One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest is easily Nicholson's Best

My pick for Patreon this week is One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. The episode where this is discussed can be found here. Below are some show notes.

Jack Nicholson

… plays Randall McMurphy, an incarcerated criminal who is supposedly feigning mental illness so he can get out of hard labour on a prison farm.

He is sent to a mental institute for evaluation and there he befriends other patients such as Christopher Lloyd who plays Taber, Danny Devito who plays Martini and Will Sampson who plays the deaf and dumb Chief who in fact, in the novel by Ken Kesey is the first person character in which the story is told.

The psychiatric ward is run by Nurse Racthed played by the stoically, cold and unflinching Louise Fletcher. McMurphy rebels, and pushes back against the institution and its rules.

So I have read

.. the novel by Ken Kesey, who apparently hated the film. I loved the novel but I have to say I got a lot more out of the film, which I saw in my teenage years and has stuck with me for many years.

In fact this would always be my number one film, but as we talk about on the podcast, the film you have seen the most, surely would be classed as your number one film and for that reason, as i much as I love this film, it has too many dark elements, for me to watch on repeat.

But it is the vehicle for Jack Nicholson that propelled him, I believe this was his first Oscar winning film. And he cites Brando as the best actor of all time, as many actors do, I actually disagree. I think Nicholson is the best, and this is his Mona Lisa.

I think one..

..of the main reasons why I love this film is because it’s about rebellion. Its one man versus the system and growing up I developed quite an ugly streak or disdain for authority myself, I won’t go into it, but I feel the underbelly of this film, the theme of always pushing back, finding the boundaries and questioning institutions, speaks to the very core of who we are as a society.

And this film has drawn comparisons on the push back against communism in Soviet Union times, indeed one of the reasons why the films director Milos Forman took the film on, as a Chezolvsakan,

Others have compared

.. it to the story of Christ because of the sacrifice one has made, I don’t go that deep into it, I do find it spiritual, I love the score my jack nitzhche, it has that eeriness, he plays this bow saw and people that know the score will know that sound I’m talking about.

And I’m a sucker for great endings. Its one of the great cinematic endings of all time, and I’m not talking about the final act, I’m talking about the final 20 seconds. It sends chills up my spine just talking about it .

And its coming up to its 50th anniversary, released in November 75, and I hope that Jack Nicholson comes out of retirement, he’s kind of in this retirement reclusion phase of his life, and I hope we see more of him, and there is some kind of 50th celebration of this film, maybe Prince Charles Cinema will screen it, I’ve not seen it on the big screen and I would love to catch it.

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