ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST

There have only been three motion pictures that have swept the top five categories of Best Lead Actress, Best Lead Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture. Those pictures are It Happened One Night in 1935, Silence of the Lambs in 1992, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1976. Jack Nicholson gives a tour de force performance in the latter film, directed by the amazing Milos Foreman.

In an effort to avoid the work detail of his prison sentence, Randal McMurphy (Nicolson) feigns being crazy so that he can be transferred to a state mental health facility where he will be observed and evaluated. During his stay, he disrupts the status quo and previously unchallenged authority of a very detached and manipulative Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). McMurphy has no intention of conforming to the daily bland regimen to which the other patients have willingly submitted themselves. He seeks to shake them up through a series of wild and unauthorized adventures and interactions. His attempts to show his new “friends” that authority is not always to be trusted or followed, eventually singles him out for retribution from that same authority. His provocation of the stagnant and unsupportive state of affairs in the mental facility does not bode well for him, but he does eventually inspire at least one other fellow free spirit to reject their willing submission.

The casting is superb, and the acting is top-notch throughout the entire tale. I was particularly taken with Danny Devito’s performance as Martini. Though the character barely speaks, it is a role completely outside of the gruff loudmouth archetype for which he is most known. It’s almost strange to see him smiling so much! Louise Fletcher is magnificent as Nurse Ratched. Her performance is so subtly nuanced that it’s really left up to the viewer as to whether she is well-intentioned or simply enamored and consumed with her ability to be in control.

On the surface, the tale is about power and control and a very impaired and unsound psychiatric system, but the real story is one of forced conformity. None of the main patients are mentally ill, but only made to feel that way because of societal norms. Norms that most often are not established for real moral reasons, but for reasons of maintaining power and a status quo. I look forward to watching this one again soon to harvest it for details I'm sure I may have missed.