Christopher Lloyd<\/a>, would be co-starring on the cast-of-eccentrics sitcom Taxi, with Lloyd even playing an amusingly burnt-out weirdo. (A great show, to be clear, but not a sobering account of mental illness.) Nicholson, however, gives such a layered performance that McMurphy transcends any easy romanticization. He\u2019s at once as caricatured as any future \u201cJack\u201d parts \u2013 look at the way McMurphy\u2019s trademark skullcap, when removed, accentuates the arches of Nicholson\u2019s instantly recognizable receding hairline \u2013 and subtly haunted.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nThe moment often cited, and with good cause, comes close to the end of the picture, in the aftermath of a raucous party in-ward McMurphy has haphazardly arranged for his new friends. (It\u2019s the kind of messy blowout that would cause many a crusty old dean to admonish a fun-loving frat for this time going too far.) McMurphy and Chief plan to escape the facility at the end of the night; they\u2019re two of the few patients who have been committed, rather than residing there voluntarily. McMurphy sits near the window where he\u2019ll supposedly make his escape, staring into space, and Forman holds on the closeup of Nicholson as he appears to contemplate the consequences of his actions, or maybe what he might actually do next, given his arrest record and limited resources. The stare isn\u2019t exactly vacant \u2013 though it is echoed by his vegetative look at the end of the film, after he\u2019s been punished for his rebellion by a lobotomy \u2013 but you can sense the lostness beneath his Nicholsonian bravado.<\/p>\n
Fletcher did not go on to a Nicholson-sized career, but her work as Nurse Ratched is nearly as indelible. In terms of screen time, she could be considered a supporting player; she\u2019s less immediately visible for much of the movie than the ensemble of patients surrounding McMurphy. Fletcher doesn\u2019t showboat, either. For the vast majority of her scenes, she\u2019s quietly officious, rarely raising her voice \u2013 but never giving in, either, quelling dissent or changes in routine with a stubbornness she smoothly passes as care. Those with memories of McMurphy\u2019s rebellious nature might be surprised to find how many scenes involve him ultimately deferring to Ratched, despite what he refers to as \u201cthat henhouse shit\u201d. Her key moment comes when she admonishes young, timid Billy (Brad Dourif) for consorting with a prostitute. She doesn\u2019t focus on recklessness or respect for women or even breaking the facility\u2019s rules. Instead, she asks: \u201cAren\u2019t you ashamed?\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea of shaming people into conformity still resonates, not least because it\u2019s issued here by an authority figure who (as is often the case) seems to refuse any herself. Though some of the treatment methods depicted in One Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest would fall out of favor in the decades after, the movie derives a certain sense of timelessness from its milieu, simply because the isolation and regimented nature of the hospital doesn\u2019t feel particularly confined to the 1960s, when the story is set, or the 1970s, when it was made. (OK, maybe the notion of McMurphy\u2019s illicit day out involving taking the boys fishing feels quaint today.)<\/p>\n
Louise Fletcher and Jack Nicholson. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive<\/p>\n
Fifty years later, the film\u2019s influence may be most visible through its zanier side \u2013 which in a weird way turns out to be its more menacing side, too. It doesn\u2019t feel entirely coincidental that the campus comedy Animal House, released a few years later, is set right around the same time as Cuckoo\u2019s Nest, finding similarly male-centric liberation in parties and tacit self-destruction, only without the sadder dimensions of the earlier film. And despite that sadness, Cuckoo\u2019s Nest does push a very American form of rugged-to-a-fault individualism, even conflating that rebellious nature with a Native character. In 2025, there\u2019s almost something a little bit Maha-coded about the film\u2019s treatment of mental health, where conditions like Billy\u2019s stammer can be conquered with a little thematically neat (and convenient) gumption, while Chief\u2019s muteness and deafness are just stuff he\u2019s decided to fake, and medication is just another conformist form of control.<\/p>\n
Of course, those undertones are more to do with shifts in the nature of American rebellion over the past half-century. Still, it\u2019s instructive to look at the unusually staggering lineup of competition Cuckoo\u2019s Nest faced at the Oscars. Setting aside the Europe-set Barry Lyndon, the other best picture nominees for 1975 tell specific and fascinating stories about the US: the can-do spirit of the central trio in Jaws, pitted against all-American, Independence Day-themed capitalism; the hapless criminals of Dog Day Afternoon, feeling abandoned by society as they incite a media circus; and the roiling, sometimes ridiculous political climate depicted in Nashville. One Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest, ending (as the novel did) with Chief smothering a lobotomized McMurphy and making the leap to his own majestic escape, seems at least as sad as any of those films. Yet it\u2019s understandably received as something more triumphant, however mitigated that spirit might be. \u201cI tried, didn\u2019t I? Goddammit, at least I did that,\u201d McMurphy says about his own attempt to lift a water tank and smash a window, as Chief eventually does. It\u2019s not the most subtle or complex message among those other 1975 classics. But it might be the easiest for audiences to latch on to. Who can\u2019t relate to losing a battle and telling ourselves that we eked out a victory?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A movie winning the big five Academy Awards \u2013 best picture along with honoring the lead actor and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":391050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[171,53,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-391049","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115579217835794985","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}