What's the AFI Project, you ask? For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here: http://www.spout.com/blogs/pippin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.aspx
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is on the following AFI lists:
The Original Top 100 (#20)
100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains (Nurse Ratched is the #5 villain)
100 Most Inspiring Movies (#17)
The Revised Top 100 (#33)
I bought Cuckoo's Nest a year ago (hence, test = pass) after stage managing the stage version. It was a good production, but it was plagued by several problems, which took some survival skills on my part to deal with. A cast member (an excellent Billy Bibbitt) quit a week before we opened; the guy who played McMurphy was a drunken *** most of the time and seemed to really hate me to the point of fighting with me - and might even have been something of a misogynist; one of the guys who played one of the orderlies provoked a fight with another orderly guy, causing the latter to pop the former in the face, and he quit the show (that wasn't a sad thing because he was cuckoo himself); and to top it all off, an audience member sitting third row center had a seizure one night, and I had to stop the show for the paramedics, though that was handled gracefully by the whole cast. It was messy, but it was my first full stage management on my own (not without help of any kind), so I see it as sort of a battle wound, the scars of which I can show off and wear as a badge of honor and homage to my stage managing skills, and the excellent film version has a special place in my heart for that reason, as it reminds me of that time.
Without that bias, however, Cuckoo's Nest is a masterpiece of filmmaking - it's a 10 in my book. I don't understand why it isn't higher on the AFI original list - or why it took a 13 point tumble on the revised list. It's a great American movie because it has it all, and it's artistic as well as entertaining.
Jack Nicholson (two in a row!) plays Randall P. McMurphy, who plays the part of crazy to get out of work at a prison work farm (we learn that he was jailed for statutory rape). He's transported to an insane asylum, which is largely filled with "voluntary" patients, aside from a few, including a deaf and dumb Indian named Chief Bromwell (Will Sampson) and himself, he comes to find out. The ward is ruled by the iron-fisted, no-nonsense, and cold Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), whose sense of order and discipline is greatly distrubed by free-spirit McMurphy, and the struggle between them is the heart of the story. The voluntary patients include some famous actors in early roles, such as Danny DeVito as Martini, Christopher Lloyd as Taber, and Brad Dourif as Billy Bibbitt (in his first role ever), the stuttering, quiet, and scared mama's boy.
I really love this movie because, to me, it's just wonderful on so many levels. First of all, the story is flawless. You find yourself cheering for McMurphy and company, even though, by all accounts, he's the one you should despise, as Nurse Ratched does. The trouble is, her version of sanity is the unflexible and unflinching following of rules in a way that reduces the patients to something childlike or even less-than-human - one of the struggles centers on allowing the patients to watch the World Series, and she just won't have it as long as there isn't a majority vote, though a majority requires the participation of the more vegetable-like patients. Both lead actors won Oscars - in fact, Cuckoo's Nest was a sweeper of the major five (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay). Jack and Louise deserved their awards, for it's their tension that drives the whole film. Louise's take on Nurse Ratched is so cool, so smug, that the viewer - at least I do - comes to really detest her - hence, her ranking on the Heroes and Villains list.
The story is a power struggle, but it's also a sharp look at the flaws of the system, whether penal or institutional, focusing on the dehumanizing of the patients that results from the rigid, naive, and subjective psychological assessments of the hospital physicians (and Nurse Ratched). It examines how the humans in charge, the ones who are supposed to help, may actually use their own biases in abusive ways. Consider the scene in which Nurse Ratched recommends that McMurphy stay on the ward. In many ways, it's also a microcosmic take on the machinations of society at the time the film was made - 1975 was post Watergate, almost post Vietnam War and the reactions to that, during Gerald Ford's presidency... Yet, it's also a tale of optimism, and the idea that one person can make a difference, despite the obstacles. It's inspiring. Now, I feel the viewer gets more information about more of the patients in the novel and even in the stage version, but the screenwriters, who also won an Oscar, put the right amount of stuff in the film to make me feel like the story is perfectly executed, well-rounded, and never loses sight of the aims of the original novel by Ken Kesey.
The filming, including art direction and cinematography (which won an Oscar), in addition to the performances of the entire ensemble, brought a sterile realism to the picture. The narrow focus on each patient at certain times really provides the viewer with a sense of confinement - or, in some cases, comfort - that each patient experiences. The pacing is brilliant, as well. The film never drags. Also, the use of music, though sparing, is effective, including the haunting theme with it's driving drum beat (this also won an Oscar).
I can't find any flaws in this movie. I think Director Milos Forman created a spot-on adaptation and elicited some remarkable performances from his cast. In my opinion, Cuckoo's Nest truly is a masterpiece, and while I don't agree with its positioning, I am happy that it, at least, the film qualified for the greatest movie lists, for its message, its construction, and its execution show that the film is the whole package, entertainment and art alike.