One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (film)

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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Image:One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest poster.jpg
Directed by	Miloš Forman
Produced by	Michael Douglas Saul Zaentz
Written by	screenplay by Lawrence Hauben Bo Goldman based on the novel by Ken Kesey
Starring	Jack Nicholson Louise Fletcher William Redfield Brad Dourif Will Sampson Danny DeVito Scatman Crothers Christopher Lloyd
Music by	Jack Nitzsche
Cinematography	Haskell Wexler
Editing by	Sheldon Kahn Lynzee Klingman
Distributed by	United Artists (theatrical) Warner Home Video (home entertainment)
Release date(s)	November 19, 1975
Running time	133 min.
Country	Image:Flag of the United States.svg
Language	English
Budget	$4,400,000
Gross revenue	$112,000,000
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a 1975 film directed by Miloš Forman. The film is an adaptation of the 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. The movie was the first to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor in Lead Role, Actress in Lead Role, Director, Screenplay) since It Happened One Night in 1934, an accomplishment not repeated until 1991, by The Silence of the Lambs.

There had been an earlier stage version of the book, in 1963, but the film does not use the script of the stage version.

The movie was filmed at Oregon State Hospital in Salem, Oregon.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Casting 3 Title interpretation 4 Reception 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Plot

Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a recidivist criminal serving a short prison term on a work farm for statutory rape, is transferred to a mental institution due to his apparently deranged behavior. This is a deliberate gambit by McMurphy in the belief that he'll now be able to serve out the rest of his sentence in relative comfort and ease.

His ward in the mental institution is run by a calm but unyielding tyrant, Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), who has cowed the patients — most of whom are there by choice, categorized as "voluntary" patients — into dejected submission. While he initially has little respect for his fellow patients, McMurphy's antiauthoritarian nature is aroused. His needling of Nurse Ratched is initially just for kicks, but his sense of injustice at their treatment leads him into a battle for the hearts and minds of the patients. What he finds out only later is that Ratched has the power to keep him there indefinitely. Rather than simply bide her time with McMurphy and have him transferred, Ratched sees his behavior as a personal affront and challenge to her authority and becomes obsessed with winning this contest.

McMurphy gradually forms deep friendships in the ward with a group of men which includes Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif), a suicidal, stuttering teenager whom Ratched has humiliated and dominated, and "Chief" Bromden (Will Sampson), a 6’ 5” muscular Native American. Believed by the patients to be deaf and unable to speak, Chief is mostly ignored but also respected for his enormous size. In Billy, McMurphy sees a younger brother figure whom he wants to teach to have fun, while the Chief ultimately becomes his only real confidante, as they both see their struggles against authority in similar terms.

McMurphy initially insults Chief when he enters the ward, but attempts to use his size as an advantage (for example, in playing basketball). Later, they and patient Charlie Cheswick (Sydney Lassick) are detained for being involved in a fight with the ward attendants. Cheswick undergoes electroshock therapy, while McMurphy and Chief wait their turn on a bench. While they wait, McMurphy offers Chief a piece of Juicy Fruit gum, and Bromden verbally thanks him. A surprised McMurphy discovers that Chief actually hates the hospital establishment just as he does but handles it in a different way (by remaining mute instead of using Randle's strategy of open defiance). McMurphy hatches a plan that will allow himself and Bromden to escape. Following his "therapy," McMurphy jokingly feigns catatonia before assuring his cohorts and Nurse Ratched that the attempt to subdue him didn't work.

On the night of December 10, 1963, McMurphy sneaks into the nurse's station and calls his girlfriend, Candy, and tells her to bring booze. Another woman tags along and both enter the ward after McMurphy bribes the night watchman, Mr. Turkel (Crothers). The patients drink while Billy flirts with McMurphy's girlfriend. McMurphy sees that Billy likes Candy and tells her to sleep with Bibbit. While Billy and McMurphy's girlfriend are in a separate room, the rest of the patients, including McMurphy and the Chief who had been planning to escape, pass out from drinking, probably because of the extant neuroleptic drugs (Thorazine, etc.) in their systems.

When Nurse Ratched arrives the next morning she commands the attendants to clean up the patients and conduct a head count. A confrontation with Billy leads directly to his suicide. McMurphy explodes into a violent rage, viciously throttling Ratched. McMurphy is subdued and taken away again for punishment; he's given a lobotomy and eventually returned to the ward. Chief Bromden, unwilling to leave McMurphy behind, suffocates his neurologically disabled friend with a pillow. He follows Randle's plan for escape by heroically hoisting a very heavy marble hydrotherapy fountain and hurling it through a barred window.

[edit] Casting

Kirk Douglas originated the role of McMurphy in a stage production, and then bought the film rights, hoping to play McMurphy on the screen. He passed the production rights to his son, Michael Douglas, who decided his father was too old for the role. Kirk was reportedly angry at his son for a time afterwards because of this. Actor James Caan was originally offered the McMurphy role, and Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman were considered as well. According to the director on the latest Special Edition DVD, he wanted Burt Reynolds to play the lead.

The role of domineering Nurse Ratched was turned down by six actresses, Anne Bancroft, Colleen Dewhurst, Geraldine Page, Ellen Burstyn, Jane Fonda, and Angela Lansbury, until Louise Fletcher accepted casting only a week before filming began.

Actor	Role
Jack Nicholson	Randle Patrick McMurphy
Louise Fletcher	Nurse Mildred "Big Nurse" Ratched
William Redfield	Dale Harding
Dean R. Brooks	Dr. John Spivey
Scatman Crothers	Orderly Turkle
Danny DeVito	Martini
William Duell	Jim Sefelt
Brad Dourif	Billy Bibbit
Christopher Lloyd	Max Taber
Will Sampson	Chief Bromden
Vincent Schiavelli	Frederickson
Nathan George	Attendant Washington
Sydney Lassick	Charlie Cheswick

The film marked the film debuts of Sampson, Dourif and Lloyd. It was one of the first films for DeVito. DeVito and Lloyd co-starred several years later on the television series Taxi.

[edit] Title interpretation

The title is derived from an American children's folk rhyme. ^[1]

Wire, briar, limber-lock

Three geese in a flock

One flew east, one flew west

What a mess, that nest

And one flew over the blackbird's nest.

It loses the significance it had in the novel, in which the line is a part of a rhyme Chief Bromden remembers from his childhood. This detail was not included in the film.

[edit] Reception

The film received generally positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert (who would win a Pulitzer Prize later that year) claimed that "Milos Forman's 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' is a film so good in so many of its parts that there's a temptation to forgive it when it goes wrong. But it does go wrong, insisting on making larger points than its story really should carry, so that at the end, the human qualities of the characters get lost in the significance of it all. And yet there are those moments of brilliance." ^[2]. Ebert would later put the film on his "Great Movies" list.^[3] A.D. Murphy of "Variety" wrote a mixed review as well.^[4] The film went on to win a total of five Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Jack Nicholson (who played McMurphy), Best Actress for Louise Fletcher (who played Nurse Ratched), Best Direction for Miloš Forman, Best Picture, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman. (One of the other nominees for Best Actress that year, Ann-Margret, was also in a film that featured Jack Nicholson, Tommy.)

Today, the film is considered to be one of the greatest American films and is ranked at number 20 on the American Film Institute's list of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies, Nurse Ratched was ranked number 5 on the Institute's list of 50 Greatest Villains, and the film consistently ranks in the top 10 on the Internet Movie Database.

Kesey himself never saw the movie. "There was a legal dispute over financial earnings from Cuckoo's Nest", said Faye Kesey, "during which we met with this awful lawyer who was really horrid to be around. At one point he became irate with Ken and yelled at him saying, 'when this movie comes out, you'll be the first in line to see it.' Ken glared back at him and swore he'd never see the film. And that was that."^{[citation needed]}

In 1993, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their National Film Registry.

The film was shown in Swedish cinemas between 1975 and 1987; twelve years, which is still a record. When Milos Forman learned that he said "I'm absolutely thrilled by that... It's wonderful".

This movie inspired Metallica's song Welcome Home (Sanitarium).^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References

1. ^ What children's song is also known as "William Trimmytoes"?.
2. ^ [1] - Roger Ebert review, "Chicago Sun-Times," January 1, 1975.
3. ^ [2] - Roger Ebert review, Chicago Sun-Times, February 2, 2003.
4. ^ [3] - A.D. Murphy, Variety, November 7, 1975

[edit] External links

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at the Internet Movie Database
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at All Movie Guide
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest review by Roger Ebert
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest review by Roger Ebert as "Great Movie"
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at Filmsite.org

Awards
Preceded by The Godfather Part II	Academy Award for Best Picture 1975	Succeeded by Rocky
Preceded by Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore	BAFTA Award for Best Film 1976	Succeeded by Annie Hall
Preceded by Chinatown	Golden Globe for Best Picture - Drama 1976	Succeeded by Rocky

v • d • e Films directed by Miloš Forman

Black Peter (1964) • Loves of a Blonde (1965) • The Firemen's Ball (1967) • Taking Off (1971) • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) • Hair (1979) • Ragtime (1981) • Amadeus (1984) • Valmont (1989) • The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) • Man on the Moon (1999) • Goya's Ghosts (2006) • Amarillo Slim Shorts: Audition (1963) • Kdyby ty muziky nebyly (1963) Co-Director: Laterna magika II (1960) • Dobře placená procházka (TV) (1966) • I Miss Sonia Henie (1971) • Vision of Eight (1973)

v • d • e Academy Award for Best Picture: Winners (1961-1980)

1961: West Side Story · 1962: Lawrence of Arabia · 1963: Tom Jones · 1964: My Fair Lady · 1965: The Sound of Music · 1966: A Man for All Seasons · 1967: In the Heat of the Night · 1968: Oliver! · 1969: Midnight Cowboy · 1970: Patton · 1971: The French Connection · 1972: The Godfather · 1973: The Sting · 1974: The Godfather Part II · 1975: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest · 1976: Rocky · 1977: Annie Hall · 1978: The Deer Hunter · 1979: Kramer vs. Kramer · 1980: Ordinary People Complete List · Winners (1927–1940) · Winners (1941–1960) · Winners (1981–2000) · Winners (2001– )

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