"You're not a goddamn loony now!"

Rating: 5/10 (6 February 2011)

The 1970s were the golden age of politicised cinema. Race, sexuality and militarism all came under fire more than ever before. Meanwhile, the loosening up of codes governing motion picture content meant that pictures were now more frank about sex, violence and other taboos. While this was generally a good thing, what it really brought out was that for all the social advancement going on women were still very much the losers in the sexual revolution. A case in point is One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, a picture of spiteful misogyny wrapped in the politics of mental health.
Now I'm not normally one to pick apart a movie for "hidden" meanings, but in this case the subtext is unequivocal, unpleasant, and has rarely been discussed. It begins as early as the excusing of McMurphy's criminal past. In the first scene at Doctor Spivey's office his conviction for statutory rape is played down, passed off as natural, and the fault of the girl in any case. On the ward, it is the tyranny of women in authority that keeps the all-male patient group down, preventing them from enjoying such stereotypically masculine pursuits as gambling over cards, watching baseball, going fishing and, of course, getting laid. Even the handful of females in the story whom we never see – Billy's overbearing mother, Harding's unfaithful wife – are portrayed as villains and causes of the patients' being committed. The only acceptable women in this worldview are ones like Candy; they don't answer back, aren't educated and aren't fussy who they sleep with.
But of course, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is hailed as a passionate plea for the rights and dignity of mental patients. And it does truly make some commendable points about institutionalisation. It gets a lot of things wrong too though. The idea that those diagnosed with mental illness do not require professional attention has never been substantiated (on a side note, isn't it interesting how the mid-70s was also the time when the anti-psychiatric cult Scientology first began to gain currency in Hollywood?) It's also worth pointing out that lobotomies do not leave people in a vegetative state, and while I would never condone the procedure, the implication that a lobotomy renders someone fit only for euthanasia is an insult to all the living people who have undergone one. And surely the message of the movie is somewhat blunted by the fact that it's set fifteen or twenty years before it was made, during which time there had been significant reform in mental health provision. Of course, the movie's defenders may say the exact accuracy of the psychiatric hospital setting are irrelevant, as it is supposed to be a metaphor for something more wide-reaching. I suspect that "something" is little more than Ken Kesey's misogyny.
In spite of all this however, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is admittedly very well made. Milos Forman is a superb director, one who eschews long takes but makes remarkable use of multiple camera set-ups. His shots, while not exactly glaring close-ups, are nevertheless composed to focus us entirely on people, with very few wide-shots. This has the effect that we become barely aware of the dimensions of the set but become totally absorbed in the human story. One of the most brilliantly crafted scenes is the first ward meeting where they discuss Harding's problems with his wife. Forman keeps several of the "chronics" in the background of those talking-head shots, both to remind us of their existence, and also for the dynamics of the scene – for example Bancini's twitching arm which sets the pace of the mounting tension. Forman's coverage and the magnificent editing by Richard Chew create a very rhythmic form of visual storytelling for the scene's conclusion, as we cut from the agitated Bancini being lead away by the orderlies, to Vincent Schiavelli resignedly puffing out cigarette smoke, to Jack Nicholson's accusing glance at Louise Fletcher, to her steely and self-satisfied glare. It's as if every shot is a subtle comment on the one that went before it.
Speaking of Nicholson and Fletcher, one cannot ignore the superlative acting in this picture. In the lead role Nicholson is completely unbridled, simply letting his trademark wild-man act run riot, and yet he tempers it with moments of seriousness, dropping the act and becoming compellingly real for example when he proposes to rip out the hydrotherapy unit and escape. Fletcher by contrast is a model of understatement. Just below the icy exterior you can see her anger and resentment bubbling away, and even when she does give way to her emotions you can see her character trying to restrain them and maintain that professional gloss, spitting out her lines through clenched teeth. Each of the patient characters is superbly cast, with performances that range between attention-grabbing craziness to devastating realism, and this goes for the men playing the so-called chronics as well.
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is a massively popular and highly-acclaimed movie, and though I have some huge reservations about it, I can fully understand why it is so widely enjoyed. It's themes and ideologies are often abhorrent – a fact that should not be overlooked – but it is undoubtedly a stunning piece of cinema.