Review of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) by Edith N — 02 Dec 2012

And He Was a Lousy Graduation Speaker, Too.

This is not about Guy Movie. Not this time. This is about Hollywood Freak Show. Ken Kesey supposedly wrote the book based on his experiences while "working in" a VA mental hospital in Palo Alto, California. In fact, he was a student volunteer in an LSD trial. This is probably why the ward where our story is set is yet another ward that would never exist in real life. It's not that I don't believe that many of the individual characters would really exist. It's that I don't believe they'd stick them all together. I certainly don't believe in the sequence of events as they play out. Of course, I also don't believe that Our Hero is a whimsical free spirit who is giving the real mental patients a needed taste of life, and part of that is Guy Movie territory. However, it's also Hollywood Freak Show at work again. We're not supposed to see certain events as being consequences of his actions, just the cruel nature of the hospital.

Any way you look at it, R. P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) doesn't belong in a mental hospital. He's faked being crazy because he believes it's easier to serve time in a hospital than a work camp, and despite the fact that he doesn't ever, through the course of the film, actually seem to show symptoms of anything, he is admitted. His ward is under the dictatorship of Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), a cruel, petty leader who doesn't seem terribly interested in the patients' well-being and even violates medical ethics a few times. McMurphy takes serious delight in needling her. She's just another authority figure, man, and she needs to be brought down. He also wants to lift up the other patients in his ward, who range from catatonic to suicidal. There is one who is probably gay and suppressing it. There is one, Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif), who is so oppressed by his mother that he cannot act. And there is Chief Bromden (Will Sampson), whom McMurphy makes his special project.

This is how crazy people always are in movies, and it always "takes" someone like McMurphy to "fix" us. But I put it to you, is [i]anyone[/i] in this movie better off than before he tried to game the system? I think some of what was done to him was illegal. I know plenty of what happens in this movie is unethical and could get various people's licenses revoked. I think one person is dead because of a combination of McMurphy's free-spirited ways and Nurse Ratched's ethical misconduct. (If a patient is an adult, you absolutely cannot tell their mother what happened in the hospital just to make the patient feel guilty!) I don't think McMurphy has any idea what the real mental patients are going through, even a little. I think he thinks everyone is like him--just faking it because being in the hospital is easier. If he doesn't, he's showing reckless disregard for the patients' well-being. He knows he's not a medical professional, and he still assumes he knows better for the patients than the doctors.

It is supremely frustrating to me that the role of Nurse Ratched is considered a leading performance. I know the same arguments can be made for it that are made for Sir Anthony Hopkins in [i]Silence of the Lambs[/i], and indeed I've made some of the arguments. I have to say, though, that I strongly suspect that if you compared the average percentage of a movie that the Best Actor winner is onscreen to the average percentage that the Best Actress winner is onscreen, the actresses get far less of their movies. What's more, one of the other nominees that year was Ann-Margret for [i]Tommy[/i]. Oh, probably at least part of it is the perpetual problem of 1970s film--there really weren't a lot of movies with strong female roles in them released in 1975. I'm not saying [i]Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold[/i] should have been an Oscar nominee, even though it did have a strong female lead. But maybe [i]The Stepford Wives[/i]?

There is also the issue of Best Director. Now, I hated two of the other four movies up in the category--one even more than this. However, it's worth noting that only the guy who won, Milos Forman, ever won a competitive directing Oscar--and he won two. (1984, [i]Amadeus[/i].) I hated [i]Barry Lyndon[/i] a whole lot, but Stanley Kubrick's only Oscar was for special effects for [i]2001[/i]. He never even got an honorary. And I'm certainly no fan of [i]Nashville[/i] (also not up for Best Actress), but Robert Altman's only Oscar was an honorary the year before he died. I'm not a huge Fellini fan, but [i]Amarcord[/i] is probably my favourite, and [i]his[/i] only Oscar was an honorary the year before he died. And I actually quite like both Sidney Lumet and [i]Dog Day Afternoon[/i], and he at least managed to live five years after his honorary Oscar. And Milos Forman is still alive and could theoretically win [i]again[/i]. Something just doesn't seem right about the whole thing. It's like how both Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole lost the year John Wayne won.