Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | NXg | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Randall Patrick McMurphy is the quintessential free spirit. A petty crook, who is sent to a mental institution after creating a ruckus in jail, McMurphy thinks he is in for a cushy time until he comes up against the evil, cold Nurse Ratched who runs the ward like a prison camp, drugging the inmates with tranquilisers and conducting excruciating group discussions.

McMurphy rebels and leads the others in into revolt. From running small-time gambling rackets to hijacking a bus and going off on a fishing trip to the final rebellion of smuggling in booze and girls McMurphy does everything in his power to undermine Nurse Ratched’s power over the inmates.

The final uprising ends in the mother of all parties and also predictably in a terrible tragedy. The movie is unsettling in ways it obviously was not meant to be. Are we supposed to see McMurphy’s rebellion as a clarion call to individuality and freedom and the final snuffing of it as a heartless authoritarian crushing of the individual?

Going by that reading, what about the inherent selfishness in that individuality. Is McMurphy’s rebellion to stir things up for himself — he wishes to watch the ball game — or is it to make life better for the others?

From the conceptual point the film did not work for its stereotyping of mental institutions — the movie shows lobotomies and shock treatment as a preferred form of therapy. However, to the film’s credit, the patients have been portrayed sympathetically rather than as psychotic freaks.

If you look at the movie as a metaphor for the world (for Hollywood, the United States has been the world for the longest time), then the over simplification grates on the nerves. One also has a problem with the emotional manipulation, which makes the film quite like some of our worst masala films.

The one thing that saves the film and elevates it to instant cult status is the acting. Jack Nicholson is in one word incendiary as McMurphy. He inhabits the character so effortlessly that it is difficult to see where Nicholson ends and McMurphy begins. It is a very gracious performance as well as Nicholson does not overwhelm the screen with his pyrotechnics. His performance is the stuff of legend and the knowing drawl and lazy and contrarily coiled intensity of his body language goes a long way establishing Nicholson’s Jack persona.

Louise Fletcher invested nuance in the essentially unidimensional character of Nurse Ratched. The other fascinating thing about “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is seeing actors like Danny De Vito and Christopher Lloyd in bit roles. De Vito is absolutely adorable as Martini going through the madness with a happy grin.

The DVD unfortunately came with no extras so we cannot have a peek at all the behind the scenes drama which included Nicholson and Foreman differing so violently that they finally communicated through the cinematographer. This proves, that great art is definitely born out of conflict!

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail