A definitive New Hollywood film

Rating: 10/10 (4 April 2011)

On occasion the Academy gets it spot on. When this movie won the top five Oscars for film, director, actor, actress and screenplay it wasn't in the least bit undeserved. In fact, it should have picked up another one for Brad Dourif's incredible support performance as the troubled Billy Bibbet. But in this instance the Academy played it traditionally and gave that statuette to the elderly George Burns in an act of sentimentality. Still five out of six isn't bad.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is an example of the type of film that the major studios used to turn out back in the days known as the Hollywood Renaissance. In those halcyon days a number of challenging and provocative pictures were released by the big studios. It was a golden time for cinema and auteurs. This film is prime example, seeing as it is clearly aimed at an adult audience and it is not afraid to be shocking. Despite having an uplifting finale, Cuckoo's Nest is anything but a happy film. There is a great deal of humour but it's interspersed with a lot of bleakness and downright depressing scenes. It's not afraid to take risks with its audience; it ultimately respects them enough to do so. For instance, if this film was to be made today, do you honestly think the central hero would be a man jailed for statutory rape with an underage girl? Its details like this that mark out this feature as something designed to challenge its audience.
Acting is universally magnificent, with Jack Nicholson truly in his element as the charismatic R.P. McMurphy. It's one of the all-time great examples of screen presence. But really there are no weak links in the rest of the cast at all. Louise Fletcher of course won the other acting gong and deservedly so with a cold unglamorous role that she nailed to a tee. The aforementioned Brad Dourif was perhaps the best performer of all though, his Billy Bibbet is truly an incredibly skilled creation. Everybody else was great too.
Serious dramas don't really get a lot better than this. It you haven't seen it you really owe yourself the pleasure of experiencing this magnificent film for the first time. And if you have seen it, read the novel it was based on by Ken Kesey, and see the whole story from the slightly different perspective it was originally conceived with. I'm sure you won't be disappointed with it, it's a literary masterpiece. It's one of those rare times when both book and film attain the very highest standards.