Cool Hand Luke

Oh Luke you wild beautiful thing!

Luke (Paul Newman) lands himself in a Deep South prison farm for drunkenly cutting the heads off of parking meters. Once at the farm Luke refuses to be ground down by the system and its grinning warden (a brilliant Strother Martin). As things role by Luke becomes something of a hero to his fellow inmates and this is not lost on the authority in charge of the farm. Things are sure to come to a head as Luke rebels to the point of no return...

Division of Corrections. Road Prison 36.

The close examination of Cool Hand Luke over the years has rightly thrown up the fact that it's a Christ allegory. Which is just fine given that Stuart Rosenberg's film is one of the finest films that the 60s had to offer...

Celebrate rebellion at a time when everything deserved to be questioned.

The late sixties marked the rise of a culture of rebellion and challenge to the established order. Young people, university students, minorities, suddenly society goes into upheaval and begins to question and make demands. In a very specific way, I think this film fits very well into this movement, giving us the story of a man who made mistakes and paid that's for sure and who, between hits and misses, wanted to find his own space in the world and live life on his terms.

Luke Jackson is truly a non-conformist man and the face of a generation of people increasingly dissatisfied with the society in which they live. The film makes clear that he had everything ...