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Cool Hand Luke Expose. Cool Hand Luke Exposé The movie Cool Hand Luke presents
several different and interrelated existentialist ...
Submitted by bhs226 on October 30, 2006
Category: Music and Movies
Words: 2017 | Pages: 9
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Cool Hand Luke Exposé
The movie Cool Hand Luke presents several different and interrelated existentialist themes on aspects of faith and belief. Luke is portrayed as a "good ol' boy" that is fun-loving and hard working. He seems bored and restless with life; he always seems to searching for something more and when he doesn't find it; he looks for ways to fill the void and the monotony of living: ". . . it's somethin' to do, ain't it?" This attitude well sets the tone for the aspect of faith as portrayed in Cool Hand Luke.
Cool Hand Luke
1967, starring Paul Newman
Throughout the movie, Luke displays a nominal faith. It is as though he has the will to believe in something more—on some level he undoubtedly does—but it almost seems he is predisposed to believing that God is distant and uncaring. And he may well have good reason to feel this way: his father was absent in his own life.
Professor Paul C. Vitz (New York University) postulates an unusual theory in his article "The Psychology of Atheism."1 He uses Freud's model of the Oedipus complex2 to reflect on Freud's own life and the life of other noted atheists and non-believers. Freud unwittingly lived out his own theory. However, Vitz admits that this hypothesis is of only limited usefulness and has been called into question by some people. So he takes it one step further, quoting Freud himself:
Psychoanalysis, which has taught us the intimate connection between the father complex and belief in God, has shown us that the personal God is logically nothing but an exalted father, and daily demonstrates to us how youthful persons lose their religious belief as soon as the authority of the father breaks down (Leonardo da Vinci, 1910, 1947 p. 98).3
This all but universally accepted idea of our fathers largely determining our view of God, when applied to fathers who are unworthy (or perceived to be unworthy) of respect, abusive, neglectful, or absent, could...
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