1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

"I must be crazy to be in a loony bin like this."

Jack Nicholson is pretty much always great.  This was an interesting movie, with good acting.

Nicholson is Mac McMurphy, a man pretending to be crazy so that he can serve out a criminal sentence in what he assumes will be a cushier situation -the sanatorium.

He gets to know the other patients, and starts to shake things up.

The patients are dominated by a mean old witch of a nurse, Nurse Ratched.  She seems to get off on controlling people, with no real empathy for her patients.

When she refuses to let the patients watch the World Series, for no particular reason, Mac declares war on her:

Mac: Nurse Ratched, Nurse Ratched!  The Chief voted!  Now will you please turn on the television set?
Nurse Ratched: Mr. McMurphy, the meeting was adjourned and the vote was closed.
Mac: But the vote was 10 to 8.  The Chief, he's got his hand up!  Look!
Nurse Ratched: No, Mr. McMurphy.  When the meeting was adjourned, the vote was 9 to 9.
Mac: Aw come on, you're not gonna say that now!  You're not gonna say that now!  You're gonna pull that hen house shit?  Now when the vote... the Chief just voted - it was 10 to 9. Now I want that television set turned on right now!

Mac tells his friends, "In one week, I can put a bug so far up her ass, she don't know whether to shit or wind her wristwatch."  He starts to rebel against her, inspiring hope in his new friends.  He even manages to bust a group of the patients out for a day of fishing.  His antics lead to him being put through Shock Therapy, along with a colossal Native American patient named Chief, who initially pretends to be basically catatonic, but eventually reveals to Mac that he is faking it.

Mac finally decides he needs to escape, and sneaks in a couple of women he knows and a bunch of liquor for a wild going away party.  He and his cohorts have a fantastic time, until they all fall asleep.  In the morning, the orderlies round them up, and Nurse Ratched catches Billy, a nervous young patient, with one of the women.  Billy finally gets the courage to stand up to her, but when she threatens to tell his mother what he has done, he panics:

Nurse Ratched: Aren't you ashamed?
Billy: No, I'm not.
Nurse Ratched: You know Billy, what worries me is how your mother is going to take this.
Billy: Um, um, well, y-y-y-you d-d-d-don't have to t-t-t-tell her, Miss Ratched.
Nurse Ratched: I don't have to tell her?  Your mother and I are old friends.  You know that.
Billy: P-p-p-please d-d-don't tell my m-m-m-mother.

When she coldly refuses to relent, he violently kills himself.

Mac is so infuriated that he attacks Nurse Ratched, and tries to strangle her.  He is taken away, and rumors about what's become of him circle the ward, until he is suddenly returned.

Chief goes to see him, ready for them to escape together, only to find Mac has been lobotomized:

Chief: Mac... they said you escaped.  I knew you wouldn't leave without me.  I was waiting for you.  Now we can make it, Mac; I feel big as a damn mountain....Oh, no...I'm not goin' without you, Mac. I wouldn't leave you this way... You're coming with me...Let's go.

Realizing that the Mac he knew is gone, leaving a mere shell behind, he smothers him to death, and manages to escape to freedom.

It's a hard movie to watch.  It's emotionally draining, and deals with very painful subject matter, but it's well done and the performances are great.

When Mac gets lobotomized at the end, I thought, "they couldn't possibly have still been doing lobotomies then," so I looked it up, and yup, they did.  Lobotomies had finally ceased by the late 1970s, and the movie took place in 1963.  Barbaric.