The Choice is either sanity or insanity {Milos Forman}

Rating: Null/10 (29 April 2011)

Ken Kesey was a legend of the 60's revolution - with his resident band The Grateful Dead and Neal Cassady {chief muse of the Beatniks} as his driver, he drove a bus across America and conducted Acid Tests all over the United States, leading to the psychedelic phase of the 60's revolution {1965 to 1969}.
A few years earlier, Kesey volunteered for a government experiment with the psychotropic hallucinogenic LSD, which he took frequently, over the course of eight months. Later in 1963 he published "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest".
The movie is a bowdlerized version of Kesey's novel, which simplifies the intellectual elements in the novel. Hence, the 60's concerns with the nature of insanity are reduced to a simple conflict of wills. The radical psychiatry of the existential school around R.D.Laing, asked the question - "Is insanity merely a sane response to an insane world?" Thomas Szasz wrote "The Myth of Mental Illness" and Wilhelm Reich described psychiatrists {Soul Doctors} as "The State Mental Police"
The Hollywoodization of this novel, led to the excision of the Native American Indian point of view, which changed the story from one that wished to explore the state of the "soul" in America to a meditation on Mental Health Institutions. Kesey most certainly identified with the Native American "peyote cults", and their Dream Dances and visions, by narrating his tale through the voice of the Native American Chief Bromden {not used in the movie screenplay}.
This then becomes the proto-psychedelic aspect of the story. Jack Nicholson plays the Ken Kesey character, a Dionysian spirit without reference to Native American Nature Religion, with its pantheistic world-view. The "control mania", which Nurse Ratched symbolizes, is not contrasted with the reverence that the Native American's held towards all of Creation.
So, having removed the Jungian dimension from the adaptation of the novel, what was left? A sadistic, cold, malevolent Nurse Ratched {to ratched up can mean to increase the pressure of control}. She symbolizes all of those people who are addicted to this form of behavioral interaction {the reactionary in society}. MacMurphy {Jack Nicholson} storms through a portrait of a hard-drinking, hard-playing, hard-sexing, hard living young blue collar type {one is made aware of Nicholson's Irish roots in this whirlwind of a performance}. Dr. Spivey has his surname cognate with "spiv" meaning "worthless". He, like all the actors in the movie act their hearts out and are all thoroughly convincing. Charley Cheswick {played by Sydney Lassick} was imperious and Danny DeVito as Martini was utterly plausible and on and on {the acting is magnificent}. This is why I recommend this movie, primarily for the intensity of the acting.
I hugely enjoyed the sea outing and thought this comic element gave the movie tragi-comic momentum {the basketball scene was also hysterically funny}.
Ken Kesey refused to ever view this exploitation of his literary art, although in an ironic world I'm sure people will continue to read his novel because of the movie.