One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
In the history of the Academy Awards, only three films have ever won Oscars in all five of the top categories: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Screenplay. They are 1934’s It Happened One Night, 1991’s Silence of the Lambs, and 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Directed by Milos Forman and starring Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher and a stunning supporting cast, Cuckoo’s Nest is a wonder. Based on a novel by the great American writer Ken Kesey, the film was a smash hit upon its release, and it’s lost none of its dramatic power since then. Nicholson—in one of his greatest roles—plays Randle Patrick McMurphy, a prisoner who’s been sent to a mental institution for observation to determine if he is mentally ill or if he is faking his condition to avoid hard labor at a work camp. He finds himself in a hospital ward under the iron-fist dictatorship of a fierce head nurse—Nurse Ratched—whose eerie, calm demeanor belies the fact that she bullies the patients in her care into obedience.
It’s clear that McMurphy and Nurse Ratched are headed for a showdown.
From the moment that McMurphy appears in the ward, it’s clear that he and Nurse Ratched are headed for a showdown. He is rebellious, bursting with energy, and determined to escape. She is obsessed with maintaining strict control of the ward and demands conformity to the rules she’s put in place. While the other patients have been reduced to meek lambs under her tyranny, McMurphy will have none of it. It’s not long before he threatens her power, first in small ways, and then in open defiance, especially as he begins encouraging the other patients to rebel and express themselves. The open war between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched escalates into an explosive battle of wills. The finale of the film is intensely dramatic as McMurphy closes in on his quest to escape the hospital prison.
While Nicholson’s performance here is the main event, the rest of the cast is uniformly excellent under the direction of Milos Forman. In addition to Louise Fletcher, just look at all the great actors—still early in their careers-- who portray the other patients in the ward: there’s Danny DeVito, Scatman Crothers, Will Sampson, Christopher Lloyd, Brad Dourif, and many others.
I give One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest four out of four stars. It’s a classic of one man’s fight against a rigid social order that chokes and threatens to suppress the life of the individual.
