World Famous Comics: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, William Redfield, Michael Berryman, Peter Brocco Directed By: Milos Forman Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Warner Home Video Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: December 17, 1997 Running Time: 134 minutes Theatrical Release Date: 1975
Product Description: Story of a free-spirit and his adventures in a mental ward. Nicholson stars as the rebellious McMurphy who battles Nurse Ratched (Fletcher) and the institution. Genre: Feature Film-Drama Rating: R Release Date: 16-MAY-2006 Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com: One of the key movies of the 1970s, when exciting, groundbreaking, personal films were still being made in Hollywood, Milos Forman's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest emphasized the humanistic story at the heart of Ken Kesey's more hallucinogenic novel. Jack Nicholson was born to play the part of Randle Patrick McMurphy, the rebellious inmate of a psychiatric hospital who fights back against the authorities' cold attitudes of institutional superiority, as personified by Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). It's the classic antiestablishment tale of one man asserting his individuality in the face of a repressive, conformist system--and it works on every level. Forman populates his film with memorably eccentric faces, and gets such freshly detailed and spontaneous work from his ensemble that the picture sometimes feels like a documentary. Unlike a lot of films pitched at the "youth culture" of the 1970s, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest really hasn't dated a bit, because the qualities of human nature that Forman captures--playfulness, courage, inspiration, pride, stubbornness--are universal and timeless. The film swept the Academy Awards for 1976, winning in all the major categories (picture, director, actor, actress, screenplay) for the first time since Frank Capra's It Happened One Night in 1931. --Jim Emerson
"She Likes A Rigged Game." At one point in this movie that is one of the great classics of American films, McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) says of Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) that "she likes a rigged game." And does she ever. She will keep order and conformity at all costs and has to be one of the most despised characters in filmdom. Watching the sparks fly between her and Nicholson as the inmate who fakes mental illness to get sent from prison to a psychiatric hospital is a joy to behold. Both Fletcher and Nicholson, who has never been better in a role, received Oscars for their performances as did the director Milos Forman ("Amadeus"). The film, adapted from the Ken Kesey novel, won best picture as well.
From the opening credits to the closing horrifying scene, this movie holds you in its spellbinding clutches. I cannot recall as good a group of supporting actors as the psychiatric inmates. The are totally convincing and you almost believe that they are actual patients and not acting.
The film makes a compelling statement about the way we treat mental illness in this country as well as so-called professionals who refuse to listen to their patients.
While there are many moments here that will make your laugh, the last few minutes of the film are as dark as anything you will see. It is even better than I remembered.
The movie was the first to win all five major Academy Awards This is, without doubt, one of the greatest movies ever produced. Milos Forman won best director for his magnificent work on the adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel by the same name. But this movie is so much more than that. The acting was flawless - considering the roles, that is not an easy feat. In the beginning we meet Randle P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) who was sentenced to prison for inappropriate relations with a fourteen year old, finds his way onto a work release program. He finds himself an out with poor workmanship and deranged behavior - he is transferred to a mental institution and believes his sentence will be easier served. After all, he just has to lay back and act like a nut. But this is easier said than done, as he quickly discovers playing a simple game of basketball. Aside from maintaining his sanity, he meets his head ward at the institute Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), who won best actress, plays her role flawlessly.
The mild mannered yet unrelenting head nurse becomes McMurphy main antagonist as he bets the other patients that he (McMurphy) can get under Ms. Ratched's bonnet (meaning drive her crazy) What does he have to lose? once his sentence is completed he is out of there. Of course, what McMurphy doesn't know is that his release can only come from the approval of the institute - Ms. Ratched has the power to keep him there indefinitely. It doesn't take McMurphy long to realize that he's never going to be released so he ends up forming friendships with the other patients.
The group includes Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif), a suicidal, stuttering and helpless young man whom Ratched has humiliated and dominated, and "Chief" Bromden (Will Sampson), believed by the patients to be deaf and unable to speak, Chief is mostly ignored but also respected for his enormous size. In Billy, McMurphy sees a younger brother figure whom he wants to teach to have fun, while the Chief ultimately becomes his only real confidant, as they both see their struggles against authority in similar terms. Aside from some misadventures, ( hijacking a bus, a boat, and a rendezvous on the city streets) everything goes accordingly until one fateful night. McMurphy sneaks into the nurse's office and calls his girlfriend. After a successful bribe of the guard she sneaks into the asylum and all heck breaks loose. I will leave it there, but there is a reason this movie won all major awards and swept the Oscars. With actors such as: Jack Nicholson, Scatman Crothers, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Vincent Schiavelli and Sydney Lassick this is one movie that will earn a place unto your favs. list.
Blu-Ray has the best version of this movie ever!! I am a big fan of this film. I have seen it probably 60 times, in several different formats. Without a doubt, the Blu-Ray release of this movie is the best looking, best sounding version ever produced. And the Additional Footage extras that are included are amazing. There are several great scenes that I cannot believe that they cut out of the final release of this movie. The scene where the head of the 'hospital' asks McMurphy if he has ever abused a woman previously, I can understand why they cut out, because it would lead to an expectation of the resolution of the film. However, all of the other Additional Footage scenes would have been GREAT additions to the movie. My personal favorite of the Additional Footage scenes is the one entitled "Mr. McMurphy, where are your clothes?"
more than deserving of oscars won The first time I saw this movie was on the big screen in '75. At the time I wasn't very familiar with Jack Nicholson but after watching this I realized he was a cut above the rest of the actors in his field. Everyone I knew had gone to see this film and not one person had disliked it. Not sure if any film is perfect but if this one isn't, it's as close as it gets.
spoilers alert An underdeveloped story in almost every aspect, it establishes early on Jack Nicholson's character is going to shake up the humdrum lives of the mental inmates and staff, does a competent job of fleshing out this idea in a way that probably seemed more original back in 1975 (this may be sacrilege but I'd recommend watching 1990's Crazy People for a more engaging version of the same thing), and seems to not know where to go from there. The supporting characters barely have identities at all. The attempts to evoke sympathy for the inmates and contempt for the staff only appear in the second half of the film and seem to contradict the amicable relationship depicted previously. Then Jack gets into a fight (i can't even remember why), gets electroshocked (we aren't even shown the nurse giving the order, which would have gone a long way towards validating her supposed villain status), and nothing that happens from then on has anything to do with anything that happened previously. The film closes with the contextless unforeshadowed dramatic inserts of a tragic suicide and a noble euthanizing which made me think SOMEbody's been reading Of Mice And Men, and then a symbolic escape which is the most meaningless thing in the entire film.
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