One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) is one of the greatest American films of all time - a $4.4 million dollar effort directed by Czech Milos Forman.

 Jack Nicholson's character is the heroic rebel McMurphy, who lives free or dies (through an act of mercy killing).

The role of Nurse Ratched was refused by five actresses - Anne Bancroft, Colleen Dewhurst, Geraldine Page, Ellen Burstyn, and Angela Lansbury - until Louise Fletcher accepted casting (in her debut film) only a week before filming began. And actor James Caan was also originally offered the lead role of McMurphy, and Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman were considered as well.

It surprised everyone by becoming enormously profitable - the seventh-highest-earning film ever (at its time), bringing in almost $300 million worldwide. The independently-produced film also did well at the  Oscar ceremony: it was the first film to take all the major awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress) since Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934). It was nominated for nine Academy Awards in total: Best Actor (Jack Nicholson with his first win after losing the previous year for Chinatown (1974)), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography (Bill Butler and Haskell Wexler), Best Director, Best Editing, Best Picture, Best Score (Jack Nitzsche) and Best Supporting Actor (Brad Dourif). "Cuckoo's Nest" beat out tough competition for Best Picture by Spielberg's Jaws (1975) and Altman's Nashville (1975).

Kirk Douglas bought the rights to the novel of the same name, but couldn't convince film studios to produce the film. Many years after its short theatrical run, Douglas transferred the rights to his son, actor/producer Michael Douglas, who co-produced the United Artists film with Saul Zaentz. Michael Douglas had considered playing the starring role, but by the time of the film's production, he judged himself too old.

The original author of the book, Ken Kesey had derived most of the novel's secondary characters from real-life psychiatric ward patients at a VA hospital (in Menlo Park, CA) where he had once worked in a night job in the late 50s. Kesey was so angry at the change in the perspective of the story-telling (away from Chief Bromden's first-person view) and other changes in the script that he sued the producers.)

The film starts with an Oregonian countryside scene at dawn, as a car's headlights move across the screen. A black-coated supervisory nurse, Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) arrives at the locked, security ward of a state mental hospital [on location in Salem, Oregon at the Oregon State Hospital/Asylum], where patient inmates, nurses, and orderlies attend to early morning medications. Pills are dispensed from the Nurses' Station, a room with sliding glass panels.

A  rebellious patient/prisoner Randle Patrick (R. P.) "Mac" McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), 38 years old, is escorted into the ward where he meets some of the bizarre, memorable patients/inmates (most of whom are voluntarily committed):

 

 

Dr. Spivey (real hospital superintendent Dr. Dean Brooks), the head doctor at the institution, interviews McMurphy. The doctor reminds McMurphy of his five arrests for assault, to which McMurphy replies: "Five fights, huh? Rocky Marciano's got forty and he's a millionaire." The crime of statutory rape put him into jail.

The prison officials think he's been "fakin' it," pretending to be insane to get himself transferred out of the hard work details of the prison work farm. McMurphy actually admits that he is sane and agrees to cooperate during a period of evaluation, study, and treatment of his condition.

McMurphy is assigned to a ward supervised by an authoritarian called Nurse Mildred Ratched and soon senses he must battle her, irritated by her domineering attitude in a chaotic group therapy session. The scene ends with her powerful, self-satisfied smile.

While the non-restricted patients get on a field trip bus during an outdoor exercise period, he teaches those left behind, including the Chief, an "old Indian game" - basketball, in a fenced-in court. On the shoulders of Bancini (Josip Elic), a Frankenstein-like inmate, he demonstrates how to put the ball in the basket. With a cool, emotionally controlled look, Nurse Ratched views his efforts from the ward's window.

McMurphy introduces card games (with pornographically illustrated cards) and gambling (betting cigarettes) to the monotonous routine of the patients.

McMurphy breaks one of the rules by entering the Nurse's Station to turn down the loud volume of the music. When told he isn't allowed there, he again makes his request outside the station, but she refuses. "That music is for everyone, Mr. McMurphy." At first he refused to take the medication, but when the nurse offers an alternative method to taking pills orally, McMurphy decides to take his pill (but then doesn't swallow it.)

The patients are organized and controlled through a set of authoritarian rules and regulations that McMurphy questions.

In the next group therapy meeting, McMurphy asks Nurse Ratched to rearrange the "carefully worked out schedule" of the work detail so that the inmates can watch the opener of the 1963 World Series baseball game on television, adding: "a little change never hurt huh? A little variety?" Nurse Ratched refuses: "Some men on the ward take a long, long time to get used to the schedule. Change it now and they might find it very disturbing."

The Nurse proposes a vote to decide the matter - "let majority rule" - already knowing that authority and power are on her side against the weak, easily dominated patients. Only three votes support McMurphy's request and he can't believe it.

When a Monopoly game between the inmates in the tub room (shower room) leads to an argument, McMurphy sprays the patients with water to cool them down, and then tells Harding that he's going downtown to watch the World Series.

McMurphy bets the patients that he can escape from the hospital by lifting a heavy, watering station. He plans to go downtown with Cheswick and "sit down at a bar and watch the ballgame. Harding gambles $25 that McMurphy isn't strong enough. In a dramatic and memorable scene, McMurphy struggles valiantly to pick up the tremendous weight - but he cannot lift it. As he leaves the room, he turns toward the patientsand says:

But I tried, didn't I? God-damn it. At least I did that.

During the next therapy session, Nurse Ratched asks Billy questions about his problems. Cheswick proposes another vote about watching the second game of the World Series, thinking it would be a better therapeutic alternative. McMurphy encourages his usually compliant and spiritless fellow patients. Nine votes are counted in the therapy group and McMurphy senses victory, but Nurse Ratched refuses to lose to him and changes the rules to defeat the proposal:

Nurse: There are eighteen patients on this ward, Mr. McMurphy. And you have to have a majority to change ward policy.

Nurse Ratched adjourns the meeting and closes the voting session as McMurphy tries and fails to get the severely-disturbed patients to join in the vote. When the Chief slowly raises his hand, McMurphy is elated, but the Nurse rejects the vote of 10 to 8 from behind the glass panel of the Nurse's Station, and refuses to let them watch television. She says that the vote when the meeting adjourned was 9 to 9:

In the most well-remembered sequence in the film, McMurphy pretends to be enjoying the second World Series baseball game on television, defying the Nurse. His excitement proves infectious - the other patients join him and look up at the dark television screen that reflects their faces - they almost believe that the game is real.

In another evaluation session with Dr. Spivey after a four-week stay, McMurphy criticises Nurse Ratched.

The doctor offers his diagnosis of McMurphy's mental health state: "I don't see any evidence of mental illness at all. And I think that you've been trying to put us on all this time." In one of the film's funniest sequences, he hijacks the field trip bus and escapes with his fellow inmates for a wild fishing trip. On the way, he picks up a prostitute friend named Candy (Marya Small), who innocently asks all the "boys":

You all crazy?

McMurphy convinces the charter boat harbour manager that the men are a group of doctors from the state mental institution. He introduces each one of them: "This is Dr. Cheswick, Dr. Taber, Dr. Frederickson, Dr. Scanlon, the famous Dr. Scanlon, Mr. Harding, Dr. Bibbit, Dr. Martini, and Dr. Sefelt...Oh, I'm Dr. McMurphy, R. P. McMurphy." Although the group is happy during the trip, the boat actually goes round in circles on the open water when Cheswick takes the wheel. While they fish, McMurphy goes below deck with Candy. The patients even come back with some big fish and smiles on their faces - their holiday away from the hospital has done them more good than a therapy session. They are met at dockside by the police and Dr. Spivey.

In a meeting in Dr. Spivey's office, the institution's doctors agree that McMurphy is "dangerous" and possibly a threat to society, but probably not crazy. Nurse Ratched wants to keep McMurphy in the hospital, not to "help him" but because she is determined to control him and break him:

Dr. Spivey: The funny thing is that the person that he's the closest to is the one he dislikes the most...That's you, Mildred.

Nurse: Well gentlemen, my opinion, if we send him back to Pendleton (prison), it's just one more way of passing on our problems to somebody else. You know, we don't like to do that. So I'd like to keep him on the ward. I think we can help him.

McMurphy's lessons on basketball are effective, and he is able to successfully coach and organize games with the patients and guards. With his height, Chief Bromden helps them win, standing at one end of the court with hands held high in the air to score baskets, and stopping baskets at the opponents' end of the court. After learning that he won't be released in 68 days from the hospital to the "outside," as he would if he was at the prison farm, McMurphy asks Nurse Ratched and the other patients about his indeterminate length of stay. He wants to know why the other patients didn't tell him that the doctors could keep him there as long as they wanted to. He realizes that most of the patients are voluntary and have the freedom to leave at any time they choose. McMurphy is amazed that Billy is only voluntary. He tells them that they are no more insane than the Nurse or any of the asylum wardens.

Inspired by McMurphy, the patients begin to use their minds and express their feelings, questioning the authoritarian Nurse and the system that keeps them locked up. However, the therapy session degenerates when the patients end up fighting with each other over cigarettes (traded as currency). The scene ends when Taber screams about his burning trouser leg and Cheswick shouts at the Nurse in a tantrum.

McMurphy smashes the glass panels of the Nurses' Station and takes a carton of cigarettes for Cheswick. When Washington, a black male nurse, tries to hold him, they get into a fight. The Chief joins to help McMurphy.

As punishment, Cheswick, McMurphy, and Chief Bromden are sent upstairs to the 'Disturbed' ward to receive electro-shock treatment. There, while waiting, McMurphy realizes, to his surprise that Bromden, has faked being deaf and dumb and they plan to escape together.

Later, after his treatment, McMurphy walks zombie-like into a therapy session in progress on the ward, and the inmates, after initial shock, are happy to see him again. He jokes to Billy about the effectiveness of the shock treatment that he received.

McMurphy's last victory happens, when he plans a pre-escape party with alcohol and girls. After bribing the night watchman Turkle with booze, he brings two girlfriends, Candy and Rose into the ward late at night for a wild drinking party after the Nurse has left. Although the patients enjoy themselves, the entire ward is quickly destroyed. McMurphy has an opportunity to leave, but hesitates when young Billy Bibbit expresses disappointment at the departure of his friend - and then wishes a last-minute "date" with Candy.

McMurphy persuades Candy to sleep with Billy so that he can lose his virginity. Billy is delivered in a wheelchair to Candy by the other patients.

The next morning, the ward orderlies find the place in a mess. McMurphy has drunkenly fallen asleep on the floor. Nurse Pilbow discovers Billy Bibbit in bed with Candy in one of the rooms. The patients applaud his conquest when he joins them in the ward, smiling from ear to ear. But Billy is forced to "explain everything," and made to feel guilty:

Nurse Ratched: Aren't you ashamed?
Billy: (without stuttering) No, I'm not. (More applause)
Nurse: You know Billy, what worries me is how your mother's going to take this.

Threatening to inform his mother about his behavior, the Nurse knows how to exploit Billy's weaknesses and torment him. There are disastrous results - Billy begins stammering again and feels so guilty that he commits suicide by cutting his own throat. McMurphy isn't able to make a quick escape through the window, but might have escaped to freedom during the confusion. However, he loses control when he learns of Billy's death, feeling personally responsible for his friend. When the Nurse authoritatively instructs everyone to "calm down" and "go on with our daily routine," he attempts to strangle her for having cruelly contributed to Billy's suicide. In retaliation, McMurphy is restrained and taken away. Rumors say that he has escaped, or that he has been taken upstairs and is "as meek as a lamb." In the middle of the night, McMurphy is returned to the ward - lobotomized, catatonic, totally passive, and obediently captive.

In the film's conclusion, patient Chief Bromden realizes that "Mac" has had surgery on his brain. [A frontal lobotomy is the surgical cutting of nerve fibers connecting the frontal lobes to the thalamus, a severe procedure commonly practiced in the 1930s-1950s on mentally-disordered patients.] He knows that McMurphy has lost his vital strength and will never be able to escape with him to Canada. He hugs his friend and then ends his misery to free him in an act of mercy killing. Bromden suffocates McMurphy with a pillow. Then, with his tremendous strength and inspired by McMurphy's example, proving that a single person can still overcome oppressive conditions, he picks up the marble water station in the tub room and throws it through the window. He escapes from the cuckoo's nest, flying away to the outside world. The other patients remain in the locked ward of the hospital after everything that has transpired.

 

Write your own summary of the film, without copying any of the above text, and write whether you liked the film and why. (not less than 150 words).

 

(text adapted from the original on the web site: http://www.filmsite.org/onef.html )

 

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