One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) | Little White Lies

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

13 Apr 2017 / Released: 14 Apr 2017

A man with short, dark hair and a beard, wearing a grey T-shirt, has a serious expression on his face.
A man with short, dark hair and a beard, wearing a grey T-shirt, has a serious expression on his face.
5

Anticipation.

One of the great American films of the 1970s.

5

Enjoyment.

A dark vision of the American psychiatric system which incorporates a tragic seam of comedy.

5

In Retrospect.

Nicholson is simply unsurpassable in one of his most iconic roles.

On the occa­sion of Jack Nicholson’s 80th, the BFI give this tragi­com­ic clas­sic anoth­er big screen run out.

Let’s be com­plete­ly hon­est, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a great movie. Jack Nichol­son, as the dan­ger­ous­ly charis­mat­ic Ran­dle McMur­phy, is just one of the many com­po­nents that makes this time-hon­oured work so remark­able. The BFI are re-releas­ing the film to coin­cide with Nicholson’s 80th birth­day, which is the per­fect excuse to state once more why it remains a classic.

McMur­phy is a cun­ning and eccen­tric chancer whose impul­sive antics shape the film. It opens on him being moved from prison to a men­tal asy­lum believ­ing that he’s beat­en the sys­tem, but the progress of his char­ac­ter (and the real­i­sa­tion of his dire sit­u­a­tion) mir­rors the story’s slow descent into the abyss.

The ini­tial excite­ment of hav­ing his hand­cuffs removed is abrupt­ly replaced by a need to escape when he learns his stay in the hos­pi­tal may be indef­i­nite. He hatch­es a clever, sim­ple plan to escape. Direc­tor Milos For­man employs long, lin­ger­ing shots to high­light Nicholson’s moments of deep thought. These offer con­trast to ear­li­er shots of the prankster king and ush­er in a feel­ing of deep dis­con­cert­ment. It starts as a com­e­dy and ends as a tragedy.

Ken Kesey’s 1962 nov­el was ini­tial­ly adapt­ed into a stage show which ran from 1963 till 1964. Hav­ing been cast in the role of McMur­phy in the Broad­way ver­sion, actor Kirk Dou­glas then pur­chased the film rights. But after wait­ing over a decade for the green-light, Dou­glas hand­ed the rights over to his son, Michael. By this time Kirk was 60 and too old to return to the lead role, leav­ing it wide open for the then 38-year-old Nichol­son. Dan­ny DeVi­to repris­es his debut role as the delu­sion­al Mar­ti­ni, one of McMurphy’s asso­ciates. The film went on to win six Gold­en Globes, six BAF­TAs and five Oscars, includ­ing Best Actor, Best Direc­tor and Best Actress for Louise Fletcher.

Through­out the film McMur­phy encour­ages trou­ble in the ward, yet these humor­ous and dra­mat­ic schemes ulti­mate­ly result in ever more severe treat­ments, and he is even­tu­al­ly forced to endure shock ther­a­py. This par­tic­u­lar pun­ish­ment is the result of McMur­phy attempt­ing to pro­tect fel­low inmate Char­lie Cheswick (Syd­ney Las­sick) after he becomes aggra­vat­ed when Nurse Ratched (Fletch­er) refus­es him a pack of cig­a­rettes. Although McMur­phy is back on his feet in the fol­low­ing scene, he sub­se­quent­ly spends more time star­ing off into the mid­dle dis­tance and think­ing deeply about his life (or lack thereof).

The way in which For­man frames the rea­sons for and con­se­quences of using shock ther­a­py makes us ques­tion whether it is in fact a viable course of med­ica­tion, or mere­ly just a form of phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture. It’s also worth not­ing that the film is direct­ed by a Czecho­slo­va­kian expat, mak­ing it more than just a spe­cif­ic exposé into the work­ings of the Amer­i­can psy­chi­atric sys­tem of the time.

It’s said that Louise Fletch­er dis­tort­ed Forman’s ini­tial image of the film’s antag­o­nist, Nurse Ratched. The direc­tor has explained that Fletch­er was ini­tial­ly a bad fit for the char­ac­ter, and so he changed the char­ac­ter in order to make her wicked­ness more sub­lim­i­nal. As opposed to being so open­ly and obvi­ous­ly evil, For­man thought it would work much bet­ter if she were more resigned and manip­u­la­tive. This is one of the key rea­sons why the film has endured.

Many of the extras who fea­ture in the film were in fact real patients. This allowed the cast to get to grips with the true nature of men­tal ill­ness. How­ev­er, some of the dis­abil­i­ties assigned to the char­ac­ters – for exam­ple Bil­ly Bibbet’s stam­mer – pro­voke the ques­tion of whether these men were typ­i­cal­ly con­sid­ered dan­ger­ous’ with­in the his­tor­i­cal con­text, or whether they were in fact just non-con­formists. In this sense, the film can be seen as a metaphor for the rise of the counter-cul­ture move­ment in Amer­i­ca and the heavy-hand­ed tac­tics used to keep these rogue ele­ments in check.

As the film comes to its bit­ter­sweet close, we see McMur­phy sneak alco­hol, cig­a­rettes and women into the ward in order to have a small good­bye’ par­ty. He plans to escape with the mono­syl­lab­ic Chief” (Will Samp­son) the fol­low­ing morn­ing. But after being caught with said con­tra­band, the con­se­quences are dev­as­tat­ing for every­one con­cerned. Fur­ther nec­es­sary pun­ish­ment takes its final toll on McMur­phy, whose dev­as­tat­ing tran­si­tion ren­ders the ques­tion of his san­i­ty moot.

Forman’s metic­u­lous depic­tion of the Amer­i­can psy­chi­atric sys­tem cre­ates a unique ambiance (and ambiva­lence) through­out the film. At the same time, the immac­u­late direc­tion brings del­i­cate ideas, issues and moral quan­daries to the fore. Was McMur­phy sane? We’ll nev­er know.

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