I never planned anything in my life.

A fugitive one more time, Luke has decided to lay low, remain on his own, and not join Dragline for worldly pursuits: "I've done enough world-shakin' for a while. You do the rest of it for me. Send me a postcard about it." As Luke wanders toward an abandoned country church to take refuge, Dragline calls out: "You're a good ol' boy, Luke. You take care. You hear?"

In a memorable scene as Luke sits on one of the plain wooden pews, he delivers a rambling monologue and repeatedly talks to God and asks for guidance and an answer, occasionally looking up toward the empty rafters - his entreaties are met with silence:

Anybody here? Hey, Ol' Man, You home tonight? Can you spare a minute? It's about time we had a little talk. I know I'm a pretty evil fella. Killed people in the war and got drunk and chewed up municipal property and the like. I know I got no call to ask for much but even so, you gotta admit, you ain't dealt me no cards in a long time. It's beginnin' to look like you got things fixed so I can't never win out. Inside, outside, all 'em rules and regulations and bosses. You made me like I am. Just where am I supposed to fit in? Ol' Man, I gotta tell ya. I started out pretty strong and fast. But it's beginnin' to get to me. When does it end? What do ya got in mind for me? What do I do now? All right. All right. (He kneels on his knees and cups his hands in prayer.) On my knees, askin'. (pause) Yeah, that's what I thought. I guess I'm pretty tough to deal with, huh? A hard case. I guess I gotta find my own way.

A few police cars drive up in front of the church. Dragline calls out to his friend from the church door: "Luke?" Luke looks up and addresses an aside to God: "That's your answer ol' Man? I guess you're a hard case too."

They are cornered and Dragline [like Judas the Betrayer], in exchange for a promise of clemency, reveals where Luke has been hiding - in the church:

Luke? You all right? They got us, boy. They're out there, thicker than flies. Bosses, dogs, sheriffs, more guns than I've ever seen in my life. You ain't got a chance. They caught up with me right after we split up. And they was aimin' to kill ya. But I fixed it. I got 'em to promise if you give up peaceful, they won't whip ya this time...Luke, you gotta listen to me. All ya got to do is give up nice and quiet. Just play cool.

Luke opens up one of the church windows and looks out on the Captain and other sheriffs in an eerie red light reflected from the cherry-tops. Ultimately unbroken and with a cocky, assured but cool smile, he mocks the Captain with the famous film line:

What we've got here is a failure to communicate.

He is tragically shot in the throat and silenced forever by the crack-shooting Boss with no eyes. Dragline supports and carries his mortally-wounded friend to the vengeful bosses, and then hysterically charges toward the killer - he grabs at the man's throat with an iron grip. The reflective glasses that have never left the boss's face topple to the ground. Weakened and sliding in mud, the boss gropes for his glasses. As Luke is put in a vehicle and taken to his sure death at the prison hispital, Dragline encourages him: "You hang on in there Luke. You hang on. There's gonna be some world-shakin' Luke. We gonna send you a postcard." Flooded by a reddish glow, Luke dies in the back seat of the boss' car - his face wears the familiar grin - a sign of the victory of his spirit over death. The tires of the vehicle smash and grind the sunglasses into the mud. In the distance as the car drives away, a stoplight turns from green to red - his spirit leaves his body.

In a final montage sequence, Dragline favorably remembers and resurrects his martyred hero while telling the story of his death to his convict-compatriots outside the church during a work break in the chain gang. Images of Luke's legendary, unbreakable smile from scenes in the film are flashed back on the screen:

Dragline: They took him right down that road.
Convict(s): What'd he look like, Drag?...Yeah, what'd he look like?..He had his eyes opened or closed, Drag?
Dragline: He was smiling...That's right. You know, that, that Luke smile of his. He had it on his face right to the very end. Hell, if they didn't know it 'fore, they could tell right then that they weren't a-gonna beat him. That old Luke smile. Old Luke, he was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he's a natural-born world-shaker.

The camera pulls back from Dragline, now in leg-iron chains himself, chopping weeds at a cross-roads - a crucifix symbol. Luke's picture (torn cross-wise) is superimposed on the cross-roads where the chain gang works.

Way cool

Movie: Cool Hand Luke
Year: 1967
Director: Stuart Rosenberg

As I stated in my first-ever post here--part of my goal in this project will be to use this blog as a way to educate myself and catch up on classic, well-known movies that I've missed (and there are a lot of them). This is the first post in the BIONFTST category (an admittedly clunky abbreviation that stands for Believe It Or Not, First Time Seeing This). Great choice too--if you are reading this you probably know all about, all the characters and all the good bits. What does it say about me that I've never seen this before (until yesterday) but I've seen "Noi" or "Bolivia" several times each? I don't know.

I've been accused of being an elitist and avoiding things (movies, books, records etc.) that are generally popular with the "masses." And it's true to a point, I do enjoy the secret pleasure of experiencing a movie that no one in my circle has ever seen before. I suppose it stems from childhood, from want to have something of my very own to possess. I still love to have "things," love to buy "things." Frequently, just the act of buying the thing is enough--I have lots of stuff that I don't use but I would still be really hard-pressed to get rid of. My wife doesn't understand this kind of thinking and I'm sure a lot of other people wouldn't either. So, a movie like "Noi" or "Bolivia" or many, many others that I love is all the more special to me because--within my circle--I'm the only one that knows how great it is. Conversely though, it's great when I come across someone who HAS seen the same films I have and can share their thoughts with me. So I guess it's a contradiction--I want my secret pleasures but I want to be able to talk about them to. In a way, coming late to a movie like this one satisfies those needs. "Cool Hand Luke" is old hat to many fans but for me it's still fresh and in that sense it's "mine." But, it's also a part of the fabric of our popular culture, so that I can discuss it and share my thoughts easily with almost anyone. Best of both worlds, really.

Of course, the first thing most people associate with this movie is the famous line delivered by the Captain (Strother Martin in a delightfully slimy performance): "What we have here is a failure to communicate." But if that one line is all you take from the movie, then that would be a shame because there is so much going here. Luke's relationship with the "old man" upstairs is fascinating and something that a lot of people can relate to. Whether or not you believe in a higher power is your right of course, but for those of us that do, how many have ever felt like they weren't being heard? Or that the cards were stacked against them. I felt an overwhelming sympathy for Luke (Paul Newman). He grew up without a father, he was thrown into difficult circumstances during the war and still managed to do well, yet when he returned home there was nothing for him. Life was still a struggle even after he had served with honor. So to be a little mad at God would be understandable, yet Luke still tried right up until the very end to find some answers and some peace of mind.

Another interesting point--in the descriptions, Luke is always described as a "rebel" who is out to "buck the system" of the "sadistic" guards. Here's my take--Luke didn't begin to rebel until after he was put in the box because his captors were afraid he would try to flee after his mother's death. I think this (unfair) incident flipped a switch in Luke's brain. Prior to that point, he was fine, maybe a little smart-alecky but he worked hard and made now waves. After that though, the rebel was born. And as for the guards, I think up until that point they were not sadistic at all, but just doing their jobs. Remember, these guys were in prison after all, it's not supposed to be a country club and up until the Luke/box incident, I can't really fault the jailers for the way they treated the prisoners. After Luke's escape attempts, they came down on him really hard and deservedly so. Look at it from their point of view, they had to "break" him in order to keep him from trying to escape yet again and also to set an example for the other prisoners. Of course, Luke wasn't really "broken" after all (even though he said he was) and that turning point was just one of the other genius moments in this movie.

There's a lot I'm leaving out in this analysis so if you're experiences are as limited as mine and you've never seen this before, do yourself a favor and check it out. And if you have seen it, watch it again and again.

Want to discuss "Cool Hand Luke?" Leave a message.