Lalo Schifrin: “I found Luke the cold hand really beautiful”

Arte is programming a special Paul Newman evening this Sunday.

Sentenced for a minor crime, Lucas Jackson, known as Luke, is incarcerated in a penitentiary where a very harsh regime reigns. Lucas quickly asserts himself among his fellow prisoners who admire his courage and inflexibility. This also earns him the hostility of the leader of the prisoners, Dragline. He will never admit defeat and will try by all means to escape…

At the end of this weekend, Arte will offer Luke the cold hand by Stuart Rosenberg, then an interesting portrait of its star, Paul Newmandesigned in 2022 by Jean Lauritano. Tracing his childhood, then his career and his love story with Joanne Woodward, Paul Newman, the restless presents him in a new light, less sure of himself than he seems.

In 1967, Stuart Rosenberg adapts the novel Luke the cold hand of Donn Pearcepublished two years earlier. A transgressive parable playing on the imagery of the Christian martyr and conceived in the midst of the Vietnam War, Luke the cold hand was a great success in theaters, one of those that helped make Paul Newman the Hollywood star he became in the late 1960s. He was consequently nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor (his fourth nomination already, all unsuccessful – he would have to wait The Color of Moneyby Martin Scorsese, to obtain a statuette, in 1986). Luke has however allowed George Kennedythe actor who plays Dragline, to take home the Oscar for best supporting actor.

Luke the cold handit is also a very original soundtrack, precisely, signed Lalo Schafrin (Bullitt, Operation Dragon, Dirty Harry, Mission: Impossible…). In 2016, he commented on some of his most famous film scores in Firstand here is what he told us about this film which marked his career:

“When I read the script of Luke the cold handI found it really beautiful. Very moving. I met Stuart Rosenberg and the producers and I explained to them that, for the music, there were two ways of doing it. The first was to compose a very folk score, with banjos, violins… country. The second option was a very American symphonic music, a bit like Aaron Copeland. And I added: “but there is a third one too, mixing the two.” They liked that idea. I never thought about the themes developed in the film. That's not how I work. I work on instinct. I never said to myself that I had to work on the idea of ​​imprisonment or resistance. No. My work is more emotional, I tell a story with sounds.”

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