Ed Newman
So, is this "never give up" mentality something he derived from an excursion into existential philosophy? Is his battle with the human condition analogous to Sisyphus and the boulder.Like all good stories the film is a sequence of scenes which serve to define Luke’s character for the viewer. His “never give up” attitude is demonstrated early in his fight with Dragline. And though his “achievements” win the admiration of his bunkmates or “co-workers” in this hard labor camp, he is non-plussed about all of it...
Who knows? He is a fictional character, so you would have to ask the author, Donn Pearce. Did he imagine Luke as the embodiment of a "philosophy of life"?
Or, instead, are his behaviors more applicable to the manner in which I construe dasein here. He lived a particular life and as a result of a particular accumulation of personal experiences this is just how he came to view himself out in the world with others? Something he did not give much thought regarding...as those like Camus and Sartre did in their own works.
In other words, one can imagine someone in a prison bull gang today "in reality" acting as he did. Okay, Mr. Serious Philosopher, deconstruct him.
Also, another crucial point in the film is that everyone has their breaking point. Eventually the Captain and the bosses did break Luke:
Dragline [mimicking Luke]: "Don't hit me, boss...don't hit me. I'll do whatever you say." You an original, that's what you are. Them mullet-heads didn't even know you was fooling.
Luke: Fooling them, huh? You can't fool them about something like that. They broke me. But they didn't get my mind right. Not with no sticks. No sir.
Dragline: All that time you were planning on running again.
Luke: I never planned anything in my life.
Back to that again: determinism....as A. Hardt points out in this 2011 forum discussion:
"Through my multiple viewings of Cool Hand Luke, my analysis of the message of the film has switched back and forth between an existentialist one, and one of determinism. The existentialist references are the most common within the film; Luke is constantly discrediting the meaning in his actions. After Captain lists Luke’s significant war achievements, Luke responds by saying, “I was just passing time.” Also, when Dragline consults Luke about the 50 eggs in an hour bet, Luke says about the extremely difficult task, “Yeah well, it would be something to do.”
Or, instead, is this just another rendition of the "free will determinism" that some seem to espouse here. The external world is there lining up only as it ever could have, but "internally" you are still in possession of something akin to autonomy?
In other words, from my own frame of mind, to what extent is Luke "constantly discrediting the meaning in his actions" more or less the equivalent of this...
If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.