One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is certainly a movie that is reflective of the time it came out. War. Oppression. Control. If I'm not mistaken, the Vietnam war was going on, there was the Watergate scandal, and there was communist activity. The audience was fearful of these things. These things were reflected in this movie. The book the movie is based off of is an allegory of society and government. It has themes of control and oppression. And the audience could relate to these things in 1975.

I read the book for school. And I watched the movie in school. Most of the viewing was to look a differences between the book and the novel by Ken Kesey, but I took it as an opportunity to see a great movie that I knew had won the big 5 at the Oscars in 1975. I loved the book, by the way.

And I liked the movie. Jack Nicholson was amazing, absolutely, without a doubt the Best Actor of the year. But was Nurse Ratchet really #1? Debatable. Her evil was subtle and it had to be played that way, so points for her. Part of my bias is that the character is depicted slightly different in the novel and I think I was expecting that. Thinking it over and separating myself, she was very good. Some of the other Acutes were excellent actors as well. Props to whoever played Martini and Billy Bibbit as well as the Chief.

But as I was watching it...I didn't get hit with that "Oh my god this is gonna win so many oscars" feeling that I so often get. Like when I saw The King's Speech and The Social Network and even The Dark Knight I knew for a fact there was some gold there. I already knew One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest won awards but I'm not sure I would've guessed it had won the big 5 if I hadn't.

I didn't have that same effect on me as it did on the people of 1975. Yet I still appreciate it as a great film. It will forever change my view of Jack Nicholson.

I give it an A- or a 3.5/5