Monday, July 22, 2013

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Director: Milos Forman                               Writers: Lawrence Hauben & Bo Goldman
Film Score: Jack Nitzsche                          Cinematography: Haskell Wexler
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Brad Dourif and Will Sampson

Artistically, this is what I would call the greatest film of the seventies, right up there with The Godfather, Chinatown and Taxi Driver. Even among those great films, however, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was the only one to run the table of the top five awards at the Oscars, for best actor, actress, screenplay, director and picture. It deserved every one of them. It’s near to being a perfect motion picture. It’s appropriate that the psychological game of cat and mouse between Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher takes place in a mental hospital. The story, the cast, the direction, they’re all brilliant and it all makes for one of the great cinematic experiences of all time.

Nicholson plays a prison work farm inmate in Oregon looking to spend his last few months taking it easy in the mental hospital. He convinced enough people in the prison that he was crazy, but the doctor at the hospital isn’t so sure. He meets the other men on the ward, a bizarre looking gang of unknowns at the time who are now all famous. Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito, Will Sampson, Brad Dourif, Michael Berryman and Vincent Schiavelli are all familiar faces to film buffs. Nicholson decides to go after Fletcher and see if he can work his same magic by disruption and instigation, but he’s met his match. She knows exactly what he’s doing and uses that information into trapping him in the hospital so that he can’t ever leave. Both of them are master characterizations by master actors.

The story is based on the powerful novel by Ken Keasey, which in turn was based on his own experience working as an orderly in a mental hospital. The novel, while telling the same story, is quite different because it is told from the point of view of Chief Bromden, Will Sampson in the film. But the heart of the film is the gradual development of relationships between Nicholson and the rest of the characters. His antagonistic relationship with Fletcher is obvious. His primary achievement, however, is the relationship he develops with the other patients, whom he is always admonishing to not think of themselves as crazy. The most moving of these is with Brad Dourif in his first film. The manipulation of Dourif by Fletcher is central to the climax in the film, and the most heart-wrenching part of the entire story. The conclusion with Nicholson is almost anti-climactic in comparison.

In addition to the patients, there are some other great supporting actors. Nathan George is one of my favorite actors and has had a criminally short career that includes a memorable performance in Brubaker. Scatman Crothers also does a great job as the night watchman. Milos Forman is one of the all time great directors, winning another Oscar for Amadeus as well as helming the fascinating Ragtime. His use of muted tones in the film stock along with lengthy close-ups and an obsessive attention to detail in the production design make all of his films beautiful to look at. One of the interesting facts about the production is that Michael Douglas was the money-man on the project, his first film as a producer and his first Academy Award when it won best picture. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is simply a classic of American cinema, easily the greatest film of the decade, and one of the best films of all time.

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