One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Milos Forman
Fantasy Films
1975
The Combine and American Society:
All films, regardless of their intended purposes, tend to capture a piece of history and culture within them. Film’s ability to capture images and produce a visual is truly unique, as other methods of storytelling, such as writing a book, fail to truly encapsulate the human experience. Using an aesthetic lens, film directors essentially preserve time, and bring us back to our roots. Through masterful manipulation of the aesthetic properties of film, Milos Forman succeeds in illuminating the historical and cultural significance of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, making it worthy of placement in the National Film Archive.
Milos Forman’s many years of experience in Czechoslovakia heavily influenced the production of the film. He was born in Czechoslovakia in 1932, and was orphaned at a very young age when his parents were murdered in a German concentration camp. He studied screenwriting and drama at the Prague Academy, and was heavily involved with the Czech New Wave of film, producing documentaries for the state-sponsored film industry in Czechoslovakia. In addition to being a Czech-American director, he is also a screenwriter and a professor. One of his first films, The Fireman’s Ball, centers around the comic difficulties attached to holding the annual fire brigade dance in a small Czech town. However, this film was ultimately banned by the Czech government for
|date, Lenina, find two white people, which is odd, a mother and son. Turns out the father is the Director. They take them back to civilization and present them to the |
The significance of the title can be interpreted in this quote. The story is about a struggle in a psychiatric ward, where many “cuckoos'; reside, “Ting. Tingle, tingle, tremble toes, she’s a good fisherman, catches hens, puts ‘em in pens… wire blier, limber lock, three geese inna flock… one flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest… O-U-T spells out… goose swoops down and plucks you out.'; This is where the title comes from, the cuckoo’s nest being the psychiatric ward and McMurphy being the goose who plucks “you'; out.
An exceptionally tall, Native American, Chief Bromden, trapped in the Oregon psychiatric ward, suffers from the psychological condition of paranoid schizophrenia. This fictional character in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest struggles with extreme mental illness, but he also falls victim to the choking grasp of society, which worsens Bromden’s condition. Paranoid schizophrenia is a rare mental illness that leads to heavy delusions and hallucinations among other, less serious, symptoms. Through the love and compassion that Bromden’s inmate, Randle Patrick McMurphy, gives Chief Bromden, he is able to briefly overcome paranoid schizophrenia and escape the dehumanizing psychiatric ward that he is held prisoner in.
In “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey, Nurse Ratched symbolizes the oppression of society through archetypal emasculation. The male patients at the ward are controlled, alienated and forced into submission by the superior female characters. Throughout the novel, there is a constant fear of female superiority; Randle McMurphy, the sexually empowered male protagonist, states how they are essentially being castrated. Castration, in the novel, symbolizes the removal of freedom, sexual expression and their identity. Furthermore, Nurse Ratched, the mechanical enforcer, represents American society: corruption, surveillance and the deterioration of individuality.
An actor's job is to embody a character to the best of their ability. In order to do this, they need to have a strong connection with the character and essentially become them. Three actors that have displayed amazingly unforgettable performances in different movies are Tim Robbins, Jack Nicholson, and Paul Newman. In The Shawshank Redemption, Tim Robbins is Andy, a man falsely convicted of murder and forced to spend 19 years in prison. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Jack Nicholson portrays a character named R.P. McMurphy, a man faking insanity so he can finish serving his prison sentence in a mental ward. Finally, Paul Newman stars as Luke in Cool Hand Luke, a criminal serving his two year sentence working in a chain gang. These three
In Kesey’s 1950s novel ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest’ Nurse Ratched’s relationship with male patients is based upon differences they hold about gender and identity. Nurse Ratched is portrayed as a masculine misandrist figure that gains power from emasculation. She carries “no compact or lipstick or woman stuff, she’s got that bag full of a thousand parts she aims to use in her duties” . This implies nothing womanly about her as she prioritises her “duties”, suggesting that she aims to control her male patients by ridding her feminine qualities. In addition, she is shown in robotic with a chilling aura. This is evident when she slid “through the door with a gust of cold and locks the door behind her” . This indicates that as a power figure her only concern is controlling her male patients, making sure they are obedient and abiding by her rules. “Gust of cold” implies that by doing so she wholly ruins her relationship with the males due to her “cold” and callous methods. Daniel J. Vitkus states she is “the Big Nurse, an evil mother who wishes to keep and control her little boys (the men on the ward) under her system of mechanical surveillance and mind control.” Yet, can be argued that she is fulfilling her role of working as a Nurse within a mental institution. However Vitkus’s critique is similar to when McMurphy says “Mother Ratched, a ball-cutter?” McMurphy is a hyper masculine force against Ratched’s emasculating norms. Their relationship is essentially a power
The debate over Casablanca and Citizen Kane has been a classic argument between film critics and historians alike, and this is because both of these pieces are timeless pictures that have managed to captivate audiences well after their era. On a broad spectrum analysis this is an apples and oranges debate as the two films both have great cinematographic value but for different reasons. However, the real question at hand is which film is the greatest? Which film transformed the future of American film making? It is these questions that I as many others have, will attempt to answer in the following essay as I explain why I believe Citizen Kane is the greatest film ever made.
Being one of the world’s most popular art forms, it was inevitable that these archetypes would find their way into film as well. In this essay I will argue that the
In recent years, it has become popular for many of America's great literary masterpieces to be adapted into film versions. As easy a task as it may sound, there are many problems that can arise from trying to adapt a book into a movie, being that the written word is what makes the novel a literary work of art. Many times, it is hard to express the written word on camera because the words that express so much action and feeling can not always be expressed the same way through pictures and acting. One example of this can be found in the comparison of Ken Kesey's novel, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and the film version directed in 1975 by Milos Forman.
Joe transforms from a self-worthless struggling screenwriter looking to pay off his debts, to a well-tailored man indulging in the new opportunities that have bestowed upon him from his association with the former silent film star. When Joe feels the unwary itch to build his own original screenplay, he finds it problematic to break free from the shackles of Norma’s ever so tightening grip. Both Joe and Norma use one another for their own selfish needs. Joe craves the kind of fame that Norma had and lost. Despite both of their magnified egos, it is Norma and her upbringing in Hollywood that ultimately brings about not just her downfall but Joe’s as well. The once famous silent film star Norma basks in her glory days while the opportunistic Joe lives in the dream of his future fortunes. Slowly
I was surprisingly pleased with the 2008 film Stilyagi. Shattering the dystopian Soviet era film I came to expect, this musical comedy is brimming with saturated filming, jazzy music, and ostentatiously bright clothing. This often unseen view is symbolic of the counterculture of which the film is named. The film is set in 1955, a mere two years after Stalin’s death, in the start of the Khrushchev thaw. The resulting relaxation of censorship, allowed youths were able to explore their interests.
The romantic idea of the auteur is described by film theoretician, André Bazin, observing the film form as an idealistic phenomenon. Through the personal factor in artistic creation as a standard reference, Bazin primarily refers to an essential literary and romantic conception of the artist as central. He considers the relationship between film aesthetics and reality more important than the director itself and places cinema above paintings. He described paintings as a similar ethical creation to film stating a director ‘can be valued according to its measurements and the celebrity of the signature, the objective quality of the work itself was formerly held in much higher esteem.’ (Bazin, 1967: 250). Bazin contemplates the historical and social aspects that indeed hinder a director’s retribution to their own personalised film, thus en-companying their own ideological judgement upon the world ‘more so in cinema where the sociological and historical cross-currents are countless.’ (Bazin, 1967: 256)
By analyzing the historical contexts of these specific movements, we take a deeper look at society's social, religious, economic, and political conditions that existed during a certain time and place. These relevant factors profuse mass influence into a filmmakers decisions while in the production process of a film. Additionally, these components have the role of establishing distinct trends in the film industry. Each movement has its own purpose for creating each film in regards to a stylistic standpoint.
‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ (Wes Anderson, 2014) combines a perfect mix of nostalgia and history. The film explores the themes of war as it recreates history through mise-en-scene. Anderson also incorporates other themes such as racism and elitism during pre-war Europe. The film widely explores Europe from many viewpoints, one of which is of Mr Moustafa. His nostalgia is seen through flashbacks of when he was a lobby boy that went by the name of Zero. As an audience the depth of his nostalgia is seen through mise-en-scene. With the help of cinematography and props we see can see the time and place that Moustafa acknowledges. Anderson shows how history is reimagined through ones nostalgia. Mr Moustafa recalls events, which he was not present in yet he explains them as if he were there. This also shows how one reimagines history from another due to emotions and personal attachment. Despite the outcome being the same there are many viewpoints it can be seen from.
Most of the films that they were created in the Soviet Union, outside the school of montage, use topics of sitcoms and to a various literary adaptations. Conversely directors