One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
4
Milos Forman has had an interesting directorial career. Not terribly prolific, he has tended over the years to choose the route of quality over quantity, accepting only those projects he feels personally about. Of late, he has favored biopics dealing with particularly offbeat subjects like "Hustler" magazine publisher Larry Flynt ("The People Versus Larry Flynt") and comedian Andy Kaufman ("Man On The Moon"). That he does them well enough to make something of a cultural hero out of someone like Flynt who is basically scum, or Kaufman who, to put it kindly, did not always seem as inventive or even, well...funny as "Man On The Moon" would have it speaks well of his prowess at manipulating the medium, even if it is a bit unsettling at times.
In earlier days, Forman's main interest seemed to lie in bringing difficult projects to the screen. In 1979, he managed a fairly successful film adaptation of the Broadway musical "Hair", a property which had been kicked around Hollywood for ten years or so, without anyone being able to figure out how to do it. Four years prior to this, he directed the film version of Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", with amazingly good results. The film was a critical and boxoffice success, and resulted in Academy Awards all around--Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Picture.
The film began life as a novel by Ken Kesey, became a play adapted by Dale Wasserman in the early 1960's, and eventually the film rights passed from actor Kirk Douglas, who had played the lead on Broadway to his son Michael, who ultimately produced the film.
The book is a dense piece of writing. Very often outright surrealistic, it is narrated by the character of Chief Bromden, a Columbian Gorge Indian who, as a result of increasing feelings of isolation and disassociation brought about by being looked down upon and dismissed all his life because he is a Native American from a particularly economically disadvantaged background, has become a catatonic schizophrenic. It is through Bromden, his perception skewed by his disorder, that we get the story of Randle MacMurphy, who comes to the mental hospital where Bromden has been for many years, under the care of Nurse Ratched. MacMurphy has been faking mental illness to get transferred from the prison work farm where he's serving a sentence for assault to what he believes will be the comfort of the hospital. He didn't count on Nurse Ratched, a bitter woman who, along with her brutal and often physically violent aides, breaks the spirit of all the men who are sent to her ward. MacMurphy watches as she plays upon their weaknesses, and after a while begins, at first as a game, then with increasing seriousness, to help them fight back. The story, unfolding through the eyes of a man whose very perception is questionable, is constructed of imagery so bizarre it throws the reader totally off balance--Bromden sees the nurse as a Valkyrie, growing larger and larger as she sweeps up the hallway, her fingernails striking sparks from the wall.
The stage adaptation eliminated most of this, but it was still told from Bromden's point of view, and still presented difficulties. In fact Kesey, in an early draft of the screenplay, reinstated the more outlandish images, going back (as it seems natural, if impractical, that he would) to his own original concept. Forman, intrigued by the project, took it on, but decided early on that to work successfully, the story had to be literalized--that is, taken out of Bromden's head and made to play naturalistically. The end result is a film that retains the basic plotline of the book and it's characters, but makes them more realistic and less open to interpretation. Thus, Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) is no longer so much a symbol of an uncaring and dehumanizing system as she is simply a meanspirited, middle-aged bitch with an axe to grind where men are concerned. MacMurphy (Jack Nicholson in the role that set the tone for most of his future performances, which is not necessarily a good thing.)is not so much a savior, allowing his own lifeforce to be drained in order to give life back to his fellow patients as he is a man with a temper who stumbles into a bad situation and is angered to the point of unreasonableness by what he finds. Chief Bromden's (Will Sampson) ultimate "rebirth", a glorious triumph following MacMurphy's ultimate sacrifice in the novel, is a little more uncertain here. We are none too sure how strong MacMurphy really was, or for that matter how weak Bromden was. We have had no real indication that Bromden was really mentally ill at all. As played by Sampson, he seems inscrutable, but somehow placid and unaffected...almost as if he's been biding his time, waiting for the right moment to take off, MacMurphy or no MacMurphy. This is not to say that the film is not effective. It is. It's this very mundane and somehow flat quality that lends to it a texture of reality--as if we are watching a documentary rather than a work of fiction. It is not strictly in line with Kesey's vision, but in many ways what emerges on the screen is more fascinating in it's realism than a literal adaptation would have been, because though it would have been interesting, it would also have kept it's audience at a distance instead of drawing them in.
The supporting cast, with veterans like William Redfield (Harding), and some surprising young faces like Danny Devito (Martini) and Christopher Lloyd (Taber) are excellent, with newcomer Brad Douriff (the voice of Chucky in the "Child's Play" films) a touching standout as the vulnerable stutterer Billy Bibbit.
"One flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo's nest."
