Genres: Drama Countries: USA Actors: Jack Nicholson Randle Patrick McMurphy Louise Fletcher Nurse Mildred Ratched William Redfield Harding Michael Berryman Ellis Peter Brocco Colonel Matterson Dean R. Brooks Dr. John Spivey Alonzo Brown Miller Scatman Crothers Orderly Turkle Mwako Cumbuka Attendant Warren Danny DeVito Martini William Duell Jim Sefelt Josip Elic Bancini Lan Fendors Nurse Itsu Directors: Milos Forman Certification: Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Austria:12 | Canada:13+ | Canada:G | Canada:PA | Canada:R | Finland:K-16 ...  show all  Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Austria:12 | Canada:13+ | Canada:G | Canada:PA | Canada:R | Finland:K-16 | France:U | Ireland:18 | Italy:VM14 | Netherlands:12 | New Zealand:R16 | Norway:15 | Norway:16 | Singapore:PG | South Korea:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:12 | West Germany:16  hide  IMDB Rating: 8.8 out of 10 (145455 votes)

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With an insane asylum standing in for everyday society, Milos Forman’s 1975 film adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel is a comically sharp indictment of the Establishment urge to conform. Playing crazy to avoid prison work detail, manic free spirit Randle P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is sent to the state mental hospital for evaluation. There he encounters a motley crew of mostly voluntary inmates, including cowed mama’s boy Billy (Brad Dourif) and silent Native American Chief Bromden (Will Sampson), presided over by the icy Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). Ratched and McMurphy recognize that each is the other’s worst enemy: an authority figure who equates sanity with correct behavior, and a misfit who is charismatic enough to dismantle the system simply by living as he pleases. McMurphy proceeds to instigate group insurrections large and small, ranging from a restorative basketball game to an unfettered afternoon boat trip and a tragic after-hours party with hookers and booze. Nurse Ratched, however, has the machinery of power on her side to ensure that McMurphy will not defeat her. Still, McMurphy’s message to live free or die is ultimately not lost on one inmate, revealing that escape is still possible even from the most oppressive conditions.

Milos Forman had proven his talent for astute social comedy in such earlier Czech films as Loves of a Blonde (1965) and The Firemen’s Ball (1967), and his adept treatment of Cuckoo’s Nest’s metaphorically loaded conflict fulfilled the promise of an immigrant observer of American culture indicated in his first U.S. feature, Taking Off (1971). Shot on location at the Oregon State Hospital, and visually imprisoning the characters in tightly framed compositions, Haskell Wexler’s and Bill Butler’s cinematography underlines the psychological as well as physical confinement dogging the patients. The restrained, soft-spoken control of Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched contrasts with the thoughtful vigor of Jack Nicholson’s McMurphy, further emphasizing both the need to revolt and the difficulty in doing so posed by such consistent, quiet, internalized power. For a culture battered by the chaotic rebellions of the late 1960s/early 1970s, and the serial failures of institutional authority culminating in Watergate and the fall of Saigon, Cuckoo’s Nest’s resigned yet hopeful portrayal of spirited non-conformity touched a nerve, turning it into one of the most popular films of 1975. The independently produced film became only the second film in history to sweep all five top Academy Awards, winning Best Picture for producers Saul Zaentz and 31-year-old Michael Douglas, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay for Lawrence Hauben’s and Bo Goldman’s adaptation of the Kesey novel. Shrewdly combining roustabout fervor and humor with an acknowledgement of society’s different limits, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest effectively communicated the disillusionment of the waning counter-culture even as it optimistically asserted that one rebel could make a difference.

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