TCM aired a tribute to Paul Newman tonight, which was nice of them. I was able to give a rewatch to Cool Hand Luke, a film I'd seen and liked several years ago, but never got around to writing anything about. After my second viewing, I'll try my warm hand at a review.
I'll dispense with plot, such as it is, as quickly as possible. Lucas Jackson (Paul Newman) is a drifter in the post-WWI Deep South who is arrested for defacing a line of parking meters. Luke ends up on a prison farm, working on a chain gang for the sadistic Captain (the great Strother Martin) and his thuggish minions. Luke follows every letter of his instructions, but finds himself at odds with his bosses anyway. After his mom Arletta (Jo Van Fleet) dies, the Captain puts him in solitary to prevent him from running away... which of course has the affect of making him run away. Luke launches escape after escape, becoming an idol (and martyr) to his fellow prisoners in the process.
Cool Hand Luke is just one of those movies that almost defies description. It's a classic in every sense of the word, a film that has been written about time and again, analyzed to death, and is loved by pretty much everyone from the cool crowd and film-ignorant hayseeds to the cineastes and high-brow critics. So what more is there for me to say? Not much, but I'll give it a shot.
The film became one of the greatest icons of sixties cinema. Being released in 1967, a year before the all-encompassing year of revolutions, 1968, it struck a chord with the disaffected, disenchanted audience who was unsatisfied with the old status quo, but unsure what to make of the chaos around them. They needed a hero, a rebel who was unbreakable and always did his own thing, and they got one in Paul Newman. Newman was at the height of his fame, the handsome, rugged all-American star, second perhaps to Steve McQueen as the "King of Cool" (in the public's eyes anyway), and ultimately, the perfect embodiment of Sixties nonconformity.
Luke is an interesting character for a variety of reasons. Perhaps epitomizing the term anti-hero, he isn't an angry rebel who makes speeches railing against authority or ferments revolution and violence. In fact, Luke goes about his resistance in rather a passive way: He's always careful to show the proper respect and deference to the guards, and at first his only offenses are being overly friendly or enthusiastic (such as the great scene where they cover a tar road super fast, to the guards' amazement). Despite his nonconformist nature, Luke only moves to open defiance when he's unjustly (and pre-emptively) jailed after the death of his Mother. Faced with injustice, he acts. But neither are his actions particularly admirable, when you get right down to it. He's simply a man trying to keep himself alive in a difficult time and place - nothing more to it than that.
Some have read Luke as a Christ-figure, which is an easy enough connection to make, but it would seem that he's much more universal than a religious icon. He's the man who won't break, who will draw a line in the sand and stand by it. He's also a man adrift in an unpleasant society, unsure of his place in the world, - descriptions that would easily peg any number of the youngsters who saw this film, looked at the situation around them, and threw their hands up in despair. The fact that his fellow prisoners project their fantasies onto him is a point of amusement and consternation; why can't these lunkheads do something for themselves? Clearly, because Luke is the only man with a whit of ambition amongst them. That's what makes him stand out, and that is what makes him so dangerous. This is a story oft dealt with in film and literature, but rarely to such telling effect.
Technically, the movie is fine. Stuart Rosenberg gives fine direction, creating the sweaty, claustrophobic world of Luke and his mates with striking detail. Needless to say, Conrad L. Hall contributes brilliant cinematography, from the dusty backwoods to great use of close-up and lighting (the use of reflection on Morgan Woodward's sunglasses is a particularly memorable effect). Lalo Schiffrin contributes a fine, moody score to the proceedings.
The cast is top-notch. Newman gives perhaps the best performance of his career - no mean feat, that - by playing Luke absolutely straight. No frills, no grand acting gestures, he's simply a man in a tough situation. George Kennedy gives solid support as Dragnet, the none-too-bright foil for Luke who is the first to recognize how special he is. Strother Martin gives a fine performance as the Warden ("What we have here is failure to communicate!") - not his best work, but a memorable performance all the same. And Jo Van Fleet turns in an emotional cameo as Luke's long-suffering Mother. The supporting cast is a roll call of Grade-A character actors and up-and-comers: J.D. Cannon, Clifton James, Morgan Woodward, Harry Dean Stanton, Dennis Hopper, Joe Don Baker, Luke Askew. Yowza.
Cool Hand Luke is a great drama that still holds up forty years later. It earns a solid "Classic 8" rating from me, and if you haven't seen it yet, what's your problem?
Rating: 8/10 - Highly Recommended
No comments:
Post a Comment