This film can't help in a way draw subliminal comparisons to the life of Jesus Christ for me. I love the film without this comparison but also because of it. There are so many examples Luke makes juxtaposed to what both experienced as teachers, miracle makers, and risk takers. Those who doubted lived vicariously through them.
Luke is, because of is character, doomed to die from the beginning, never giving up trying to be free from the rural prison and it's brutal guardians. It is as if it was time he was put there for those who needed someone to taunt and scorn but trying to show others opportunities they could take if they chose.
We get, in the initial scenes of the movie, how loved he is by his mother and an unspoken feeling by Luke of his feeling for her which is the same. He is searching for something and someone to believe in him. He has that in her but as the movie moves forward also in the inmates who follow him and his earthly exploits.
He shows a miracle to his peers by eating 50 hard boiled eggs in an hour letting those who thought him a fool and those he impressed or thought he was just running on dumb luck and borrowed time increase their wealth by betting on whether he could perform this feat, especially Dragline, George Kennedy, his protector and ultimately Luke's Judas. It is not without forethought that this brilliant screenplay by Donn Pearce has him placed on his back in a crucified position after accomplishing his mission of eating all the eggs.
When word gets to the prison that his mother is dead, Luke immediately mourns her with a song sung tenderly and quietly from his bunk about the "plastic Jesus" on the dashboard of is car. He is never the same after losing the one person who loved and his rock escaping from the road gang and prison at every opportunity. The risks he takes to remove himself from the rural prison and life itself are almost careless yet brilliant, the last successful attempt at escape driving away in one of the bosses trucks after taking the keys to the other two so they could not immediately chase him.
A total failure to communicate his need to educate the men in the prison to "stop feeding off of me" and take their own risks with their consequences in this life which is an everyday risk is the message I am left with ringing in my ears after Luke is shot and carried away bloodied from the shot entering is body.
The director, Stuart Rosenberg, and Pearce have given a clear message to all who view this classic. "Down Here on the Ground", (the main title song), live your life for yourself not through the beliefs, success or pain and loss of another.
Luke is, because of is character, doomed to die from the beginning, never giving up trying to be free from the rural prison and it's brutal guardians. It is as if it was time he was put there for those who needed someone to taunt and scorn but trying to show others opportunities they could take if they chose.
We get, in the initial scenes of the movie, how loved he is by his mother and an unspoken feeling by Luke of his feeling for her which is the same. He is searching for something and someone to believe in him. He has that in her but as the movie moves forward also in the inmates who follow him and his earthly exploits.
He shows a miracle to his peers by eating 50 hard boiled eggs in an hour letting those who thought him a fool and those he impressed or thought he was just running on dumb luck and borrowed time increase their wealth by betting on whether he could perform this feat, especially Dragline, George Kennedy, his protector and ultimately Luke's Judas. It is not without forethought that this brilliant screenplay by Donn Pearce has him placed on his back in a crucified position after accomplishing his mission of eating all the eggs.
When word gets to the prison that his mother is dead, Luke immediately mourns her with a song sung tenderly and quietly from his bunk about the "plastic Jesus" on the dashboard of is car. He is never the same after losing the one person who loved and his rock escaping from the road gang and prison at every opportunity. The risks he takes to remove himself from the rural prison and life itself are almost careless yet brilliant, the last successful attempt at escape driving away in one of the bosses trucks after taking the keys to the other two so they could not immediately chase him.
A total failure to communicate his need to educate the men in the prison to "stop feeding off of me" and take their own risks with their consequences in this life which is an everyday risk is the message I am left with ringing in my ears after Luke is shot and carried away bloodied from the shot entering is body.
The director, Stuart Rosenberg, and Pearce have given a clear message to all who view this classic. "Down Here on the Ground", (the main title song), live your life for yourself not through the beliefs, success or pain and loss of another.