One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Director: Milos Forman

Writer: Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman

133 Minutes

Randle P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is someone we like. Someone we know. He goes to a mental institution to get out of the work farm and more so, out of prison. At the institution, he meets Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) who plays a “rigged game.” She dominates, demoralizes, and oppresses each patient with her calm, cool demeanor.

Once McMurphy discovers her truth, his goal is to rattle her cages.

He knows she is pure evil, so he wants to break her spirit, just as she has broken everyone else’s. In the shower room, there is a bet on the table that McMurphy can’t accomplish his goal. No way. No how. Everyone places their bets.

“In one week, I can put a bug so far up her ass, she don't know whether to shit or wind her wristwatch,” explains McMurphy.

This goal, mirroring Ratched’s goal of utter control, is about power. This film is a power struggle between our two main characters. Power to control. Power to cause chaos.

In the film, McMurphy has petitioned Ratched to watch the World Series Baseball game. They take a vote, but no one sides with McMurphy. After the shower room scene where McMurphy tries to move the water cooler, they take another vote. When McMurphy gets everyone in the group to raise their hands, Ratched says they need more than the group; they need all the catatonic, delusional, and mute patients around the ward.

Like I said, Ratched dominates, demoralizes, and oppresses each patient to the bitter end. And even when McMurphy gets a swaying vote from Chief (Will Sampson), Ratched ends the meeting and the voting is over.

That’s Ratched rigged game: control.

So, McMurphy goes over to the blank television in protests, while the rest of the ward retires for the day. Inspired, McMurphy begins to regain control. McMurphy starts calling the game, play-by-play until the group members come back and watch what’s happening.

“Koufax kicks, he delivers, it’s up the middle, it’s a base hit!”

Everyone joins in to see what’s happening in the game, but Ratched didn’t turn on the game. McMurphy is calling what he thinks is happening.

In the scene above, Taber (Christopher Llyod) joins the group and when McMurphy calls out a “high fly ball into deep left-cetner”, Taber looks up. But, there is nothing on the screen. Nothing but their reflections. Yet, the men cheer anyways. They are excited. McMurphy calls another play and everyone screams in excitement. They dance around, smiling and laughing.

And there is Nurse Ratched, watching her uncontrolled ward in chaos.

She knows she has lost power, ordering her patients to stop, but they are fixated on the imaginary baseball game that McMurphy is announcing.

“Stop this immediately!” Ratched exclaims.

But, the group can’t hear her. They are cheering. They are excited. And they are more insane now to cheer for an imaginary baseball game.

In the end, McMurphy doesn’t give up. His goal isn’t to gain power, but more to stop Ratched’s reign. And even though McMurphy loses in the end, the group wins. They know the truth. They know McMurphy rattled Ratch’s cages and choked out her voice, which eliminates her governing weapon. Her lost voice was enough.

In death, McMurphy’s spirit carries on, in the group, and in Chief.

"She was fifteen years old, going on thirty-five, Doc, and she told me she was eighteen, she was very willing." - McMurphy

What’s not to like about him…