Francais | English | Espanõl

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Directed by	Miloš Forman
Produced by	Michael Douglas
Written by	Ken Kesey
Starring	Jack Nicholson Louise Fletcher Brad Dourif William Redfield Will Sampson Scatman Crothers
Music by	Jack Nitzsche
Cinematography	Haskell Wexler
Editing by	Sheldon Kahn Lynzee Klingman
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	19 November, 1975
Running time	133 min.
Language	English
Budget	$4.4 million
IMDb profile

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a 1975 film directed by Miloš Forman. The film is an adaptation of the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. The movie was the first to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor in Lead Role, Actress in Lead Role, Director, Screenplay) since It Happened One Night in 1934, an accomplishment not repeated until 1991, with The Silence of the Lambs.

The movie was filmed at Oregon State Hospital in Salem, Oregon.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Casting 3 Cast 4 Reception 5 In popular culture 6 External links

[edit] Plot

Randle Patrick McMurphy, a serial petty criminal who has been sentenced to a fairly short prison term, decides to have himself declared insane so he'll be transferred to a mental institution, where he expects to serve the rest of his time in (comparative) comfort and luxury.

McMurphy's ward in the mental institution is run by an unyielding tyrant, Nurse Ratched, who has cowed the patients—most of whom are there by choice—into dejected institutionalised submission.

McMurphy becomes ensnared in a number of power games with Nurse Ratched for the hearts and minds of the patients. All the time, however, the question is just how sane any of the players in this actually are. Eventually McMurphy is lobotomized after he explodes into a violent rage when one of Nurse Ratched's psychological games results in the death of a patient.

During the night he is smothered by his friend, the Chief, who can't bear to see McMurphy so brainless and dull, seeing the murder as an act of mercy that sets his friend free. The Chief, managing an act McMurphy earlier failed to do, lifts a heavy marble hydrotherapy fountain and, hurling it through a barred window, escapes.

[edit] Casting

Kirk Douglas originated the role of McMurphy in a stage production, and then bought the film rights, hoping to play McMurphy on the screen. He passed the production rights to his son, Michael Douglas, who decided his father was too old for the role. Kirk was reportedly angry at his son for a time afterwards because of this. Actor James Caan was originally offered the McMurphy role, and Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman were considered as well.

The role of domineering Nurse Ratched was turned down by six actresses, Anne Bancroft, Colleen Dewhurst, Geraldine Page, Ellen Burstyn, Jane Fonda, and Angela Lansbury, until Louise Fletcher accepted casting (in her debut film) only a week before filming began.

[edit] Cast

Actor	Role
Jack Nicholson	Randle Patrick McMurphy
Louise Fletcher	Nurse Mildred Ratched
William Redfield	Dale Harding
Dean R. Brooks	Dr. John Spivey
Scatman Crothers	Orderly Turkle
Danny DeVito	Martini
William Duell	Jim Sefelt
Brad Dourif	Billy Bibbit
Christopher Lloyd	Taber
Will Sampson	Chief Bromden
Vincent Schiavelli	Frederickson
Nathan George	Attendant Washington
Mwako Cumbuka	Attendant Warren
Josip Elic	Bancini
Lan Fendors	Nurse Itsu
Ken Kenny	Beans Garfield
Alonzo Brown	Miller
Michael Berryman	Ellis
Peter Brocco	Colonel Matterson
Sydney Lassick	Charlie Cheswick

[edit] Reception

The film was widely acclaimed and won a total of five Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Jack Nicholson (who played McMurphy), Best Actress for Louise Fletcher (who played Nurse Ratched), Best Direction for Miloš Forman, as well as Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. (One of the other nominees for Best Actress that year, Ann-Margret, was also in a film that featured Jack Nicholson, Tommy.)

It ranked number 20 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 greatest American films, Nurse Ratched was ranked number 5 on the Institute's list of 50 Greatest Villains, and the film consistently ranks in the top 12 on the Internet Movie Database.

Kesey himself did not hide his dislike of the film, particularly the casting of Nicholson as McMurphy. (The characters were based on actual patients Kesey knew from a mental hospital.) Kesey also loathed the fact the film was not told through the eyes of Chief Bromden, as the book was, for he saw this as fundamental to the story. Kesey claimed to have never seen the film for these reasons.

The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

[edit] In popular culture

• The song "Shadows that Move" by metal band Mastodon includes a famous part from this film right before McMurphy is subdued towards the end by Nurse Ratched's mind games.
• The song "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" by heavy metal band Metallica was inspired by this movie.
• The lines "I'm not just talking about one person, I'm talking about everybody... Do you understand... FINALLY?" uttered by Harding during one of the therapy scenes bear an uncanny resemblance to the words spoken in an interlude of the 1999 Dance hit "Everybody" by The Boy Wunda.
• Clips of the movie sometimes appear on The Opie and Anthony Show.
• The episode of Futurama "Insane in the Mainframe" features a robotic nurse called "Nurse Rachet".
• The film has been parodied in several Simpsons episodes:
  • In one episode, Bart escapes with the inhabitants of a Retirement home, and goes boating with them, just like McMurphy does in the film. The Chief is also depicted in the same episode, as he rips a fountain and throws it out of the window to escape, just like in the film—except the retirement home's door was open. The Chief then throws the fountain back through another window, claiming "Forgot my hat."
  • In another episode, "So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show", Homer is hospitalised by a practical joke by Bart. When Moe and Barney come to visit him, Moe brings a can of Duff Beer as a present. Homer immediately starts shrieking at the sight of the can, and Barney exclaims "I can't stand to see him like this!" before smothering him with a pillow, ripping a water fountain out of the floor and using it to break a window, and then proceeding to run into the distance. This is a satirical amalgamation of several key scenes of the film.
  • In an earlier episode, "Stark Raving Dad", Homer is admitted to a mental institution for wearing a pink shirt to work at the power plant. Characters in a long pan shot appear to be parodies of Cuckoo's Nest characters. Homer says "Hello!" to a very Chief-like character, who startles doctors by responding in kind, explaining "Well it's about time someone opened up to me."
• An episode of Mew Mew Power is entitled "One Flew Out of the Mew Mew's Nest".

[edit] External links

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at the Internet Movie Database
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest review by Roger Ebert
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest review by Roger Ebert as "Great Movie"
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at Filmsite.org
• Analysis of Nurse Ratched's Communication

v • d • e</span>  Miloš Forman's Films

Black Peter (1964)• Loves of a Blonde (1965)• The Firemen's Ball (1967)• Taking Off (1971)• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)• Hair (1979)• Ragtime (1981)• Amadeus (1984)• Valmont (1989)• The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)• Man on the Moon (1999) • Goya's Ghosts (2006)• Amarillo Slim Shorts: Audition (1963)• Kdyby ty muziky nebyly (1963) Co-Director: Laterna magika II (1960)• Dobře placená procházka (TV) (1966) I Miss Sonia Henie (1971)• Vision of Eight (1973)•

de:Einer flog über das Kuckucksnest

es:One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest fr:Vol au-dessus d'un nid de coucou ilo:Adda Timmayab iti Rabaw ti Umok ti Cuckoo it:Qualcuno volò sul nido del cuculo he:קן הקוקיה hu:Száll a kakukk fészkére (film) nl:One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ja:カッコーの巣の上で pl:Lot nad kukułczym gniazdem pt:One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ru:Пролетая над гнездом кукушки (фильм) simple:One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest sk:Prelet nad kukučím hniezdom sv:Gökboet (film) zh:飛越瘋人院