I had to cancel my Netflix account because I haven’t had time lately to watch more than about 1 a month. So that means I have to mail these movies back, and do a cram session before I return them. Two of them I’ve seen before, but one – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – I haven’t.
I just watched the opening 15 minutes or so, a scene where Jack Nicholson is getting interviewed by doctors and keeps cussing out Nurse Ratched, and then from the scene where Brad Dourif’s character gets caught with a woman all the way to the end of the movie. I realize that I missed a lot of the movie, and I’m thinking I missed the crux of the movie, because: I didn’t see how Nurse Ratched was all that bad, and I didn’t see how McMurphy was a “good guy.” (I’m assuming he was supposed to be at least a “free spirit,” or else the ending wouldn’t have been meaningful.)
I’ve never been that interested in seeing the movie, it was always just on the list of “must-see classics.” So I’m sure I won’t ever watch the whole thing, but I’m still kind of curious. Anybody care to fill me in on what I missed? And explain why Nurse Ratched was voted one of the best film villains ever?
A “must-see classic” is just that. This is too fine a film to get by with Cliff’s Notes; either watch the whole thing, or forget about it entirely. I’m not trying to be snotty, but IMO you have to draw the line somewhere and trying to explain a great movie to someone who has no desire to pursue the investment in time of watching it is the line for me.
Sorry, Sol, but I happen to agree with those who have posted already saying you either watch the whole thing or forget it.
OFOTCN happens to be my favourite movie of all time, and it contains my favourite movie scene of all time which, in turn, contains my favourite movie moment/line in all of cinema history. For those who’ve seen the movie (but without spoilers), it’s the scene where McMurphy tries to raise the water faucet contraption in the shower room, and his line at the end of that scene when he walks past all the others back into the dorm.
OFOTCN is a great novel by Ken Kesey, and the movie was that rarest of things - a successful adaptation which was both faithfulto the novel but also worked as a movie in its own right. The movie necessarily had to tell the story in a very different way (the book is done as first person narration by the Chief), but was nonetheless hugely successful in translating the word, spirit and texture of the book to the silver screen.
You may also like to know that there is a stage play version which gets performed fairly regularly, and I’ve seen two productions of it, the best featuring Gary Sinese as the McMurphy character. It doesn’t work as well as the book or the movie, but is still worth seeing.
If you haven’t already seen the movie, rent it, watch it, love it. And Nicholson has never been finer.
I saw the whole film and I had exactly the same question as Sol. I didn’t really see how Nurse Ratched is much of a villain at all. She just appeared to be doing her job to me. Yes she wanted to assert her authority over the patients but then they are mentally deficient so I am not sure why that is so evil.
The movie had some fine performance but was way too sentimetal about the inmates and about how the Jack Nicholson character is such a “free spirit”. The ending was meant to be inspirational, I think, but I found it just ridiculous. A highly over-rated film IMO.
It was incredibly powerful at the time it was released. It feels a bit dated, now, but is still a pretty good movie.
And Nurse Ratched IS pretty freakin’ scary. Particularly when you consider that some of these people are unable to leave. They HAVE to put up with her.
Book was better, though.
Movie also notable for being the first real film exposure for Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, and Brad Dourif…
Just so you know, the play came BEFORE the movie, which is key as to why it was made into a film by the people who did it.
McMurphy was originally played by Kirk Douglas on the stage, and he bought the rights to the play hoping to make it into a movie. By the time he finally had the time to MAKE the movie, he felt he was too old to play the part, and so he turned it over to his son, Michael, who decided to produce it.
Nurse Ratched was petrifying on a pretty subtle level.
That was half the reason she was so scary. You can tell she’s wicked because she has a smartass/smug look to her when she enforces the law. It’s a subtle look, but it’s there. everything seems to be all about “winning” to her, and not actual concern for the patients.
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The fact that it was a woman, I think, was supposed to be an element that drives fear into certain people, in particularly certain men. In the book, didn’t McMurphy rip open Ratched’s shirt, as if to remind her, (or himself) that there’s a female under there?
What she did at the end of the movie was all about power. It was just her flexing her muscles.
“You can tell she’s wicked because she has a smartass/smug look to her when she enforces the law.”
This is what I don’t understand. There is a huge difference between being smug and being wicked. I didn’t see anything to indicate the latter. And in at least one scene (where the doctors discuss McMurphy’s fate) Ratched seems sincere in wanting to do the right thing.
“What she did at the end of the movie was all about power. It was just her flexing her muscles”
Are you talking about the lobotomy? I don’t know if it was justified but the fact is that McMurphy was a rogue who repeatedly broke the rules, trashed the place and ultimately came close to killing Nurse Ratched. The hospital authorities certainly had a reason to believe he was dangerous. The film seems to portray him as a sympathetic character which IMO is ridiculous.
She was wicked because she was smug. I don’t think she handle the patients with passion, and would hold their fears and disorders over their head to bribe them into “behaving”. Like calling Billy’s mother.
Billy is an adult, but yet he’s not allowed to make adult decisions even though he has adult needs…
Maybe the nurse is justified in preventing him from sneaking women in the hospital, but were talking about a guy who hasn’t been around a lot of women, let alone get his hands on one. Can you blame him!? Even though he broke the rules, perhaps people shouldn’t be using his problems as an excuse to not to allow him any natural human urges, like getting out of the hospital for once and having some fun. Sure the nurse was doing her job, but she had no compassion, and liked that she had control over these people (as in she was “smug”).
I get the same vibe from her as I do Martha Stewart, I pretty much know she’s a bitch… I think you can tell just by watching her show when a guest is on, and how she treats that person. She’s smug.
(It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie or read the book, so I’m not sure I’m 100% accurate on everything. I think I remember thinking these things while viewing it… anyone care to tell me if I’m missing something?)
A similar evil character trait was Jack Nicholson’s in “A Few Good Men,” This phrase was used in both movies:
“We don’t want to just pass this problem along to someone else”
(although McMurphy really did belong back on the prsion work farm, and the screw-up Marine should have been processed out of the corps) This consiencious-sounding platitude is just a cover for “let’s enjoy our power to destroy a vulnerable human being.”
There is a troubling mysoginy in OFOTCN; in the blouse-ripping part already mentioned, as well as the presence of the young nurse: she doesn’t have one line of dialog that I recall. Her place in the movie is to show what “uncorrupted” women are like: sexually attractive, mute, uncertain. But she sits next to Ratchet in training, to learn to be sexless, cruel, and manipulative.
“Billy is an adult, but yet he’s not allowed to make adult decisions even though he has adult needs…”
But he is not just any adult but an inmate in a mental asylum which means it’s understood that he doesn’t have all the rights of a normal adult.
Anyway I still can’t make the leap from Nurse Rached being smug to being a villain let alone one of the great villains of movie history. I guess we just have to agree to disagree.
I’m not saying that he isn’t ALLOWED all of the rights, I’m saying you can’t really blame the guy for trying.
And the way the nurse USED his mother to get him to shape up was not responsible and it was in no way healthy for Billy.
Of course the nurse has to do her job (even IF they were miss treated and not allowed to go out and experience life, she had to do her job), but she was an ass about it, and almost took pleasure in making an example of McMurphy. If you didn’t pick up on this during the picture, than perhaps we do just disagree. I would have to see it again too, and give you more specifics.
For me the key to Nurse Ratched’s villainy is the whole incident with Billy. He is chronically insecure, and has a horrible stutter.
After being with the young woman he sneaks in, his stutter has disappeared;he has more self-confidence than he’s had throughout the movie, and has probably made more progress from this one incident than ten “group therapys” could ever do.
However , a mere mention of Billy’s mother is enough to undo it all; his stutter is worse than ever, to the point where he can’t finish a word, much less a sentence. He literally becomes an incapacitated human being in a manner of seconds, all due to Nurse Ratched’s machinations.
And the part that makes her a monster: She knows exactly what effect this threat will have on him. Unlike a real nurse, she doesn’t care about her patients. She is a tin-plated dictator in her own little country(The ward) where she rules without question or reproachment…until McMurphy shows up.Everything she does from her revenge on Billy, to the shock therapy for McMurphy is about reestablishing her little kingdom.
Nurse Ratchett was more effed up pychologically than any of the patients. She was a sadistic control freak who deliberately provoked Billy into committing suicide. The fact that she always exuded such a calm and icy demeanor just made her more scary.
She was always technically within the rules but that was part of Kesey’s point. The “rules” were merely a tool to maintain control. The rules, in themselves, had no humanity or compassion and they were exploited by Ratchett to victimoze the weak.
IIRC most of the inmates were not even mentally ill. They were voluntary in-patients with mild problems who were dehumanized and made to feel much more disabled than they really were by Ratchett. Billy was just an insecure gut with a stutter. His main problem was that he had an oppressive mother who was aided by a manipulative and controlling Nurse Ratchett.
It’s been awhile since I saw the movie, but that’s the scene that stuck with me as well. In that one scene, we see Billy’s whole life - all he needs is self-confidence, which his mother never allowed him to have. Ratched knows what effect the mention of Billy’s mother will have on him, and uses it as a weapon. He has entrusted himself to her care in the hopes of getting better, but she has no interest in helping him, only controlling him. Even though it’s only a movie, I literally gasped the first time I watched that scene. She’s most certainly not just doing her job. Her job is to help the patients get better, not destroy them.
