One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest [Digibook Edition]

"One flew East, one flew West,
And one flew over the cuckoo's nest."

"Five Easy Pieces," "Carnal Knowledge," "The Last Detail," and "Chinatown" had already made Jack Nicholson a star. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" made him a superstar. Now, to do justice to a genuine masterpiece, Warner Bros. make the movie available in a new, high-definition, Blu-ray Digibook edition. While it's true that neither the picture quality nor the sound shows a lot of improvement in the new format, we can be thankful for even a minor upgrade to such an esteemed product.

The easy interpretation of Ken Kesey's popular 1962 counterculture novel, upon which producers later based the stage play and the Oscar-winning movie, is to say that only crazies are able to see the world clearly. However, the book's protagonist, Randall Patrick McMurphy, is not crazy. Like Paul Newman's "Cool Hand Luke," McMurphy is an emblem of determined individualism in a world of conformity, a symbol of people's capacity to overcome odds and accomplish whatever goals they set for themselves no matter the circumstances. McMurphy shows people how to stand up for themselves and be themselves, and the story in its various guises has been an inspiration for several generations of dedicated fans.

Michael Douglas brought "Cuckoo's Nest" to the screen in 1975 after a long and inexplicably arduous battle to get it made. Douglas's father, Kirk, obtained the rights to the novel in the early 1960s and starred in a stage adaptation by Dale Wasserman, but the actor could never get a studio interested in producing it. His son took over trying to get it to the screen in the early 1970s, finally succeeding (by which time his father had grown too old, or too obstreperous, for the main role). Even given that Wasserman's play was initially altered considerably by Douglas and that the eventual screenplay gutted Kesey's novel of its point of view, changing it from Chief Bromden's to McMurphy's, the movie's history is remarkably saddening when you consider the sheer quantity of junk that finds its way into motion-picture theaters every year. I mean, Kesey's story should have been a natural for the rebellious nature of young moviegoers in the '60s and early '70s, but Hollywood must have thought a nuthouse setting was too far outside the norm for its mainstream audiences. It makes you wonder if Hollywood itself isn't being run by the inmates of the asylum.

Anyway, the younger Douglas found his financing in Saul Zaentz, the head of Fantasy Records in Berkeley, CA. Together, Douglas and Zaentz spotted their director in Milos Forman, the Czechoslovakian filmmaker whose "Fireman's Ball" caught their attention for its sharp-edged humor. Zaentz and Forman would collaborate again on "Amadeus" a few years later and share their second Academy Award for Best Picture.

The main character in "Cuckoo's Nest" is R.P. McMurphy, a boisterous, initially self-absorbed roustabout serving time for antisocial behavior, fighting, and statutory rape. But it occurs to McMurphy that he might be able to get out of doing hard labor by pretending to be crazy and being sent to a relatively cushy mental institution for "observation and evaluation." The movie, set in 1963, begins with his admittance to the hospital and moves on through his experiences with the patients there and his eventual endeavors to get them to help themselves.

His nemesis at the hospital is the hard-nosed, self-assured Nurse Mildred Ratched. She's the authority figure, more important than the head of the institution because she directly controls the conduct and activity of the patients on her floor. And that includes McMurphy, who finds her exacting regime demeaning, depriving the men on her ward of their very souls. The plot becomes a battle of wills between the tyrannical Big Nurse and the free-spirited McMurphy, with McMurphy betting the other patients that he can eventually get under her skin and make her lose her cool.

From the outset the filmmakers agreed they wanted only the best possible actors for the movie's characters, rather than big-name stars. Director Forman says on the disc's accompanying documentary that he always wanted Jack Nicholson for the character of McMurphy, the actor having impressed him after he saw his energetic performance in "The Last Detail." The filmmakers also discussed the possibility of Gene Hackman as McMurphy, Hackman having recently made an impression in "The French Connection." In any case, Nicholson, initially unavailable, got the job, and he proved the perfect combination of extroverted rabble rouser, con artist, and sympathetic motivator the movie needed. Likewise, the filmmakers made an inspired decision to use Louise Fletcher as the frigid Nurse Ratched. Like Nicholson, she was not the only choice for the part, but she brings to the role an icy calm that makes her presence all the more threatening and her evil all the more insidious.

Also from the beginning director Forman wanted actors who looked as distinctly different from one another as possible. He has said he doesn't like to watch movies where an actor enters the story, goes away for a while, and when he returns you've forgotten who he is. Consequently, for supporting roles Forman chose relatively unknown actors with unusual physical makeups, most of whom we now know well. There's Danny DeVito as Martini, Sydney Lassick as Cheswick, Christopher Lloyd as Taber, Vincent Schiavelli as Fredrickson, and in pivotal roles William Redfield as Harding and Brad Dourif as Billy Bibbit. Finally, Scatman Crothers plays the night orderly, Turkle, and Will Sampson plays the huge Native American, Chief Bromden. In the novel, the Chief narrated the story, but the movie relegates him to a lesser job, that of trusted friend to McMurphy, a change that infuriated the book's author, Ken Kesey.

For the sake of authenticity, the filmmakers chose to shoot the entire movie on location in a real mental institution, the Oregon State Hospital being the only one they could find that would allow them the privilege. For an added note of authenticity, Dr. Dean R. Brooks, the head of the real hospital, plays Dr. John Spivey, the head of the fictional one. Furthermore, the filmmakers insisted that all the actors spend as much time as possible with the real patients at the institution, and that they try to remain in character even away from the camera. Obviously, the hard work and dedication paid off.

The book, the play, and the movie have all been accused over the years of misogyny, a hatred of or disrespect for women, which seems a little unfair. The story focuses on a group of men living together under trying circumstances, so we might expect for all practical purposes that they would often refer to women as sexual objects. And most films center on a male as the bad guy, so it only seems equitable that an occasional film like this one use a female as the antagonist. Besides, there are still more female nurses in the world, and symbolically the female authority figure is a convenient representation of the matriarch against whom the boys rebel.

"One flew East, one flew West,
And one flew over the cuckoo's nest."

"Five Easy Pieces," "Carnal Knowledge," "The Last Detail," and "Chinatown" had already made Jack Nicholson a star. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" made him a superstar. Now, to do justice to a genuine masterpiece, Warner Bros. make the movie available in a new, high-definition, Blu-ray Digibook edition. While it's true that neither the picture quality nor the sound shows a lot of improvement in the new format, we can be thankful for even a minor upgrade to such an esteemed product.

The easy interpretation of Ken Kesey's popular 1962 counterculture novel, upon which producers later based the stage play and the Oscar-winning movie, is to say that only crazies are able to see the world clearly. However, the book's protagonist, Randall Patrick McMurphy, is not crazy. Like Paul Newman's "Cool Hand Luke," McMurphy is an emblem of determined individualism in a world of conformity, a symbol of people's capacity to overcome odds and accomplish whatever goals they set for themselves no matter the circumstances. McMurphy shows people how to stand up for themselves and be themselves, and the story in its various guises has been an inspiration for several generations of dedicated fans.

Michael Douglas brought "Cuckoo's Nest" to the screen in 1975 after a long and inexplicably arduous battle to get it made. Douglas's father, Kirk, obtained the rights to the novel in the early 1960s and starred in a stage adaptation by Dale Wasserman, but the actor could never get a studio interested in producing it. His son took over trying to get it to the screen in the early 1970s, finally succeeding (by which time his father had grown too old, or too obstreperous, for the main role). Even given that Wasserman's play was initially altered considerably by Douglas and that the eventual screenplay gutted Kesey's novel of its point of view, changing it from Chief Bromden's to McMurphy's, the movie's history is remarkably saddening when you consider the sheer quantity of junk that finds its way into motion-picture theaters every year. I mean, Kesey's story should have been a natural for the rebellious nature of young moviegoers in the '60s and early '70s, but Hollywood must have thought a nuthouse setting was too far outside the norm for its mainstream audiences. It makes you wonder if Hollywood itself isn't being run by the inmates of the asylum.

Anyway, the younger Douglas found his financing in Saul Zaentz, the head of Fantasy Records in Berkeley, CA. Together, Douglas and Zaentz spotted their director in Milos Forman, the Czechoslovakian filmmaker whose "Fireman's Ball" caught their attention for its sharp-edged humor. Zaentz and Forman would collaborate again on "Amadeus" a few years later and share their second Academy Award for Best Picture.

The main character in "Cuckoo's Nest" is R.P. McMurphy, a boisterous, initially self-absorbed roustabout serving time for antisocial behavior, fighting, and statutory rape. But it occurs to McMurphy that he might be able to get out of doing hard labor by pretending to be crazy and being sent to a relatively cushy mental institution for "observation and evaluation." The movie, set in 1963, begins with his admittance to the hospital and moves on through his experiences with the patients there and his eventual endeavors to get them to help themselves.

His nemesis at the hospital is the hard-nosed, self-assured Nurse Mildred Ratched. She's the authority figure, more important than the head of the institution because she directly controls the conduct and activity of the patients on her floor. And that includes McMurphy, who finds her exacting regime demeaning, depriving the men on her ward of their very souls. The plot becomes a battle of wills between the tyrannical Big Nurse and the free-spirited McMurphy, with McMurphy betting the other patients that he can eventually get under her skin and make her lose her cool.

From the outset the filmmakers agreed they wanted only the best possible actors for the movie's characters, rather than big-name stars. Director Forman says on the disc's accompanying documentary that he always wanted Jack Nicholson for the character of McMurphy, the actor having impressed him after he saw his energetic performance in "The Last Detail." The filmmakers also discussed the possibility of Gene Hackman as McMurphy, Hackman having recently made an impression in "The French Connection." In any case, Nicholson, initially unavailable, got the job, and he proved the perfect combination of extroverted rabble rouser, con artist, and sympathetic motivator the movie needed. Likewise, the filmmakers made an inspired decision to use Louise Fletcher as the frigid Nurse Ratched. Like Nicholson, she was not the only choice for the part, but she brings to the role an icy calm that makes her presence all the more threatening and her evil all the more insidious.

Also from the beginning director Forman wanted actors who looked as distinctly different from one another as possible. He has said he doesn't like to watch movies where an actor enters the story, goes away for a while, and when he returns you've forgotten who he is. Consequently, for supporting roles Forman chose relatively unknown actors with unusual physical makeups, most of whom we now know well. There's Danny DeVito as Martini, Sydney Lassick as Cheswick, Christopher Lloyd as Taber, Vincent Schiavelli as Fredrickson, and in pivotal roles William Redfield as Harding and Brad Dourif as Billy Bibbit. Finally, Scatman Crothers plays the night orderly, Turkle, and Will Sampson plays the huge Native American, Chief Bromden. In the novel, the Chief narrated the story, but the movie relegates him to a lesser job, that of trusted friend to McMurphy, a change that infuriated the book's author, Ken Kesey.

For the sake of authenticity, the filmmakers chose to shoot the entire movie on location in a real mental institution, the Oregon State Hospital being the only one they could find that would allow them the privilege. For an added note of authenticity, Dr. Dean R. Brooks, the head of the real hospital, plays Dr. John Spivey, the head of the fictional one. Furthermore, the filmmakers insisted that all the actors spend as much time as possible with the real patients at the institution, and that they try to remain in character even away from the camera. Obviously, the hard work and dedication paid off.

The book, the play, and the movie have all been accused over the years of misogyny, a hatred of or disrespect for women, which seems a little unfair. The story focuses on a group of men living together under trying circumstances, so we might expect for all practical purposes that they would often refer to women as sexual objects. And most films center on a male as the bad guy, so it only seems equitable that an occasional film like this one use a female as the antagonist. Besides, there are still more female nurses in the world, and symbolically the female authority figure is a convenient representation of the matriarch against whom the boys rebel.