I saw Milos Forman‘s Oscar-winning One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest at least a couple of times when it opened in November ’75. I knew the play pretty well as I’d played Dr. Spivey in a Stamford Community Theatre production a couple of months earlier. I’d always admired Ken Kesey‘s play and particularly the metaphor of rebellion behind it, but I couldn’t quite love the film. Liked it, admired the construction and the ensemble performances, didn’t love it.
Maybe I just wasn’t all that aroused by Jack Nicholson‘s Randall P. McMurphy. I know what the consensus view is, but to me Jack seemed to be mainly playing himself while flirting with McMurphy. I would’ve loved to have seen Kirk Douglas’s 1963 Broadway stage version.
I can tell you that after those two viewings of Forman’s film I never saw it again…not once. And yet I’ve seen Nicholson’s other seminal ’70s films over and over — Chinatown, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail, Carnal Knowledge, The Passenger, The King of Marvin Gardens, etc. So why have I avoided Cuckoo’s Nest all these decades? Mainly, I think, because it’s essentially about terms of confinement.
McMurphy triggers a rebellion but he’s a sloppy Spartacus, and he winds up lobotomized and dead. And for what? The right to sneak prostitutes into the ward and get everyone drunk? Is McMurphy a champion of free will or isn’t he? He blows at least a couple of chances to escape Nurse Ratched’s control during the second half but he just hangs around.
I’ve just never felt much rapport with films that focus on prisoners and life sentences. That includes The Shawshank Redemption. One exception: Robert M. Young‘s Short Eyes.