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Rating:  - Free Spirits In A Closed System
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975) is on every list of favorite films. It was the first film since "It Happened One Night" (1934) to win all five of the top Academy Awards, for best picture, actor (Nicholson), actress (Louise Fletcher), director (Milos Forman) and screenplay (Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman).Roger Ebert
The film, 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' is based on Ken Kesey's 1962 best-selling novel, "contained the prophetic essence of the whole Vietnam period of revolutionary politics going psychedelic", as stated by Pauline Kael.
The movie's portrays a simple approach. Mcmurphy reminds me of my best friend, a free spirit in a closed system. The free spirit in this case is Jack Nicholson. Nicholson's performance is one of the high points in his career. Jack is a beloved star, an actor who is male. He gets away with things because he knows how to.
Nurse Ratched, Louise Fletcher, plays an inflexible woman and nurse. She must be in control of everything and everybody.
"The film is known as an anti-establishment parable, but achieves its success by deliberately choosing to use the mental patients as comic caricatures. This decision leads to the fishing trip, which is at once the most popular, and the most false, scene in the movie. It is McMurphy's great joyous thumb in the eye to Ratched and her kind, but the energy of the sequence cannot disguise the unease and confusion of men who, in many cases, have no idea where they are, or why." Pauline Kael
Through-out the film I had two recurring thoughts. What is really going on in McMurphy's mind, and how much different and how much alike this mental institution is than the one where I received my mental health nursing education. In my estimation the film revolves around what McMurphy is thinking and then, how he acts out on those thoughts. The amazing reality is that the treatment works for McMurphy, who'd a thunk it? One of the last scenes where McMurphy is lying on the floor, thinking. Has he given up? I felt a great deal of ambivalence about him, because I did not know whether to laugh or cry. The antagonism between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy is pa;pable. She is straight-laced, and he is a free spirit.
Highly, Highly Recommended. prisrob 08-08-07
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
As Good As It Gets
Amadeus
Rating: - An Incredible Ensemble Cast
Many murder shows have as a plotline that the murderer decides to plead insanity, rather than face the real consequences of his actions. It is thought that the easy life of an insane asylum is far better than the bars of a prison. Certainly RP McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) thinks so. All he's done is have sex with a 15 year old - she claimed she was 18 - and he doesn't feel like doing work duty to wile away his time. He plays insane and figures he'll sit around and talk with the loonies for a while instead.
Unfortunately for RP, the woman in charge of this ward is Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). She runs a tight ship, and likes everything just so. Into her tidy little world comes the freewheeling RP, out to get the inmates to do wild things like watch the World Series instead of sit around and talk therapy.
Even though Nurse Ratched denies RP's quest to watch baseball, still, she almost seems to be helping the inmates - talking reasonably with them, giving them logical reasons why things are the way they are. Still, as time goes on, you start to sense that her priorities aren't necessarily with the patients. What she says seems reasonable - but the manner in which she pursues things, even when it's clearly bothering the patients, makes you think otherwise.
By the end of the movie, it is quite clear that Nurse Ratched is deliberately taking actions to cause great harm to her patients, to keep them docile and dependant. RP is only inches away from escape ...
What is amazing about this movie is not the specific plot - which rambles in and out of the various insane inmates' minds - but is the ensemble of actors gathered. Many of these actors went on to win awards, and each one is pretty much perfect in his or her role. Yes, the two main characters richly deserve the Oscars they won. But the casting director did a stupendous job here, casting the cream of the crop in terms of who could play each of these individuals. It is that group effort that really allows the realism to shine through, and to make this movie just as powerful and relatable now as it was when it first came out.
Highly recommended.
Note: This movie was #20 on the AFI top 100 movies of all time.
Rating: - A MUST SEE CLASSIC! FILMS THIS GREAT DON'T COME AROUND OFTEN!
This is such a great movie! I never laughed so much in a drama and it wasn't because of something unintentional. There are genuine laughs to be had in this fantastic sad but inspirational story. Nicholson has never been better and won an Oscar for his role as R.P. McMurphy! Films like this are few and far between. If you've never seen this 5 time Oscar winning movie you don't know what your missing. A classic gem that should be in everyone's film collection. The DVD transfer is excellent with interesting extras on the 2 disc edition.!
Rating: - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
A landmark film of the '70s, Forman's "Nest" is the anti-establishment film par excellence--and perhaps the finest showcase ever for the blazing talent and wild-man antics of a certain Jack Nicholson. Organizing illegal card games, playing hoops with the nutters, sneaking whores into the lockdown ward, McMurphy represents the zeal and passion of a truly free spirit. His interactions with Christopher Lloyd, Brad Dourif, and a young Danny DeVito are both hilarious and tragic, but it's his conflict with fellow Oscar winner Fletcher, as the hateful, repressed, order-obsessed Nurse Ratched, that ultimately seals his fate. Based on Ken Kesey's mordant novel, "Nest" is a grimly funny movie about madness and our irrepressible need to challenge authority.
Rating:  - Pretty good, awesome acting, but things kind of fell apart towards the end
Some aspects of the movie were excellent. Nicholson did a hell of a job, like always. He is just as believable as he wants to be. He is just crazy enough for the viewer to wonder if he belongs in the mental facility or if he is just faking to stay out of a labor-yard or the state penitentary. Some of his interactions with the head nurse and the other patients are unforgettable, like when he pretends he is watching baseball and starts the play by play announcing when the head nurse refuses to let the patients watch the world series.
I liked most of the movie and the plot development seemed to be right on cue. But once the movie started winding down, things stopped being believable. McMurphy seems to leave and enter the facility whenever he wants, cleverly eluding security, he bribes the guard with a box of liquor, and convinces his girlfriend to sleep with one of the patients. After the entire routine of trashing the mental facility at the cover of night, he decided to STAY instead of escape, when he could have easily escaped. This was just absurd and the movie lost its purpose at that point.
In typical, depressing fashion, everything falls apart, when the innocent young man commits suicide, McMurphy forsakes another attempt to escape. I won't give away the ending, but its not satisfying and not what I was hoping for, it made me feel that I wasted 2 1/2 hours of watching the film.
There were few enduring lessons; other than the motif of individuals who are on power trips, personified by the head nurse. The book is a classic and is known for developing this relationship masterfully. But in a 2 1/2 hour movie, it is hard to accomplish this dense character development. It just didn't work in my eyes.
This film usually gets great ratings, but it just didn't fly for me. I like classics, like Cool Hand Luke and the Godfather. But I don't like depressing, meaningless endings. Death, depression and failure don't necessarily make a "good" movie in my eyes. There needs to be more purpose behind it. The conversations and acting were great, but the last half hour of the movie was disappointing.
It seems as the writer of the script, and the author for that matter, had excellent material but really didn't know how to wrap it up for a memorable ending.
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