"Flying over the Madhouse" (1975) won five awards at the 48th Oscars for Best Director, Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay. These five awards have always been Considered to be the heaviest individual award in the Oscars, "Flying Over the Cuckoo's Asylum" has become the second film in the history of American film that has won five major Oscars in one fell swoop. "A Night in the Air" (1934) directed by Frank Capra won this award for the first time. It was only 40 years later that "Flying Over the Cuckoo's Asylum" tied this extraordinary record. However, this feat is It was done by a Czechoslovakian director, who was Milos Forman, who had just arrived in the United States.
Director Milos Foreman
In the Czech Republic, Milos Foreman is very famous. He is one of the important directors of Czech New Wave movies. His childhood is somewhat similar to that of the famous director Roman Polanski. His parents died. He was raised by a distant relative during the Jewish Holocaust in World War II. After growing up, Foreman entered the Prague Academy of Performing Arts to study screenwriting. His first film "Blonde in Love" (1965) was nominated for the 39th Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. He directed "Fire Fighting". "The Dance of the Members" (1967) and the former are recognized as two important works of Czech New Wave movies.
In 1968, the "Prague Spring" movement broke out in the Czech Republic. Milos Forman left the Czech Republic and came to the United States. His first film in the United States, "Starting" (1971), is extraordinary. The film reveals the drug crime problem in American society with a realist approach, and the tone of the film reflects the truth of Milos Forman in exile in the United States. State of mind, the film won the 24th Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize. The filming of "Flying Over the Cuckoo’s Nest" was in the midst of the booming period of American New Wave movies, and his directorial talents were fully displayed. The wonderful performances of Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher made this American film history the most Thinking film, ranked 33rd in the American Film Institute's "100 Years" film rankings.
Jack Nicholson still plays McMurphy. The new wave style of
film is closely related to the original novel. The movie "Flying Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is adapted from the novel of the same name. The author Ken Casey is an American counter-pop culture writer and novel. Published in 1962. At the beginning of the filming, Ken Casey participated in the rewriting of the script, but he advocated narrating the story from the perspective of the mentally ill "chief", while director Milos Foreman wanted to adopt a natural narration in an unnamed way. After the two had a disagreement , Ken Casey left the script writing. The protagonist of
, Randall McMurphy, was sentenced for rape, but in order to escape forced labor in prison, he pretended to be crazy and behaved and was sent to a mental hospital for treatment. In the new environment, he was subject to the management system of the hospital everywhere. The mental hospital was not a refuge for hard labor as he imagined. He soon had a head-on conflict with the nurse Ratchet. Ratchett stills played by Louise Fletcher
Although she looks dignified and majestic, she manages the ward in a rigid and tough manner, degrading and insulting mental patients, regardless of their legal rights and interests. Appeals, methods are cruel and authoritarian, and he does not hesitate to use various torture methods to firmly control the patient in his own hands.
McMurphy has a stubborn character. He is very dissatisfied with Rachett's rigid management in a normal way of thinking, while the mental patients who have been treated unfairly have no complaints about this management and accept it. McMurphy decided to gain their trust, awaken them from insensitivity, and form a united resistance force to fight for the power and freedom they should have.
has formed a fierce confrontational conflict between oppressors and rebels. McMurphy and Lachette’s struggle for control of patients has become increasingly fierce. Two normal-minded people in the struggle to snatch the control of mental patients almost "Crazy", but the mental patients who should be crazy take it calmly. Their "reason" of not hearing things outside the window is in sharp contrast with the "crazy" of the male and female protagonists, which also fills this duel of control and escape The variables. The film has conducted in-depth exploration of human nature in the blind obedience of social behavior, gender differences, and especially in the mentally ill. It provides a good foundation for this complex and thought-provoking work.Foundation.
For the truth of the film, director Milos Foreman filmed in Oregon where the story of the novel took place. The mental hospital in the film is the Oregon State mental hospital. The actor playing Dr. Spivey is the actual director of the hospital. En Brooks. In order for the actors to better adapt to the roles and the environment of the psychiatric hospital, Brooks assigned the actors to special follow-up patients, and they even ate and lived with the patients. Many extras in the
film, Milos Forman used the mentally ill in the hospital, and these mentally ill patients were not enthusiastic about filming the film, their expressions were very dazed and indifferent, but they showed that they were "normal" Actors on the contrary, they tried their best to pretend to be mental patients. The contrast between the two also formed a weird shooting scene of the "sensible" of madmen and the "madness" of normal actors.
Milos Foreman and Jack Nicholson
McMurphy was full of confidence in his pretending tricks when he was admitted to the hospital. He pretended to swallow the pills that the patient took on a routine basis, and then vomited them out, but he did this. Clever ran into a wall in front of inhumane regulations. Nurse Ratchet seemed to be aware of his pretense, using loud speakers to torture the patient, but the real mental patient did not show discomfort, and the painful McMurphy request to lower the volume was met by Ratchet McMurphy was defeated in the first confrontation because of his refusal, which made him feel strongly dissatisfied, and the conflict between the two sides gradually escalated.
During the TV broadcast of the World Baseball World Championship, as a fan, McMurphy asked Ratchet to broadcast on TV. Ratchet suggested that patients decide by voting. With McMurphy’s every possible means of mobilization, the agreement was equal to the number of negative votes. Ratchet therefore refused to broadcast the baseball game. Although McMurphy finally managed to win the vote of the tall Indian "chief", Ratchet still refused to broadcast the live game on the pretext that the voting time had ended. McMurphy was still frustrated in this confrontation, which made him firm in his determination to fight against Ratchet to the end. Since then, the image of an anarchist rebel is about to emerge.
The confrontation between McMurphy and Ratchet is manifested as the opposition between individual randomness and group order. McMurphy’s arrival poses a threat to the hospital’s inherent management system. Although these rules and regulations lack human care, as a representative of authority, In order to maintain the control and suppression functions of the system, Ratchet will never allow McMurphy to raise any questions or changes. In order to manipulate the patient to maintain the inherent order, she insisted on being stubborn to the end. This directly caused McMurphy to steal the hospital’s car and drag the mental patient to the port to go fishing and enjoyment, which incurred the brutal punishment of electroshocking him on the head by the hospital.
McMurphy stills
Under the long-term cruel repression and persecution, the mentally ill group has lost the courage to fight, and has no longer longing for the outside world. Their adversity and acceptance made McMurphy very frustrated. He was angry at his misfortune and hated it. He tried to organize them to fight together, but he was unable to lift the promised water tank and lost his face. He was angry and sprayed the patients with a hose, hoping to awaken their self-esteem and righteousness. The desire for freedom.
McMurphy once questioned whether the mental patient is crazy, but in fact he is showing symptoms of insanity on the road of resistance step by step. He recruited his girlfriend to the hospital and held a carnival party, which directly caused Billy and the woman. In love, Billy committed suicide under the threat of Ratchet. The film makes people raise a serious question about how to define mental disorder. Ratchet’s brutal rule of the hospital has lost his reason and humanity. McMurphy’s struggle is manifested as madness and paranoia. Under the background of mental patients in the hospital, it is normal. Ratchet and McMurphy’s behavior became more unreasonable and manic, and the boundaries between normal and disorder began to become blurred, which prompted the audience to reflect on the inherent concepts and torture the definition of normal and disorder. The audience re-examined the right and evil, right and wrong in the real society.
McMurphy hopes to awaken the mentally ill person's renewed desire for personal rights and freedom through fishing and evening parties, but Rachet's indifferent attitude towards Billy's death makes him furious. He threw Ratchet down and strangled his neck, the dramatic conflict reached its climax. This directly led to the removal of his brain lobe, and the brutal punishment announced the failure of McMurphy’s resistance. His self-confidence was even arrogant, and he was hit by the copper wall and iron wall of the hospital system and authority.Fragmented, all his resistance was in vain. The
hospital system is like a high-speed machine. Patients are like parts on the machine, running on a fixed trajectory. McMurphy’s struggle has deviated from the normal track, and he is no longer suitable for the operating program of this machine. The main conflict of the film is that Rachett tries to ensure that the machine is as accurate as classical music, and it is not bad at all. McMurphy’s efforts to change the status quo are discordant notes. His deviant behavior of resistance is something that the hospital system cannot. Acceptable and tolerant.
Stills of McMurphy and Ratchet
Whether it was the 1960s when the novel was released or the 1970s when the film was released, they were both in the period of the American social liberation movement. The analysis of the gender level in Ratchet’s management of patients shows that The opposition and suppression of feminism and patriarchy. From the source of McMurphy’s sexual crimes, this is the punishment for the sexual assault crimes committed by Lachette as a woman against men. In terms of management, Ratchet confiscated the cigarettes Martini regarded as the lifeblood. She also ruthlessly refused McMurphy’s request to watch a baseball game. The patients escaped from the hospital and fished at sea. Punishment, cigarettes, ball games, and fishing are all masculine behaviors. These objects and behaviors that represent male symbols have been suppressed and destroyed by the female nurse Ratchet without exception. Billy's messing with women at the party was even more intolerable by the feminists represented by Ratchet. There is no contradiction between McMurphy and the male doctor Spivey. Their dialogue and communication are more like a tacit understanding between men. From a gender perspective, there is no male or female like McMurphy and Lachette. Don’t conflict.
McMurphy came to a lunatic asylum from the perspective of primitive human comfort and happiness, pretending to be mentally ill, and began to resist the hospital system because of human impulse and his primitive aggressiveness, as he was judged dangerous by Ratchet Character, it is impossible for him to get out of the lunatic asylum. He feels that he has left the knife mountain and entered the sea of fire. His random resistance has become a purposeful struggle.
From a medical point of view, McMurphy, who had undergone a lobectomy, became a walking dead. He would lose any ability to resist. He was transformed into a part suitable for the operation of a lunatic asylum machine. The behavior of the Indian "Chief" in the film is thought-provoking. He is a stupid giant with a strong body. It was not until he was punished for fishing at sea that McMurphy discovered that he had been pretending to be deaf and dumb. A person with a completely normal mind, outside of McMurphy and Ratchet, he has always been an alternative hiding behind everyone. The madness of the normal "Chief" seems to be no less than that of the first two. He smothered McMurphy to death with a pillow in the dark. This unexpected murder by the audience has led to more thought-provoking thoughts and interpretations.
McMurphy and the chief stills
On the road to freedom, McMurphy fell. He couldn't believe the fact that the patient was willing to stay in the lunatic asylum. He was puzzled and puzzled when they chose to be imprisoned on their own initiative, and he wanted to do everything he could This method tried to awaken them, but it was obviously of no avail. His struggle was pale and weak in front of the strict system of the lunatic asylum, but he awakened the chief, and when the chief killed him, his pain was relieved. Chief
struggled to lift McMurphy's full strength but motionless water tank, and smashed it against the window symbolizing the imprisonment of the mentally ill. In the dark night, the chief escaped from the lunatic asylum and disappeared into the forest. . . The chief is a symbol of McMurphy's rebirth. He fulfilled his unfulfilled wishes, including the water tank that made him lose face. At the moment of breaking out of the window, the chief took the soul of McMurphy and obtained the freedom and liberation he dreamed of. His struggles were not in vain. His appeals and summons infected and inspired the chiefs who had abandoned themselves. Out of the window is the chief, but on the spiritual level, it is McMurphy who flew over the lunatic asylum by , and the spirit and flesh are together .
McMurphy and Chief
Milos Forman’s "Flying Over the Cuckoo’s Asylum" has the style of the European Czechoslovakia New Wave, and has the postmodernist characteristics of counter-mainstream cultural traditions in expression techniques and thematic ideas. The creation of a unique perspective expresses various themes such as the conflict between individuals and groups, the deviation and confrontation between parts and the whole, the suppression of men by feminism, personal imprisonment and freedom of mind and body.
The self-defeating and abandoning of the mentally ill in the lunatic asylum is seemingly imposing and "sensible", but their "sensibility" is the biggest mockery of the dehumanized management of the lunatic asylum. This "sensibility" is the same as that of McMurphy's normal people. Like madness, it is a silent protest against the “crazy” management of the lunatic asylum represented by Ratchet. The Indian "chief" represents a group of mental patients who are fighting for rights and freedom. His killing of McMurphy and his successful escape have added new and more open endings to the already thought-provoking plot. Think deeply.
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