Plot intro
Rogueish rapscallion Randall McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) feigns mental instability to avoid a prison sentence and is admitted to a mental ward run by authoritative dictator Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). As Randall befriends and starts to sympathise with the various patients, he unleashes a campaign of rebellion and defiance against Ratched’s regime.
Okay now hear me out. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is a seminal piece of film-making, boasting some of the most legendary performances. It tackles the idea of mental health institutions and pits the ideology of anarchic chaos against state-mandated cruelty. It’s also really bloody dull.
I’ve now watched this film twice and both times I’ve paused it at the halfway mark and been like ‘there’s still another hour to go?!?’ I understand that to many film buffs, this is absolute blasphemy but frankly please don’t make me watch another two hour film devoid of any humour or lightness set in a mental institute again. I understand how it plays with the visuals of freedom versus imprisonment, I just don’t really care.
It’s a win for Louise Fletcher who manages to deliver an incredibly precise performance, scaled back and without any great crescendo. Fletcher conveys Nurse Ratched’s determination to keep order and control very well, although the script doesn’t allow her nearly as much cruelty as the actual novel does. I read online that Ratched in the film is meant to embody institutional dictatorship. She isn’t evil, so much as she is a corporation unwilling to bend to individual demand.
The problem is that Jack Nicholson’s McMurphy is so unlikable and chaotic that you don’t really root for anyone and so this two hour misery-fest stretches into oblivion. There are constant scenes where McMurphy nearly escapes and is halted, and the ultimate ending is meant to be devastating but frankly comes as sweet relief from watching this film anymore. I don’t really understand why Nicholson’s performance is so legendary here, but Fletcher deserves her win.
This to me is up there with The Godfather. A classic film that bored me to tears and I never want to watch again. I put these in the category of ‘Straight Men films’, proof if ever I needed it that my tastes are fully in the queer realm.
The tragic crescendo with Billy is well handled and one of the few moments I actually snapped back into the story.
That whole boating escapade. It felt totally unnecessary and overly symbolic (oh they’ve escaped to be on the rolling sea, searching for new lands of freedom only to be brought back into their prison).
Mark
3/10
Sometimes an actor nails a role so hard that they spend the rest of their career and life eternally associated with that role, and nothing else (regardless of however many acting gigs they might get). Such is the case with Louise Fletcher, whose ice-cold, soft-spoken, regal performance as Nurse Ratched earned her the accolade as fifth-greatest film villain, according to the American Film Institute (surpassed only by the Wicked Witch of the West, Darth Vader, Norman Bates and Hannibal Lecter). So strong, memorable and popular was her performance that many of her other acting credits are overshadowed. Arguably her second best-known is a recurring guest role in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in which she pretty much plays an alien version of Nurse Ratched.
Cuckoo’s Nest was a monster hit in the '70s, becoming the second of just three films to win an Oscar Grand Slam (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay). It is a classic bit of '70s filmmaking, unsubtly depicting the battle between not so much good and evil but more order and chaos. Randall represents chaos - erratic, scruffy and outspoken, addicted to gambling, sex, drink, drugs and partying but also encourages self-expression. Ratched is order - not a hair out of place and her voice almost never crescendos. She knows exactly what she is doing at all times. However, her therapeutic techniques leave a lot to be desired. She rations or forbids any kind of enjoyable activity, ranging from cigarettes to television. She is inflexible towards others’ suggestions but changes the rules of her ward so that she gets her own way. Most reprehensibly, she sex-shames one of the youngest patients (whose mother is a friend of Ratched’s and paying her to keep him there) to the point where he dies by suicide. Even her assistant nurse looks terrified of her. On a simplistic level, the audience (and a '70s audience brought up on The Godfather in particular) is cheering on anti-establishment Randall and booing bureaucratic Ratched.
But scratch beneath the surface and, regardless of the outstanding acting, you start to see some of the more outdated, questionable and problematic elements of Cuckoo’s Nest. Randall is not someone who, by today’s standards, is a hero. His sexual proclivity is far from admirable, especially seeing as he is serving a prison sentence for having sex with an underage girl. He is sexist, lecherous, uncouth, insulting, and borderline racist. His actions of breaking out the inmates for an illicit fishing trip or smuggling alcohol into the ward, while exciting and admirable for the wannabe-alphas in the audience, are, when you think about it, downright dangerous. Randall has no idea if alcohol will have ill effects on these patients, many of whom take daily medications. Nor does he know what to do if any of them suddenly have a panic attack in the middle of the ocean. What, to a '70s audience, might seem like “sticking it to the man”, to us seems irresponsible and unnecessary when you could just contact the Designated Safeguarding Lead.
The film also borders dangerously close to misogyny. Indeed, Ratched is the only major female character, literally surrounded by men. The only significant others are her perennially frightened assistant nurse, and two brassy prostitutes. This film was made at the height of second-wave feminism, during which women were fighting for greater financial independence, equal opportunities in the work force and greater respect for their bodies. Of course, disgruntled males didn’t take to well to this and, as a consequence, Cuckoo’s Nest could be interpreted as a film against female authority, depicting a woman in power as sexless (she makes no mention of a partner or children so evidently she is unfulfilled), cruel and repressive of men’s natural need to have sex, play basketball, get drunk and be raucous. This is a film directed, written by and starring men so perhaps Ratched is a negative depiction of what men saw as the liberated woman.
It is also possible that neither Randall nor Ratched are meant to be supportable. Randall is, indeed, too unpredictable, his actions and words leading him to be deprived of what he wants, tortured and eventually lobotomised. Meanwhile, Ratched is too ruthless, with her actions leading to her becoming powerless, humiliated and disrespected. In this tale of order vs chaos, perhaps we’re meant to perceive neither as perfect and a balance of the two is needed. This balance is achieved through Chief Bromden, a quiet, huge Native American patient, who, incidentally, narrates the original novel. While he maintains his serenity and self-control, through Randall’s chaos he finds his voice (literally and figuratively) and partakes occasionally in the conflict and partying that Randall brings. He symbolically balances his chaos and order and it is he, no one else, who manages to escape the confines of the hospital - he is the one who manages to fly the cuckoo’s nest.
After four or five viewings, do I like Cuckoo’s Nest? Generally, yes. It has enthralling and powerful scenes, and some of the best acting in movie history. It was the starting point of many big names, not just Fletcher but also Danny Devito, Brad Dourif, Christopher Lloyd and Vincent Schiavelli. The problem is that the lack of a sympathetic female voice, and the depiction of Randall as the hero of the piece in a post-Me-Too world dates the film considerably.
The climactic scene involving Billy’s suicide and Randall animalistically attacking Ratched, nearly strangling her to death. In the film she is left with a croaky, less authoritative voice but the book is more punitive - she can no longer speak at all and many patients leave the ward before her return from sick leave.
The lack of a feminine perspective dates the film tremendously. All it needs is one benevolent authoritative female voice (perhaps a Head Nurse like Ratched who follows more sympathetic medical techniques) to balance things and reassure viewers that the film doesn’t hate women.
