Caught up...

...finally.

This is the quarter post.  I've made it through 25, and I watched this one on March 30.  I've got a pretty terrible cold, so I'm reasonably certain I will be through 27 by the end of the weekend.  This is the first major milestone on the quest to watch all 100 of the films in the AFI Top 100 Films (10th Anniversary Edition) in a calendar year.

I'm getting there...

Film 25

25.  "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (AFI Rank #33)
I'd seen this film when I was a much, much younger man, but I've seen the play a couple of times since.  This is a story I know pretty well.  Julie participated in the viewing of this one, so, again, I'm watching it not only through my eyes.

"...Cuckoo's Nest," at its core, is a fairly simple story.  A con who has always flouted the system, and continually causes harm to those around him, is sent to a mental hospital to be evaluated for mental illness.  While there, he meets a group of patients with varying degrees of illness, and a tyrannical nurse.  He continues to be just whom he has always been, and creates chaos, until the system crushes him.

Now, that seems pretty simple.  And were that what Milos Forman and the production team chose to focus on, we'd be bored senseless.  Instead, what we get is an incredibly nuanced film with stirring performances by everyone on screen.  Every single person on screen.  This may go long, because this is a "heavy" film, with universal themes and symbolism to spare.  I apologize in advance. Hell, even the soundtrack, with its use of the MUSICAL SAW, is just right.

Randall P. McMurphy, played by Jack Nicholson, in what has to be his finest performace, may seem like just an anti-social demon.  There is a lot of that in him.  What he becomes, however, is an almost Christ-like figure to the men of the ward.  When McMurphy arrives, he blows in like a freight train, hooping and hollering, decidedly different from everyone there.  The first activity we see him particpate in is a group meeting, in which the patients are discussing, in sheepish, beaten tones, a fellow patient's sexuality.  Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), the sickeningly calm head nurse of the ward is leading the discussion.  As we sit with the scene, and with McMurphy for a minute or two, we are left to wonder just what the hell ever gets solved around this place, and just what the hell a woman so detached from the moment, yet in control of the situation, is doing leading any sort of therapy.  As the film progresses, we see the changes that McMurphy starts to instill in the patients, their confidence, their emotions being shared, etc.  McMurphy may be a demon to those in charge, but to the nuts, he's a savior.  Eventually, a session erupts when a patient, overwhelmed with want for his confiscated and rationed cigarettes (and buoyed by McMurphy's rebellion), loses control.  McMurphy, tired of Ratched's ridiculously dogmatic approach, does the sane thing...which is to give the guy his fucking cigarettes.   A fight ensues between the patient missing the smokes, McMurphy, a gigantic Indian named "Chief" and the orderlies.  Finally gaining control, Ratched and the staff deal with this open rebellion in a sadistic, unnecessary way, by subjecting the already calmed down Chief and McMurphy to electroshock therapy.  This isn't a prison, but the staff is making an example of the rebels.


Of course, it fails, and McMurphy's triumphant return to the ward makes things far worse for the staff than they were before.  Instead of a warning, McMurphy has become a martyr.  He's the men's hero.  But, for McMurphy, that comes at a terrific price.  When he returns, he is surprised to learn that he is one of the only men in the ward who has been committed by the state, and that he cannot leave until the staff says he's ready.  Suddenly, his revolution has no end-game, as he could wind up a prisoner of Ratched in perpetuity.  This beats on him.  Of course, McMurphy's crazy side eventually cannot be quelled, and in a final gesture of brazen "Fuck-youedness" he turns the ward into a Bacchanlia for Christmas, complete with booze, women and free medication.  Horrific consequences are visited upon not only McMurphy, but Nurse Ratched, and fellow patient Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif). *SPOILER*   Billy kills himself, Nurse Ratched is nearly strangled by McMurphy, resulting in a considerably weakened voice and a still being worn neckbrace when we see her several months later, and McMurphy is given a lobotomy as punishment.  The savior is crushed.  Yet, even in his moment of absolute weakness, McMurphy's lessons continue, as the Chief, seeing his fallen friend, smothers him, and utilizing a massive structure McMurphy had once tried, unsuccessfully, to move, crashes through the window, and to freedom.

Nicholson, who has become caricature as time has gone on, is nothing short of brilliant here.  Sure, we see his simmering-rage-boiled-over guy that he has become, but we also see tremendous sadness, conflict, and genuine caring about another human being in McMurphy.  The range and depth that Nicholson displays are easy to miss, as that maniacal smile crosses his visage, but McMurphy is a tragic figure, mostly of his own doing.  Isn't that what classic tragic heroes usually are?  I'm not necessarily that into ranking performances, but I'd be hard pressed to argue against Nicholson's performance here as one of cinema's greatest.  There isn't much to like about McMurphy, as he just makes things really tough for everyone he's trying to help, but dammit if Nicholson doesn't make us like him.  It's genius.


Forman's film is filled with details that may be hard to see, but are there, nonetheless.  When we see McMurphy first appear on the ward, he is dressed in normal street clothes, which are jeans, a green t-shirt, a blue denim workshirt, a leather jacket, and a black knit hat.  As the film wears on, we see pieces of that armor slowly chipped away.  First, the jacket goes, then the workshirt, then the workshirt reappears, this time covered by hospital clothes, then the workshirt underneath goes, then as McMurphy prepares to escape, on the night of the party, he's fully dressed again...but after the lobotomy, McMurphy appears in only hospital clothes.  No armor left.  These changes are subtle, but they're there, and I caught them.

I've glossed over a lot so far, and I don't mean to, but there is so much here, it's proving hard to distill my thoughts.  The character of the Chief (Will Sampson) has much more to do with the story in other forms of this story.  I can't comment on those, as I'm choosing to focus on the film.  Sampson's Chief is so instantly likeable, so true, it's hard to believe that the guy was cast just because he "fit the suit."  The subtle humor between Nicholson and him when McMurphy realizes that the Chief, thought to be deaf and dumb, is neither, is a real, honest moment.  It's the kind of filmmaking that the 70s really specialized in, and I was smiling watching it.  Chief, at the end of the film, is McMurphy's great success.  His spirit is freed by McMurphy, and his escape (flight) from the Cuckoo's Nest is hopeful allegory.  In fact, everyone in the film is so convincingly played, I feel badly not singling any of them out, but we'd be here all day.  Look up the actors who played the patients of the ward.  Assume I'm talking about all of them when I say that I believed every moment that they appeared in.  How Forman was able to do this, I'm not sure.  The source material is there, sure, but it takes a special director to capture those performances.


I alluded to the Chief being McMurphy's great success.  If that is the case, then Billy Bibbit is McMurphy's great failure...kinda.  Billy is a hopelessly lost little boy in a man's body, whose mother is a friend of Nurse Ratched's.  Shamed as often as possible by Ratched, Billy stutters and stammers when he tries to speak.  As the film progresses, we see Billy find a mentor in McMurphy, and we see him become braver and braver.  It culminates on the night of the party, when Billy, having danced the night away with McMurphy's friend Candy, is sent into a room with her, with the intent being...well...getting laid.  The next morning, when Ratched arrives to the destroyed ward, Billy is discovered, still naked, lying in bed with Candy.  When Ratched confronts him, there is no stutter, no stammer.  Billy is "cured." For about 5 seconds.  It takes the insidious nurse only a simple "I'm going to have to tell your mother" to undo all that McMurphy has done for Billy.  He starts stuttering again, and flies into a fear-filled tirade.  He is dragged from the scene, and taken to a doctor's office, along with Orderly Washington, to isolate him.  McMurphy, incensed by this, starts yet another fight, and Orderly Washington abandons Billy in the office.  Billy, left alone with his fear and shame, does exactly what you'd expect him to do, which is break some glass, and slice his throat.  McMurphy's great triumph turns to soul-crushing loss at the hands of Ratched.  Taking that loss into his own hands, he tries to kill her, but fails.  We weep for Billy, but realize he is nothing more than the embodiment of McMurphy's spirit, and it has lost its battle for control of his mind/soul.  It's a devastating scene, expertly performed by Dourif.

We've talked a lot about Nurse Ratched, but I want to talk about how brilliant Louise Fletcher is in the role.  She's crappy, really crappy, to everyone on the ward, and again, that's allegory more than reality.  What Fletcher brings to the role, though, is a sense of duty, of repression that she just cannot allow herself to get past, for whatever reason.  I tend not to look for archetypes, and Ratched can be one of those, but the acting moments, the moments that flesh out the character, are moments of seeing Ratched leaving the ward after her work day, and her pained/forced "have a good night" to a fellow worker.  This woman is trapped in her dogma, and I don't believe she's necessarily that big a fan of it.  She has a job to do, and she utilizes a very small toolbox to do it.  I think she wishes she had a wrench, but every time she goes to grab it, she finds only a hammer.  Also of note is her reaction when she arrives to work the morning after the debauchery.  She is amazingly calm, considering what she walks into, and just goes about her business.  Even in her interaction with Billy, she never allows a moment of overt rage to show, except in her words.  Never in her tone.  Also, note her ever so subtle crushed spirit when she is given her soiled nurse's cap. She feels, but cannot allow it out.  Not, I don't believe, because of the patients, but because she is incapable.  I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been for her to do this for the period of filming, but her Oscar won for this performance is well earned.

In fact, there's some trivia.  This is one of 3 films in Oscar history to sweep the "Big 5" awards:  Best Screenplay; Best Actor; Best Actress; Best Director and Best Picture.  The other two are the previously discussed on this blog "The Silence of the Lambs," and the eventually to be discussed (but discussed last year) "It Happened One Night."  This is a tremendous film, made in an era stuffed with tremendous films, that holds its head high in comparison to those.  Consider this.  Between 1970-1982, 26 films from the top 100 were made.  This list does not include such heavy hitters as "Patton," "The Sting," "Manhattan," "The Empire Strikes Back," "Gandhi," "Ordinary People," "Mean Streets," "Dog Day Afternoon," "The Shining," "Alien," and "Halloween.(yeah, I'll make a case for this film's greatness/importance anytime you want me to)"  It was probably Hollywood's most golden era, and a time of great change in the way films were made.  I miss some of this now.  I'm glad they saw fit to put these films on film, however, so we could enjoy them as long as they remain in print.

Watch this one.  Watch it again.  And again.  See what great filmmaking is. This, I'm going to say, despite not wanting to do so, is ranked far too low on the list.  This may be one of the 10 best films ever made.  Yes, I feel that strongly about it.  It's amazing.  Hell, I didn't even discuss two of the great scenes in the film, the imagined World Series broadcast, and the fishing sequence, and I don't feel I need to...this, this is a great, great film.

Hmmmmph.  Ebert and I are in lockstep again.  I must be getting attuned to looking for stuff.  Watching 25 great movies in 3 months can do that, I guess.  (Although I missed a pantload in "Vertigo," so I'm not too proud of myself, yet.)

EDIT:  Turns out that, although I watched it last year, and indeed wrote about it, I never published my thoughts on "It Happened One Night," as it got stuck in draft form.  So.  I was wrong.