One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Three films have won all five of the major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay.) Those movies are It Happened One Night, Silence of the Lambs and the subject of today's post, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Directed by Milos Forman and starring Jack Nicholson, in what would become a career defining role, it has become a modern day classic and permanent resident of many greatest all-time movies lists (#33 on AFI's Top 100).

Once again, this is a movie that I had never watched straight through beginning to end. I have to admit, while I knew about the film's terrific reputation, I've never been a huge Jack Nicholson fan. There have been movies that I liked him in but I have also thought that he tends to do a fair amount of mugging for the camera.  Alas, I have to say, I thought he was spot on in this role. While his character, R.P. McMurphy, seems like your typical Nicholson role  (an irreverent, smart mouthed trouble maker) he is able to take it to greater depths here. His Oscar was welled deserved.

This is in fact an actor's movie. All of the actors who play McMurphy's fellow psych ward patients are great. It was also fun to  see a couple of familiar faces (Danny De Vito and Christopher Lloyd) before they were familiar faces. The best performance from this group though was put in by Brad Dourif in his debut role as Bobby Bibbit. Watching his response during his confrontation with Nurse Ratched during the movie's climatic scene is heartbreaking and he doesn't miss a single note in conveying Billy's devastation.

Speaking of Nurse Ratched, this was the character that I found myself thinking about the most. Played by Louise Fletcher, the very name of this character has become synonymous with petty, anal retentive authority figures drunk on their own power and self importance. I have come across a lot of these types. They come in the form of school administrators (or even yard duty aides), office managers, security guards, youth sports coaches or even fast food shift supervisors. They are individuals who take the small bit of authority they have been entrusted with and build it in their own minds to heights never imagined by anyone else around them. They value rules over reason and processes over people. Like Nurse Ratched, they often become masters of manipulation in order to get their own way.

When McMurphy enters Ratched's world he starts out as a mere disruption that she will be able to quell. Only later does she come to see him as an actual threat to her carefully ordered fiefdom. Even when her defense of that realm has tragic results her only real response is to this is relief that victory was assured and order has been resumed.

This is a movie that I am glad I watched. I also believe that further viewings will reveal even more layers. I have to say, I'm only 3% through this trip but so far I have been enjoying the "view".