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One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (1975) is one of the greatest American films of all time - a $4. ... The independently-produced film also swept the Oscars: it was the first film to take all the major awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress) since Frank Capras It Happened One Night (1934). ... "Cuckoos Nest" beat out tough competition for Best Picture by Spielbergs Jaws (1975) and Altmans Nashville (1975). ... The one that flies over the cuckoos nest [the mental hospital filled with "cuckoo" patients] is the giant, deaf-mute Chief:
Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn;
Wire, briar, limber lock,
Three geese in a flock.
One flew east,
And one flew west,
And one flew over the cuckoos nest. ... ) "Mac" McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), 38 years old, is escorted into the ward where he meets some of the bizarre, memorable patients/inmates (most of whom are voluntarily committed):
a silent, dignified, huge and towering Indian giant "Chief" Bromden, aka "Broom" (Creek Indian Will Sampson in his film debut) - a "deaf and dumb Indian" "as big as a god-damn tree trunk" - with a father blinded after many years of alcoholism
a pathetic, incessantly stuttering, paranoid boychild, thirty-year old Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif in his film debut) - shy, virginal, impressionable, and deathly afraid of his mother
an ineffectual, rationalizing intellectual Dale Harding (William Redfield) - relatively sane but unable to get over his wifes betrayal and adultery when she "seeks attention elsewhere"
an insecure neurotic Charlie Cheswick (Sydney Lassick) lacking self-confidence
a short, smiling Martini (Danny De Vito in one of his earliest roles) with an immature personality
a cynical, trouble-making sadist Taber (Christopher Lloyd in his film debut)
Dr. ... McMurphy violates one of the cardinal rules by entering the Nurses Station to turn down the loud volume on the piped-in music. ... " He calmly asks the assistant Nurse Pilbow (Mimi Sarkisian) about the ingredients of his "horse-pill" medications during one of the compulsory lineups for pill delivery:
But I dont like the idea of taking something if I dont know what it is. ... " The contest of wills with the Nurse is played out as a struggle to win the other inmates over to his way of thinking and behaving by establishing a political majority, to lead various group insurrections, and to emphasize how they have been denied their freedom of will:
I bet in one week, I can put a bug so far up her ass, she dont know whether to s--t or wind her wristwatch. ... "
When a Monopoly game between the inmates in the tub room leads to a heated argument, McMurphy sprays the inmates with water to cool them down, and then tells Harding, one of those which didnt vote for his request for a rearrangement of the schedule:
. ... Which one of you nuts has got the guts? ... Miss Ratcheds one of the finest nurses weve got in this institution. ... "
In one of the films funniest sequences, he hijacks the field trip bus and escapes with his fellow inmates for a wild fishing field trip. ... He introduces each one of them: "This is Dr. ... Spivey: The funny thing is that the person that hes the closest to is the one he dislikes the most. ... (He gestures toward Nurse Ratched)
Nurse: Well gentlemen, my opinion, if we send him back to Pendleton or we send him up to Disturbed, its just one more way of passing on our problems to somebody else. ... With his statuesque height, Chief Bromden steals the show, standing at one end of the court with hands held high in the air to dunk baskets, and disallowing baskets at the opponents end of the court. ... Listen to Randall on this one. ...
McMurphy persuades Candy to sleep with Billy so that he can experience lifes fruits and lose his virginity: "All you gotta do is this one little thing. ... Nurse Pilbow discovers Billy Bibbit in bed with Candy in one of the rooms. ... He escapes from the cuckoos nest, flying away to the outer world - yet the worlds horizon is both threatening and liberating.
Approximate Word count = 4749
Approximate Pages = 19
(250 words per page double spaced)
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