REVIEW: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Into a very white, sterile, and ordered existence struts uncertainty.  Balance and routine, with a backbone of ultimate will, sees before it an image of humanity in its imperfection.  Call it a Hollywood version of mental health from days of old, but thematically has time changed anything about the views people have of those with mental illnesses?  I would imagine that there is more knowledge and awareness, but go and visit a psychiatric ward in a hospital and try to tell me that some of those older images of a insane asylum don't creep into your noggin.

The institution for mentally ill patients in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest runs in conjunction with the personality of one of its nurses, Nurse Ratched.  Hers is a behaviour of following the guidelines, creating no variation or deviancy.  The sanity is in the black and white, it is clinical and definable.  However, it is that which is pitted against uncertainty as well as an unpredictable nature, a lack of order or rules, in new arrival McMurphy.  A new addition to a system that he does not quite understand, and one that conflicts with his being.

McMurphy (played by Jack Nicholson) comes from a prison and is assessed as a person who may be using the idea of having a mental illness to find a cushier accommodation for the remainder of his sentence.  The moment he shows up, it is clear through his swagger and body language that he sees himself as a big fish in a small pond, that he will be the king of the institution.  That's not necessarily far from how things turn out to be.

What the audience is presented in McMurphy is someone who has a record of violence, a person who we would see as potentially quick to anger and a little unhinged.  This is not the McMurphy that we see with our eyes.  While the others in the institution are treated merely as patients by the staff, McMurphy treats them as people, and his lack of judgement of them is shown off in the evolution of his relationship with Chief, a stoic and unspeaking native American.  McMurphy is polite with the staff at first, and he seems quite a long way from needing to be in such a facility.

But is all what it seems?  Is director Milos Forman putting in front of us a person who is sane, or someone with perhaps a complexity that is not easily diagnosed?  Within the walls of the institution, Forman creates Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), a model of professionalism, but with a complete lack of empathy for the patients.  I believe that she is the manifestation of the system that Forman is introducing us to.  It is strict, unemotional, and at complete odds with McMurphy.

As the movie moves along, I got a feeling that we were being asked if perhaps instead of some internal illness it could be situation and environment that could cause a person to take an action that could be viewed as insane.  That perhaps any member of the audience could put themselves into the shoes of McMurphy and wonder if they would act any more sane under the same circumstances.  This is the meat of this movie.  I don't believe that the point of this film is to show terrible characters, but more what could happen to a person caught in an uncaring and soulless system.

The movie balances off of Ratched and McMurphy.  He seems to believe that he can breeze through anything, that he can act how he wishes.  The consequences catch him off guard.  Ratched believes that treating people with emotional ambivalence and exposing their emotions and playing with their fears will keep the line drawn between who is sane and who isn't. The consequences catch her off guard.

What is it actually that propels the story?  Is it Ratched's actions, or McMurphy's reactions?  Who is to blame for outcome?  Are they both being manipulated, or are they both victims of the other?  The relationship between these two that is the movie's plot.  McMurphy views the institution as his last stop to freedom, although that is quashed in a scene where he tries to pick up a plumbing fixture to throw through a window so he can escape.  His attempts, the straining of his muscles, are on display to the other patients who see how this brash and charismatic person is trapped in something bigger than him.  His ability to exit the institution on his own terms ends with that scene.

Yes, there are lots of different aspects that should be talked about.  I could mention the very unique score that bookmarks the film.  More could be said about the performances, and I sure could talk about sets and wardrobe.  In the end, those things are done really well, but for me they are lost and secondary to the story that is being put in front of us.  This, to me at least, is a film where the tale comes first, and its impact is what stays with me.  It is humanity versus the system, with a view that the system will win.

Rating - 4 out of 4 stars