Jack Nicholson gives a stunning performance

Rating: Null/10 (15 September 2012)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is an excellent film on the perception of sanity and rebellion against the establishment. R.P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is a prison inmate that thinks time in the psych ward will be easier than on the work farm, so he gets himself committed. We meet McMurphy in his entrance interview with the psychiatrist. This is one of the few times that we see the doctor in the film, and this speaks to the state of mental institutions of the time. The rebellion theme starts early with the exchange between Mac and Nurse Ratched. In the early goings, the nurse and Mac butt heads, Ratched striving for order in her ward, and Mac acting as the troublemaker of the ward. If this was the only story line for the film, it would fail to keep your attention, because, let's face it, this isn't a new story. What really draws you in is the attachment Mac establishes with some of his fellow patients, most notably Chief (Will Sampson). This relationship really puts Mac in a position of endearment, as he spends a concerted amount of effort to draw the big man out of his shell. It's clear that it is a ploy to cement his mental defect for the staff, and ensure his ability to serve out the remainder of his sentence on the ward. The turning point for me on that relationship is once Mac discovers that his time is no longer the finite term he was sentenced to. At that point he could have reestablished his sanity and left the "nuts" alone, but he didn't.
The film establishes the main conflict between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy through the use of close-ups between the nurse and Mac in the first introduction between the two in a group session. I usually find lingering close-ups like this to be more of a distraction than an aid to a film, but was pleasantly surprised to find this use actually accentuates both characters. I think this has a lot to do with the lack of any kind of establishing back story of any depth. Without that back story, we only have the characters reactions to each other, and their surroundings to gain a connection to the characters.
Ultimately, the establishment wins with McMurphy, but loses Chief. From hopping the fence to take the group fishing to bringing girls and booze onto the ward, McMurphy fought the structure at every turn. I think we were expected to believe that McMurphy was in fact insane, I felt like McMurphy ended up trying to champion this group of men.