Essay, Research Paper: Cool Hand Luke

Cool Hand Luke
The film Cool Hand Luke is an amazing film. The film isn t just a good story, it goes much deeper than that. It almost duplicates the bible and it s stories. In fact, many critics compare Luke to Jesus Christ. The director, Stuart Rosenberg, tries to artistically set up the comparison.
Stuart Rosenberg doesn t just come out and say Luke resembles Jesus Christ. Rosenberg uses objects to make the comparison. He puts the numbers three and seven into the film. Three and seven being biblical numbers. Luke s clothing contained both the numbers three and seven, number 37. A lot of the uniforms that where shown contained either a seven or a three. When Luke gets put in the box for trying to run away, he is put in there for three days. Finally Luke tries to escape the correctional facility on three occasions.
Not only does Rosenberg use objects to make the comparison, but he also uses the actions of the characters. The last supper that the film shows is when Luke gets about ten pounds of rice. Luke was just in the box for three days and a man s stomach could not handle that much food. When the first prisoner is done eating he returns his tray and then takes a big scoop full of rice off of Luke s tray. That eventually leads up to every prisoner to taking a scoop full of food. Luke shared his rice with everybody. Just like the Last Supper, Jesus Christ shared bread with his disciples.
Another way Rosenberg tries to fit religion in the film are the character s names. Think Rosenberg just picked the names out of a baseball cap. I don t think so. Luke and his brother John both have biblical names. Even Boss Godfrey s name has meaning to it. Now remember Satan was among the gods until he became a fallen angel. Godfrey is enforing the law, but in the mean time he kills helpless animals which leads up to the killing of Luke.
All together this film is a very interesting film to watch. The viewer will always pick up on something new every time they watch it. I m not trying to enforce that this is a religious film; I m just saying that Rosenberg tries to make watching the film fun, looking for little things that interact and go together. If somebody doesn t know much about the bible they won t even notice the things like the numbers three and seven. They will just see a film with a great story line. All the little things in this film do is make it unique from the others. It doesn t change how good or bad the film is.