Miloš Forman’s comedy drama about rebelling against the system won 5 awards at the 48th Oscar ceremony, including for Best Actor and Best Actress.
Convicted criminal Randle McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) feigns mental illness to avoid jail and is moved to a mental institution run by dominating Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). The restless McMurphy does not see the inmates as mentally ill—to him they are regular people with a few peculiarities, who he tries to bring out of their shells. McMurphy fools around, organizes an unplanned fishing trip, a drunken orgy, and a collective protest. As the staff have less and less doubt left about McMurphy’s simulation, and Nurse Ratched’s disciplinarian method grows tougher, he prepares for a break-out.
One of the key directors of the Czechoslovak New Wave, Miloš Forman emigrated to the USA after the Prague Spring and brought with him a love of paradoxes and a critical view of systems of control and power. His interpretation of Ken Kesey’s novel avoids a direct discussion of psychiatry, choosing to see the mental institution as a metaphor (despite the fact that filming took place in a real mental institution with real patients involved in the process). Forman’s main focus is on the more universal topics, such as the pressure of the normal and the limits of independence within an enclosed system. Jack Nicholson’s character is a troublemaker who temporarily disturbs the habitual order. Next to him, other inmates seem less ill: not because they are cured, but because they are for once seen by someone who does not try to determine who is normal and who is not.
The film will be screened in English with Russian subtitles.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Director: Miloš Forman
USA, 1975. 133 min.
18+