Taglines: If he’s crazy, what does that make you?
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest movie storyline. 1963. With a few months left in his sentence, thirty-eight year old convict Randall Patrick McMurphy – “Mac” – serving time for several assaults and statutory rape, has just been transferred from a labor camp associated with Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton to a psychiatric hospital. Mac has been able to use acting “crazy” – having a belligerent and smart-alecky attitude and anti-authoritarian behavior – to his benefit in not having to do any work.
He is at the hospital as the authorities at Pendleton want him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation to prove he is not crazy, believing this is all an act to get out of work. He believes this stint will get him out of any more work while he serves out the remainder of his sentence. He is placed in a ward with a group of men who have differing degrees of lucidity and control of their mental faculties.
He continues to behave in the same manner as always to get what he wants, using the other patients either as accessories or things for his own amusement. He adds to his list of goals to do anything to annoy the ward’s tyrannical head nurse, Miss Mildred Ratched, whose seeming want is to break the spirit of any of the men in her care. In his battle with Nurse Ratched, Mac eventually tries to help the men get a voice of their own while in the hospital, and for some for their eventual return to the outside world.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a 1975 American drama film directed by Miloš Forman, based on the 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. The film stars Jack Nicholson as Randle McMurphy, a new patient at a mental institution, and features a supporting cast of Louise Fletcher, William Redfield, Will Sampson, Sydney Lassick, Brad Dourif, Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd in his film debut.
Filming began in January 1975 and lasted three months, taking place on location in Salem, Oregon, and the surrounding area, as well as on the Oregon coast. The producers decided to shoot the film in the Oregon State Hospital, an actual mental hospital, as this was also the setting of the novel.
Considered by some to be one of the greatest films ever made, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is No. 33 on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years… 100 Movies list. The film was the second to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor in Lead Role, Actress in Lead Role, Director and Screenplay) following It Happened One Night in 1934, an accomplishment not repeated until 1991 with The Silence of the Lambs. It also won numerous Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards. In 1993, the film was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress, and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Filming began in January 1975, and concluded approximately three months later, and was shot on location in Salem, Oregon, and the surrounding area, as well as on the Oregon coast. The producers decided to shoot the film in the Oregon State Hospital, an actual mental hospital, as this was also the setting of the novel.
The hospital’s director, Dean Brooks, was supportive of the filming and eventually ended up playing the character of Dr. John Spivey in the film. Brooks identified a patient for each of the actors to shadow, and some of the cast even slept on the wards at night. He also wanted to incorporate his patients into the crew, to which the producers agreed. Douglas recalls that it was not until later that he found out that many of them were criminally insane.
As Forman did not allow the actors to see the day’s filming, this led to the cast losing confidence in him, while Nicholson also began to wonder about his performance. Douglas convinced Forman to show Nicholson something, which he did, and restored the actor’s confidence.
Haskell Wexler was fired as cinematographer and replaced by Bill Butler. Wexler believed his dismissal was due to his concurrent work on the documentary Underground, in which the radical terrorist group The Weather Underground were being interviewed while hiding from the law. However, Forman said he had terminated Wexler’s services over artistic differences. Both Wexler and Butler received Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, though Wexler said there was “only about a minute or two minutes in that film I didn’t shoot”.
According to Butler, Nicholson refused to speak to Forman: “…[Jack] never talked to Miloš at all, he only talked to me”. The production went over the initial budget of $2 million and over-schedule, but Zaentz, who was personally financing the movie, was able to come up with the difference by borrowing against his company, Fantasy Records. The total production budget came to $4.4 million.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Directed by: Miloš Forman
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Will Sampson, Michael Berryman, Alonzo Brown, Peter Brocco, Scatman Crothers, Dean R. Brooks, Danny DeVito, William Duell, Nathan George
Screenplay by: Lawrence Hauben, Bo Goldman
Production Design by: Paul Sylbert
Cinematography by: Bill Butler
Film Editing by: Richard Chew, Lynzee Klingman, Sheldon Kahn
Costume Design by: Aggie Guerard Rodgers
Art Direction by: Edwin O’Donovan
Music by: Jack Nitzsche
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: United Artists
Release Date: November 19, 1975
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