One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ...A film review.....

Rating: Null/10 (3 February 2012)

The film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is adapted from the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, written by Ken Kessey. The story takes place in a mental institution and is about the rebellion of conformism against authority. This film depicts how society views the "mentally ill", and helps give more of a connection to the patients in order to get a better understanding of their behavior and struggles. In the film, Jack Nicholson is cast in the lead role as, Randall McMurphy, who is a small time criminal that chooses to "play crazy" and spend the remainder of his jail sentence in the mental ward, in order to get out of hard, laborious work. His plan works, but he soon discovers that life in the asylum isn't what he thought it would be. While many of the rules of the ward are not as restricting as those in the prison, there are many privileges that he has to forego. Despite this realization, he decides to try to make the best of it and quickly befriends many of the different patients on the ward. Such as the, very small and very talkative Martini (Danny DeVito), the stuttering young man, Billy, (Brad Dourif) and the tall and large deaf and mute American Indian, who he nicknames "The Chief" (Will Sampson). The villain of the film, Nurse Ratched, played by Louise Fletcher, becomes the main obstacle of McMurphy's personal freedom and rights. Throughout much of the film, you see Nurse Ratched manipulate situations to favor her own opinions and thoughts and you could see how she was constantly trying to maintain her control and dominance over the patients. She would rather destroy and belittle the men, rather than help them or try to cure them. Her so called "therapy" involved humiliation and exposing the men's weaknesses. McMurphy was always pushing Nurse Ratched to her breaking points, by constantly questioning her authority and trying to get the other patients to agree with his requests and opinions. Nurse Ratched is the symbol of "authority" and "society" and her behavior represents how "society" expects us to act and behave towards individuals and their struggles. In the end, McMurphy gets to be free, but not in the way you anticipate him to be free.
When watching this film, I am reminded of another film, also directed by Milos Forman,"The People Verses Larry Flynt". This film is also about rebelling against authority, and the struggles of one man who went up against a "society" of others and stood for what he believed was his right and privilege. This film also showed, much like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", what happens to individuals who don't conform to what is deemed "normal" or socially accepted.
The director does a great job of incorporating feelings with the colors used within the mental institutions atmosphere. Most of the film's scenes are gloomy and dark which conveys what it must have been like for the patients to be confined in the ward. The hospital displays no bright or happy colors and the movie is mostly filmed with dingy blues and grays, which I believe symbolizes the patients' despair and hopelessness. Many of the patients are dressed in the hospital uniforms, and they often appear disheveled, and messy. The director also uses sound to help convey to the audience the pain and misery these patients were going through. The choice of the sounds makes the audience forced to see and almost feel how the mental institution must be in reality.
Nurse Ratched's character represents order and authority, while McMurphy's character represents rebellion. The film does a great job of showing the rebellion against authority, by choosing to use the psychiatric ward as a representation of a small part of the world, human beings and society. The film depicts society as a way to conform everyone to its narrow-mindedness and rules. It shows how when you conform to what other people's views are; you lose your own individuality. The director, Milos Forman, conveys the daily struggles that everyone must face when trying to go outside of what is deemed "normal", and how you can eventually overcome these trials, even if it means dying so that others can pursue their own freedom.