One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Director: Milos Forman
Principle Actors: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Will Sampson, Sydney Lassick
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a movie about what happens when positive change and energy is brought into an oppressively rigid social structure. Usually the consequences are great for the person who introduces this change, and often times they are physically removed or murdered. But their voices continue to ring in the heads of those who heard them. Their transformative effect is unstoppable and incalculable. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a mirror of the world at large in this regard; like many great men and women who spoke out against oppression and bigotry and who were summarily silenced, the hero of this film makes the same sacrifices in order to better the lives of those around him.
That hero I speak of is Randal “R.P.” McMurphy, a petty criminal who is transferred to a mental institution from a work farm where he was serving a sentence for statutory rape. McMurphy is immediately happy-go-lucky about being in the institution, perhaps presuming that his stay in the mental institute will be a walk in the park compared to a prison term. McMurphy has a friendly back-and-forth with the head doctor, and then meets his fellow “inmates”, who are involved in a roundtable discussion about one of their wives that seems to continue in perpetuity.
The other inmates of the asylum are all fantastic characters. Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif) is a young kid with a perennial stutter and a troublesome history with his mother and with other women. Charlie Cheswick (Sydney Lassick) is a neurotic who constantly looks simultaneously befuddled and frightened. Dale Harding (William Redfield) is a pseudo-intellectual who acts as if he’s smarter and more sophisticated than the others, even though he’s probably the most helpless of them all. And then there’s the Chief (Will Sampson), who is a giant Native American mute.
The characters have their own traits that Nicholson is able to play off of. They may not be very realistic (I’d imagine that the inmates at a real-life rubber room insane asylum wouldn’t be quite so lucid), but the movie wouldn’t work without them. Though they’re a little too “pleasantly insane” for reality, but they’re all off-kilter enough to be believable at the same time.
The real joy of this film, and I imagine the reason why it’s remembered so fondly by so many, are the interactions between McMurphy and the other committed men. He brings a peaceful but manic energy into the asylum, and it transfixes and consumes the others. They’ve simply never seen a man like this before. He operates above the institution, like it doesn’t bother him at all. Sometimes, it even looks like he’s happy to be there! His riotous energy causes the others to question their situations. Why are we in here? Why can’t we make our own rules? Where are my cigarettes?
Of course, there’s a reason why they’ve been kept under control for so long (in addition to their admitted own instabilities). The ward is overlooked by the tyrannical Nurse Ratched, who rules their universes in an eerily calm yet domineering manner. The nurse controls everything about their lives, and though she says it’s for their own good, we get the sense that there are more sinister reasons at play. Nurse Ratched likes the power of pulling their puppet strings.
There’s a scene where McMurphy tries to get the others to vote with him to change their nightly routine so they can watch the World Series on TV. The others, battered into cowardice by Ratched, do not raise their hands to vote with “Mac” at first, despite desperately looking like they want to. As Mac looks on in disbelief, Ratched unfurls an evil smile; with it, she’s telling him there’s no hope left, at least not in her ward.
It wouldn’t be much of a movie if McMurphy took that advice, and he continues to bring long lost feelings of excitement and happiness into the others’ lives while simultaneously thumbing his nose at Ratched’s rules and regulations. At first, McMurphy wants to have some fun with his situation, and messes with Ratched as a ways to fool around, but it becomes more than that. He wants to show the others there’s life beyond the padded walls and the electroshock therapy. There’s booze, women, baseball, fishing; everything a guy could want! And Nurse Ratched has no right to get in the way of that. The rest of the film, up until the final climactic scene, depicts a struggle between McMurphy and Ratched for the souls of the other inmates. As Mac gives them more and more tastes of life, the inmates rediscover themselves, realize the injustices placed on them, and most importantly, become able to live freely, even within the confines of the institution.
The performances in the film are absolutely terrific. Nicholson is a tour de force; his energy is infectious as he bounces from one inmate to another in exactly the tone his role requires. His scenes with the Chief are touching and powerful, but also humorous; early in the film, he teaches a seemingly clueless Chief how to play basketball, and then involves him in a game against the institution orderlies.
The inmates are tremendous as well, with several notables making their first film appearances (Dourif, Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito). And Louis Fletcher won an Oscar for her portrayal of the reprehensible Nurse Ratched.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is one of those films I see far too infrequently, where I know I’ve just watched something special as soon as the credits start rolling. It’s a blissful perfect storm of a brilliant story and brilliant acting, and well worth its fantastic reputation.
A
Won: Actor (Nicholson), Actress (Fletcher), Director, Picture, Writing-Adapted Screenplay
Nominated: Supporting Actor (Dourif), Cinematography, Film Editing, Music-Original Score
Long Way Down (2007)
Directors: David Alexanian and Russ Malkin
Featuring: Ewan McGregor, Charley Boorman
I’ve long had a fascination with out of the way places. There’s something about the ends of the earth and the tops and bottoms of the world that speak to me. I don’t know if it’s their inaccessibility, their obscurity, or their loneliness. But there’s something attractive to me about the last places on this planet that we still don’t know much about. And though I hope I’m wrong about this, what makes them more attractive is that I’ll probably never see them. When am I going to go on a Kenyan safari or ride through the wilds of far Eastern Russia?
It’s these feelings that eventually brought me to Long Way Round (2004), a travel series that originally aired on Sky One in the United Kingdom. The premise of the show revolved around Ewan McGregor (of the new Star Wars pictures, Moulin Rouge, Big Fish, etc.) and his longtime friend and fellow actor Charley Boorman riding around the world on their motorcycles, starting in London and ending in New York City. McGregor and Boorman were assisted by support crews consisting of the directors of the series, cameramen, and medical staff. The whole experience was filmed and broken into several hour long episodes, as well as a book.
I thoroughly enjoyed Long Way Round because it took me to those places that I’ve never seen before and know nothing about, but I expected that. What I was surprised by was the likeability of McGregor and Boorman, the expertly filmed and edited episodes, and the way I felt when I was watching it. Long Way Round acted as an invitation to accompany McGregor and Boorman, not simply watch them race around on motorcycles. It became one of the most pleasant film surprises I’ve ever experienced, and when I heard they had filmed another series, I rushed it to the top of my Netflix queue.
Long Way Down sees the crew go from John O’ Groats in Scotland down to Cape Town in South Africa. It’s broken into eight hour long episodes (originally airing on BBC Two in the UK), and in each McGregor and Boorman ride through various locales, take in the local culture, camp either with local tribes or on the side of the road, and simply mosey along until they reach Cape Town. They do make visits to landmarks like the Roman Coliseum, various ruins in Tunisia and Libya, and go on safari in Namibia. These stops provide a nice change of pace from their constant riding; for the first half of the trip, they’re constantly on deadline to finish a certain number of miles each day so they don’t miss a ferry in Sudan that runs once a week.
I believe an inherent part of any successful travelogue is the camaraderie between the participants. McGregor and Boorman are true pals. They get along well and genuinely seem to enjoy each other’s company. Their friendship is infectious, and they become your compatriots and your guides in this great journey. Long Way Down is intimately filmed; the two riders keep video diaries of their experiences and footage from their crash helmets is also spliced in to each episode. The end result is that you don’t just feel like you wish you were there, but that at points you feel like you actually are.
The scenery is usually thoroughly breathtaking. Africa has abundant natural beauty, and there are no four lane highways for the pair to ride on. The roads are often made of sand and rocks, and there’s simply nothing to distract us from the fantastic landscape of the continent. Long Way Down, much like Long Way Round, makes you realize how beautiful the world is and how much there is to it. It’s a credit to the series that it legitimately makes you jealous of the crew for being able to see all of these great things and have all of these great experiences.
The real brilliant thing about Long Way Down is that it’s all couched in an adventure travel show format. It’s not simply showing these different places, but showing them in the context of the journey at large, and also showing the difficulties the pair endure in order to get to them. The two have endless crashes, nearly run out of gas, face river crossings and man-made dangers; it’s an incredibly hard undertaking. This is a travelogue of the highest order.
I hope someday I’ll be able to have an experience like the trip depicted on Long Way Down. Until then, watching this series is honestly the next best thing.
A
John Lacey
No comments:
Post a Comment