Cool Hand Luke

Though the prison compound of Cool Hand Luke looks nothing like the panopticon, it nonetheless shows the mechanisms of power at work. The opening credits of the film show the men at work on the side of the road. Watching persistently by armed guards, the men must notify their boss when making even the most innocent of movements. Taking off a shirt, wiping off stray grass and drinking water are all announced in advance. The bosses, or common guards, follow the direction of a man wearing reflective sunglasses. This man, called the “man with no eyes” by the prisoners, provides an image of power at work that is similar to the panopticon.

Because he wears sunglasses the prisoners never know where his gaze falls. His silent manners supplement the paranoia brought on by his always (or never) constant searching. During scene 15 the men find a snake in the grass. Luke picks up the snake; the man with no eyes quickly kills it with one pulverizing shotgun round. Previously in scene 4 he shot a bird out of the air at the worksite. The message to the prisoners is clear: this is what will happen should one of you try to be clever and deceitful like a snake. This is what will happen should one of you try to fly away like a bird. Without saying a word to the prisoners and without inflicting any physical pain on them he manages to establish complete control by his gaze and his posture. He operates like the living panopticon, inspiring paranoia through his eye.

Luke, ever the free spirit, does not take to his confinement and decides to run. After being brought back the prison warden symbolically places chains on his legs to keep him from running quickly. The warden states famously in scene 20 that “what we’ve got here, is failure to communicate.” Luke rebelled against the system that held him in place, perhaps because he could not understand it as power over the body. Like the prison rebellions Foucault mentions that the prisoners cannot understand why reasonable accommodations, food and work disagree with the body. Luke knows, perhaps too well, that the prison exerts power over the body; hence the warden restricts Luke without bodily harm, in keeping with the new prison type. Rather than cut off his leg they choose to set him as a symbol for the other prisoners. The failure to communicate indicates that the prisoners may still feel that their body is their own and that they have a sort of freedom of the body that the prison cannot compromise. The chains are a visible reminder, without inflicting pain, that the prison indeed controls the body: that its very essence is to exert power over the body.

Yet Luke runs again. After his capture, the bosses opt for a new symbol in addition to the chains. This time the punishment is psychological. In scene 26 the bosses alternately give Luke instructions, with each instruction compromising an earlier order. Luke is told that this dirt is in one of the boss’s ditch; Luke consequently shovels a large hole in the ground to remove his dirt from the boss’s ditch. Soon thereafter another boss follows to inform Luke that his dirt is on the boss’s yard. Luke begins filling in the ditch; just as he finishes the first boss returns to ask why his dirt is in Boss Kean’s ditch. When Luke replies that he does not know the boss knocks him onto the dirt to think about it. The other prisoners observe the whole performance. Though physical labor is involved, the drama shows that without inflicting pain directly on Luke, the bosses, or more specifically the prison itself, nevertheless exert influence over and through the body. Luke’s legs now bear two sets of chains and his mind bears the knowledge that he will never satisfy or win over any guard by any action he takes. Luke is powerless.



The incident closes with a telling metaphor. As Luke finally returns to his bunk, no longer under the strict supervision of the bosses, he falls to the ground of exhaustion. Lying on the ground, he cries out “Where are you? Where are you now?” Foucault might argue that Luke calls out for the guards to harass him and take part in his misery once more. Yet even in the absence of the guards Luke cannot lift himself off the ground, let alone to his top bunk. Without any physical control mechanisms present Luke lies on the ground weeping. One can understand at this point the type of power exerted over Luke.

But Luke cannot. A particularly crafty escape in scenes 30-33 ends with a dramatic speech from Luke. Surrounded by police and bosses, Luke stands alone in a church and speaks to God. The dialog reveals the level of Luke’s understanding of the power placed over him in his particular political and social environment:



"Anybody here? Hey old man, you home tonight?…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 looks like you got things fixed so I can’t never win out. Inside, outside, all them rules and regulations and bosses. You made me like I am. Now just where am I supposed to fit in?"

Luke sees that to a certain extent his freedom cannot come from himself, that his body rests under the control of numerous exterior relationships. The power to control comes not from within Luke, or indeed with the people who seem to control him, but the institutions and relationships present around him. Luke sees the origin of this panopticon to be God; but what does the director imply when Luke gets no response? Luke asks for God’s guidance:
What do I do now? Fine. Fine. [he kneels.] I’m on my knees asking. [he looks at the ceiling, receiving no response]. Yea that’s what I thought. I guess I’m pretty tough to deal with, a hard case. I guess I gotta find my own way.”

Luke still seeks to locate the source of power in one place: God. But what Luke does not understand, despite all the symbols thrown at him, is that power comes from the institution and its relationships. It is mobile, sourced in the many rather than the one. It is with great irony that Luke pronounces, “What we’ve got here, is failure to communicate” just before he is shot by the man with no eyes. Finally the viewer can ask whether the power was located in God or in the very institution of the prison. Luke’s death suggests that the prison structure was driven by power: a power that manipulated Luke’s condition and the relationships that surrounded him so as to reveal the power already present in them.