Original artwork, not a still
What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it; well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men.
— Cool Hand Luke ‧ 1967
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The Captain thinks he is explaining a lesson in discipline, but what the speech shows is a man hiding cruelty behind official-sounding words. Luke refuses to bend, so the prison answers with force and calls it a failure of conversation. Fans quote it whenever a manager or committee blames a breakdown on communication when someone simply will not obey. The Captain was meant to be ignorant, borrowing a phrase he had heard from educated visitors.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for Cool Hand LukeShow the scene
Cool Hand Luke is set in an early-1950s Florida prison camp. After Luke Jackson's first escape he is recaptured and returned to the chain gang, where the Captain, played by Strother Martin, has him fitted with leg irons. When Luke talks back, the Captain bludgeons him and declares that what they have is a failure to communicate. The longer version fans quote is the Captain's speech that Luke gets what he wants. Luke escapes a second time soon after. Writer Frank Pierson worried the warden would not know such a phrase, so he wrote a backstory of criminology courses at a state university.
Sources (1)
- Wikipedia: Cool Hand LukePlot; Production, 'Failure to communicate'Reference checked
Context reviewed
