The hero-narrator Bromden - the son of a white woman and an Indian chief - pretends to be weak, deaf-mute and weak-minded. He has been in a psychiatric hospital for a long time, escaping within its walls from the cruelty and indifference of “normal America.” However, the years Bromden spent in a mental hospital are taking their toll. The head nurse, Miss Gnusen, who supervises both the patients and the weak-willed Dr. Spivey, regulates, in his opinion, the passage of time, making the hours either fly quickly or drag on endlessly. By her order, the “fog machine” is turned on, and the tablets given to patients contain electronic circuits and help control the consciousness of both “acute” and “chronic” patients from the outside. According to Bromden, this department is a factory in some ominously mysterious Combine: “here they correct mistakes made in the neighborhood, in churches and schools. When the finished product is returned to the community, fully repaired, as good as new, or even better, the big sister’s heart rejoices.”
One fine day, Randle Patrick McMurphy, who managed to wander around America and serve in many of its prisons, appears in this abode of sorrow. Deadline he served in a colony, where he showed “psychopathic tendencies” and has now been transferred to a mental hospital. However, he accepted the translation without grief. An inveterate gambler, he hopes to improve his financial affairs at the expense of psychotic mugs, and the order in the hospital, according to rumors, is much more democratic than before.
The department indeed flaunts its liberal principles, and the administration's public relations representative constantly gives tours, praising the new trends in every possible way. Patients are well fed, encouraged to cooperate with the medical staff, and everything the most important problems are decided by voting on the patient council, headed by a certain Harding, who received higher education and characterized by eloquence and a complete lack of will. “We are all rabbits,” he tells McMurphy, “and we are here not because we are rabbits, but because we cannot get used to our rabbit position.”
McMurphy is anything but a rabbit. Intending to “take control of this shop,” from the very first days he comes into conflict with the domineering Miss Gnusen. The fact that he jokingly beats patients at cards is not so bad for her, but he threatens the measured activity of the “therapeutic community”, ridicules meetings at which, under the watchful supervision of the older sister, patients habitually delve into someone else’s personal life. This systematic humiliation of people is carried out under the demagogic slogan of teaching them to exist in a team, the desire to create a democratic department, completely controlled by patients.
McMurphy does not fit into the totalitarian idyll of the mental hospital. He incites his comrades to break free, break the window and tear the mesh with a heavy remote control, and even bets that he is able to do this. When his attempt ends in failure, then, paying, or rather, returning the promissory notes, he says: “At least I tried.”
Another clash between McMurphy and Miss Vile occurs over television. He asks to move up his TV schedule so he can watch baseball. The issue is put to a vote, and it is supported only by Cheswick, known for his obstinacy in words, but his inability to translate his intentions into action. However, he soon manages to get a second vote, and all twenty “sharp” ones vote to watch TV during the day. McMurphy is triumphant, but the older nurse informs him that a majority is needed for a decision to be made, and since there are only forty people in the department, there is one more vote missing. In fact, this is a hidden mockery, since the remaining twenty patients are chronicles, completely cut off from objective reality. But then Bromden raises his hand, going against his life rule"don't reveal yourself" But this is not enough, as he raised his hand after the meeting was declared closed. Then McMurphy voluntarily turns on the TV and does not leave it, even when Miss Vile turns off the electricity. He and his comrades look at a blank screen and “cheer” with all their might.
According to doctors, McMurphy is a “factor of disorder.” The question arises of transferring him to the violent department, and more radical measures are proposed. But Miss Gnusen is against it. She needs to break him in the department, prove to everyone else that he is not a hero, not a rebel, but a cunning egocentric who cares about his own good.
In the meantime, McMurphy’s “pernicious” influence on patients is obvious. Under his influence, Bromden notes that the “fog machine” has suddenly broken down, and he begins to see the world with the same clarity. But McMurphy himself temporarily moderates his rebellious ardor. He learns the sad truth: if he was sent to the colony for a period determined by the court, then he was placed in a mental hospital until the doctors consider him in need of treatment, and, therefore, his fate is entirely in their hands.
He stops standing up for other patients and shows caution in sorting things out with his superiors. Such changes entail tragic consequences. Cheswick, following McMurphy's example, desperately fights for the right to smoke cigarettes whenever and as much as he wants, ends up in a violent department, and then, upon returning, tells McMurphy that he fully understands his position, and soon commits suicide.
This death makes a strong impression on McMurphy, but what amazes him even more is the fact that, it turns out, the vast majority of Miss Gnusen's patients are here of their own free will. He's with new energy resumes the war with the older sister and at the same time teaches the patients to feel like full members of society. He puts together a basketball team, challenges the orderlies to a competition, and although the match is lost, main goal achieved - the players-patients felt like people. It was McMurphy who saw through Bromden, realizing that he was only pretending to be deaf and dumb. He instills confidence in Bromden in himself and his abilities, and under his guidance he tries to lift the heavy remote control, lifting it higher and higher from the floor each time.
Soon McMurphy comes up with a seemingly crazy idea: the whole squad will go out to sea on a boat to fish for salmon, and, despite the admonitions of Miss Gnusen, the team gathers. And although the captain of the boat refuses to go to sea due to lack of necessary papers, the “crazy people” do it without permission and get great pleasure.
It was on this boat trip that the timid and fearful Billy Bibbit meets Candy, McMurphy's girlfriend, who really attracted him. Realizing that it is extremely important for poor Billy to finally establish himself as a man, McMurphy agrees that Candy will come to them next Saturday and spend the night with them.
But before Saturday there is another serious conflict. McMurphy and Bromden get into hand-to-hand combat with the orderlies, and as a result they end up in the violent ward and are given electric shock treatment.
After undergoing therapy, McMurphy returns to the ward in time for Saturday to see Candy, who arrives with her girlfriend Sandy and a supply of liquor.
The fun becomes quite violent, and McMurphy and his friends cause destruction in the possessions of their older sister. Realizing that the initiator of the holiday, as they say, is in trouble, the patients persuade him to run away, and he generally agrees, but the alcohol takes its toll - he wakes up too late, when the orderlies are already there.
Miss Gnusen, barely containing her rage, surveys her department, which had been badly damaged during the night. Billy Bibbit has disappeared somewhere. She goes in search and finds him in the company of Candy. Miss Gnusen threatens to tell Billy's mother everything, reminding her how hard she feels about her son's eccentricities. Billy is horrified, screaming that it’s not his fault, that McMurphy and the others forced him, that they teased him, called him names...
Pleased with her victory, Miss Nasty promises Billy to explain everything to his mother. She takes Billy to Dr. Spivey's office and asks him to talk to the patient. But the doctor comes too late. Torn between fear of his mother and self-loathing for his betrayal, Billy cuts his own throat. Then Miss Nasty attacks McMurphy, reproaching him for playing human lives, blaming him for the deaths of both Cheswick and Billy. McMurphy snaps out of his stupor and attacks his nemesis. He rips the head nurse's dress, causing her large breasts to fall out for everyone to see, and grabs her by the throat.
The orderlies somehow manage to pull him away from Miss Nasty, but witchcraft spells dissipate, and it becomes clear to everyone that she will never again enjoy the power that she had.
Gradually, patients are either discharged home or transferred to other departments. Of the “old people” - the acutely ill - only a few people remain, including Bromden. It is he who witnesses McMurphy's return. The head nurse was defeated, but did everything to prevent her opponent from enjoying his victory. After a lobotomy, a merry fellow, a brawler, a lover of life turns into a vegetable. Bromden cannot allow this man to exist as a reminder of what happens to those who defy authority. He smothers him with a pillow, and then breaks the window and tears the screen with the same remote control that McMurphy taught him to lift. Now nothing can block his path to freedom.
Like the numerous high-profile events associated with the name of the “merry prankster” Ken Kesey, the publication in 1962 of his first book “Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” created a lot of noise in literary life America. After its appearance, Kesey was recognized as a talented writer, and the novel itself became one of the main works of the beatnik and hippie movements. "Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is a raw and devastatingly honest depiction of the boundaries between sanity and madness. “If anyone wants to feel the pulse of our time, it would be better to read Kesey. And if everything goes well and the order of things does not change, he will be read in next century", wrote in the Los Angeles Times. Indeed, the book continues to live and has not lost its former crazy popularity these days. Based on the novel, a film of the same name was made by Milos Forman, which conquered the whole world and received five Oscars, and many performances were staged V different countries, including in Russia.
Description added by user:
Andrey Sergeev
"Over the Cuckoo's Nest" - plot
The novel takes place in a psychiatric hospital in Salem (Oregon). The narration comes from the perspective of the narrator - an Indian named Chief Bromden, one of the patients. One of the main characters is the freedom-loving patient Randle Patrick McMurphy, transferred to psychiatric hospital from prison. It is believed that he was faking mental disorder only to avoid hard labor. Other patients are presented in the novel, perhaps not as mentally ill, but as normal people rejected by a sick society.
McMurphy is confronted by his older sister, Mildred Ratched, an elderly woman who works in the hospital department. The elder sister, the personification of the system (the Combine, as the narrator Chief Bromden calls her), personal life which did not work out, carefully strengthens its power over the patients and staff of the department. A rebel and an individualist, McMurphy begins to destroy the order she has created and has a significant influence on other patients, teaching them to enjoy life and even freeing them from chronic complexes. This goes as far as violating the strict internal regulations of the hospital, even to the point of an all-night party on the ward with copious amounts of alcohol and the presence of prostitutes.
Unable to keep the situation under control, the older sister infuriates McMurphy and takes the opportunity to send him for a lobotomy. McMurphy's life is disrupted, but the other patients become braver, more self-confident, and freed from both their fears of the "normal" world and the power of the big nurse as they leave the hospital.
Story
Ken Kesey attended Stanford University, but dropped out in 1959 to become involved in a risky endeavor: as a voluntary (and paid) subject, he took part in LSD experiments conducted at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital as part of a scientific research program. possibilities of using the drug in psychiatric practice. The program was soon closed by the government, but Kesey remained at the psychiatric hospital for another six months as an orderly and night watchman. He often spent time talking with patients, sometimes while under the influence of hallucinogens. He did not believe that these patients were abnormal, but rather that they were rejected by society because they did not fit into generally accepted ideas of how a person should behave. From this experience the novel "Over the Cuckoo's Nest" grew.
Criticism
Time magazine included the novel on its list of the 100 best English-language works from 1923 to 2005.
Amazing success. Mark Schorer
His talent as a storyteller is so impressive, his style is so swift, his ability to capture character is so undeniable that the reader is unable to tear himself away... He has a strong, generous talent, and he has written a strong, generous book. "Saturday Review"
An amazing first novel. "Boston Traveler"
Kesey managed not only to dive into his own bloodstream, as if looking inside his own eyes, but also again penetrated into the spheres where Others live, brothers and sisters, to whom the flow of newfound responsibility carries water - to them and to the world as a whole. Arthur Miller
Reviews
Reviews of the book "Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
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Nastya Dobrovolnaya
After reading a new book, “Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” I added to the treasure of my favorite literature.
This work cannot be called ordinary, ordinary, boring. No way. At the very beginning of reading, interest begins to capture you and, with increasing, increasing force, completely absorbs you.
This story can be called unimaginably sad, the story of how the control system mercilessly destroys anyone who does not want to give in. Throughout the book, one can observe how the transformation of the main character (the one from whom the story is told) takes place into a “big” person from a “small” one. The way to overcome the all-consuming fog that makes you feel weak and insignificant, not even human. But thanks to the most violent character in the entire book, McMurphy, not only the narrator himself, but also other patients understand that no one but them is capable of weakening a person’s will, that he himself recreates freedom in himself.
How can this be done? After all, orderlies are scurrying around everywhere, and the older nurse monitors the implementation - over-fulfillment of the order not only in the department, but also in your head, the drugs do not allow you to feel the sobriety of your mind, and there is only one feeling - calmness. But in the end, in a silent struggle, the characters, led by Randle, find a means that protects them from the rotting of their own personality. It seemed that it could destroy such a strong shell of fear of oneself and outside world? The answer is simple: laughter. Yes, perhaps this is not the very vaccine that can save everyone and everything from the scourge of a cruel world, but it is laughter created in the company of close people, sincere, simple-minded that can save you. This is a kind of vitamin for insight, sobering up, or simply awakening strong-willed thoughts. Laughter born from friends can help you feel stronger, learn to love yourself, understand your capabilities, and finally stop being afraid.
But, unfortunately, in every struggle there are victims. The mental hospital will serve as a battlefield, and at the beginning there was an ideal hierarchy created by the older sister with her always starched smile. At the end of the war, having won it, the man who had never considered himself “capable of submission” fell. He fell, but did not lose the war. Although the opponent, the older sister, cannot be called a loser either. For the war did not end, it always consisted of an endless series of battles that could be won, and leave oneself victorious inside, but never end the war. Others always take the place of those who fought, continuing the endless course of the war for their own Self in a new way and in their own way.
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Anna
Difficult beginning, boring descriptions, no exciting development of events. But here there is a stunning, magnificent, memorable main character- handsome McMurphy. It was only because of him that I mastered this, albeit small, but difficult (for me) book. McMurphy is a patient in a psychiatric hospital who was brought here of his own free will by faking mental disorders. He is cheerful, resourceful, cheerful, self-confident, this is the hero who radiates energy, conveys good mood, charges with emotions and makes you smile. Despite the fact that he is a fraudster, he is a kind, sympathetic, good person.
The ending disappointed me, until the very end I hoped and believed that everything would be different.
In general, this is the first book I read about a psychiatric hospital, or rather the life of people in a psychiatric hospital. And despite all the gloominess of the situation, it was interesting to watch what was happening, since the lives of people there also do not stand still, and something is happening for everyone. Of course it’s sad to watch such people, but in life you perceive them completely differently. Here the personalities, their thoughts, emotions, desires and characters are revealed; already mentally ill people seem to be the same people as everyone else, only with their own characteristics.
American writer. Known, in particular, as the author of the novel “Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Kesey is considered one of the main writers of the beat generation and the hippie generation, having influenced great influence on the formation of these movements and their culture.
Born in La Junta, Colorado, in the family of an oil mill owner. In 1946 he moved to Springfield, Oregon. Kesey's youth was spent on his father's farm in the Willamette Valley, where he grew up and was brought up in respectable, devout American family. In school and then in college, Kesey was fond of sports and even became a state champion in wrestling. After graduating from school, Ken runs away from home with classmate Fay Haxby. Subsequently, Faye will become the eternal faithful companion of the counterculture ideologist and give birth to four children from him.
« Over the cuckoo's nest»
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Novel by Ken Kesey (1962). Considered one of the main literary works beatnik and hippie movements. There are several translations of the novel into Russian.
The novel was adapted for theatrical production Dale Wasserman in 1963.
The famous 1975 film adaptation of the novel was criticized by Ken Kesey, in part because the film relegated the "narrator", who is Chief Bromden in the novel, to the background.
Time magazine included the novel on its list of the 100 best English-language works from 1923 to 2005.
In 1959, Kesey wrote "The Zoo," a novella about beatniks living in a commune in North Beach, San Francisco, but it was never published. In 1960 he wrote “The end of autumn, oh young man, who left his working-class family after winning a scholarship to an Ivy League school, also unpublished.
The idea for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest came to Kesey while working as a night orderly at the Veterans Hospital in Menlo Park. Kesey often spent time talking with patients, sometimes while under the influence of hallucinogens, which he took while participating in experiments with psychedelics. Kesey did not believe that these patients were abnormal, but rather that they were rejected by society because they did not fit into generally accepted ideas of how a person should behave. Published in 1962, the novel was an immediate success; in 1963, it was adapted into a successful production by Dale Wasserman; in 1975, Milos Forman directed the film of the same name, which received 5 Oscar awards ( best film, best direction, best actor and Actress in a Leading Role, Best Adapted Screenplay), as well as 28 other awards and 11 nominations.
Flying over the cuckoo's nest - summary
The novel takes place in a psychiatric hospital in Salem (Oregon). The narration comes from the perspective of the narrator - a huge Indian named Chief Bromden, one of the patients; The leader pretends to be deaf and dumb, which allows him to be present as a silent observer during other people's conversations. One of the main characters of the novel is the freedom-loving patient Randle Patrick McMurphy, who was transferred to a psychiatric hospital from prison. It is believed that he feigned mental illness only to avoid hard labor. Other patients are presented in the novel, perhaps not as mentally ill people, but as normal people rejected by a sick society.
M ildred Ratched
McMurphy is confronted by his older sister, Mildred Ratched, an elderly woman who works in the hospital department. The head nurse, the personification of the system (the Combine, as the narrator Chief Bromden calls her), whose personal life has not worked out, carefully strengthens her power over the patients and staff of the department. A rebel and an individualist, McMurphy begins to destroy the order she has created and has a significant influence on other patients, teaching them to enjoy life and even freeing them from chronic complexes. He makes various bets with other patients, organizes in the department card games, is trying to arrange a viewing of the World Series baseball games on television. Despite McMurphy's winning vote among the patients, in which the Leader's vote is decisive, Nurse Ratched unplugs the TV, but the patients remain in front of the screen and pretend to watch baseball - this mass disobedience causes Nurse Ratched to lose control of herself and break down.
M ampurphy
McMurphy's self-confidence is undermined by a conversation with a lifeguard at the swimming pool: McMurphy learns that he is one of the few patients who are not in the department voluntarily, and moreover, Nurse Ratched is able to extend his detention indefinitely. After this, McMurphy temporarily stops the war with Sister Ratched, remains quiet and does not violate the rules of the routine. Patient Cheswick, who saw McMurphy as a powerful ally in the fight against the prevailing order in the department, becomes depressed and drowns himself in the same pool. McMurphy soon returns to the conflict by breaking a glass window at the nurse's station; he organizes a basketball game in the department, and later a fishing trip on the high seas with the participation of ten patients, including the Leader. This trip, although sanctioned by the administration, becomes a happy day outside the hospital for its participants.
In charge
McMurphy and the Chief later get into a fight with the orderlies in the shower room and are sent for electroshock therapy, which has no significant effect on McMurphy; The leader irrevocably parts with his mask of a deaf-mute and freely communicates with his comrades. Even later, McMurphy arranges a secret visit of two prostitutes to the department itself; at the same time, the infantile Billy Bibbit, handed over to the hospital by his tyrannical mother, loses his virginity to one of the girls, and the other patients, along with the night attendant, get so drunk that in the morning they are unable to either arrange a planned escape for McMurphy or hide the traces of the night's fun. When Nurse Ratched threatens Billy to tell his mother, Billy is horrified and, when Billy is left alone in the doctor's office, he cuts his throat with a scalpel. Sister Ratched blames McMurphy for this death - after this McMurphy loses his composure, beats Sister Ratched and tries to strangle her, but the doctors fight her off.
This time, McMurphy is sent for a lobotomy, from which he returns in a vegetative state, having lost his self and become truly mentally ill. The patients, who have become stronger and braver thanks to McMurphy, freed both from fears of the “normal” world and from the power of the older sister, leave the hospital one by one. In the finale, the Chief smothers McMurphy with a pillow and escapes from the hospital by breaking a window.
Quotes and aphorisms from the book
You won't be truly strong until you learn to see the funny side of everything.
To be saved, you just need to take action.
So, if you want to be alone, are you sick?
I'm not talking to him, but to myself. It helps me think.
Well, how are you, freaks, lunatics and defectives?
They gave me 10 kilowatts a day, I was nicely recharged, now the women under me will glow like casino lights and sparkle with silver dollars.
Communication has a healing effect. Being alone increases the feeling of alienation.
- So, if someone wants to be alone, then he is sick?
I'm talking about form, content... I'm talking about relationships, I'm talking about God, the devil, hell, heaven. Is it finally clear to you?!
Every time he touched the bottle, she drank him, not he drank her.
You have to laugh at what torments you, otherwise you won’t maintain balance, otherwise the world will drive you crazy.
Yes. I know this for sure. A department is a factory within a plant. Here the mistakes made in neighborhood homes, churches and schools are corrected—the hospital corrects. When the finished product is returned to society, fully repaired, as good as new, or even better, the elder sister’s heart rejoices; what arrived dislocated, not original, is now a serviceable, fitted part, the pride of the entire team, a visual miracle. Watch how he glides along the ground with a soldered smile and smoothly enters the life of a cozy little neighborhood, where they are just digging trenches for the city water supply. And happy about it. Finally brought into compliance...
The novel, written in 1962 and immediately becoming the “Hippie Bible,” was filmed 13 years later. The film received 5 Oscars and five Golden Globe awards.
Meaning of the name
The title quotes a fragment of a nursery rhyme that the Indian Bromden heard from his grandmother.
Ting. Tingle, tingle, tremble toes, she’s a good fisherman, catches hens, puts ’em inna pens... wire blier, limber lock, three geese inna flock... one flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo's nest... O-U-T spells out... goose swoops down and plucks you out.
Viktor Golyshev, translating the novel into Russian, sent one of the geese out of the house and the other into the house to rhyme with the oxymoron “over the cuckoo’s nest.” In the original, one of the geese flew to the east, another to the west, and the third flew over the cuckoo's nest - this is the interlinear translation.
Perhaps for director Milos Forman, who fled from the socialist East to the capitalist West almost on the eve of filming the film, this geographical alternative is not just two opposite directions, but also a political aspect of choice.
Other phrases in the rhyme can also serve as a key to deciphering the text of the novel. She’s a good fisherman - it’s clear who the good fisherman is here: the Elder Sister, the ruler over the bodies and souls of the patients. Catches hens (catching chickens) are group therapy sessions where patients are forced to divulge their intimate secrets and are pitted against each other by a nurse. What not cockfight when, at the sight of a drop of blood, the rooster pounces on the enemy and pecks him where it hurts most.
Why " cuckoo's nest“The cuckoo doesn’t call him, does it?” That's why. Something that doesn't exist. In addition, Americans call psychiatric hospitals cuckoo's nests. To fly over such a place and not land in it means to gain freedom. This is what the main character tried to do, where he tried to entice his “comrades-in-arms” into the hospital wards, until he was subjected to a lobotomy.
Why is a lobotomy scary?
The heyday of this mind-blowing procedure came in the 30s of the twentieth century, when the Portuguese Egas Moniz came up with it. This “progressive” doctor made a small hole in the patient’s skull and inserted a wire with a loop into it. He twisted and turned a piece of iron in the poor fellow’s brain, thereby severing the connections between the frontal lobes of the brain and all the other lobes. The process was called beautifully: prefrontal leucotomy. After such blending of the contents of the skull, the patient became obedient. True, the intelligence was adequate to a two-year-old child, but we were manageable! Even President Kennedy's sister underwent a similar beneficial operation. The twenty-year-old young lady was impudent, with nymphomaniac tendencies. After a lobotomy, the disfigured girl moved to wheelchair- that’s how I lived my life long life a mindless vegetable.
The most interesting thing is that Moniz received in 1949 for his discovery... attention, now there will be a drum roll: Nobel Prize!!! Yes! Relatives of crippled patients have repeatedly raised the issue of depriving the doctor of the award, but no matter... The Nobel Committee does not cancel its decisions.
In our enlightened times, it is believed that lobotomy is a dead-end branch of evolution in the field of psychiatry, but once this operation was routine - like blowing your nose. First of all, quickly. Secondly, it's easy. The process was further refined by Walter Freeman. They began to push the iron through the eye socket. No holes in the skull. We mixed a little brains - and voila. A helpful, quiet, uncomplaining member of society at your service.
By 1962, when Ken Kesey's novel was written, lobotomy had already gone out of fashion and ceased to be a mass operation. However, in the hospital where the film was filmed, the last such surgical intervention took place in 1958, not at all that far from 1962
Why writer Ken Kesey never saw the film
The Creator is a vulnerable being. Well, who will be happy if they take your idea and twist it. In the book, the whole story is told by a huge representative of the indigenous nationality of the United States, who was seriously abused in the clinic: 200 sessions of electric shock are no joke.
Either the permanent electric shock is the reason for this, or the voices of his ancestors, but the Indian Bromden considers himself a psychic, penetrating into the essence of things. It's in the book. In the film, Bromden is just a silent mountain with a mop, and the only main character is Randall Patrick McMurphy. Moreover, in the film, McMurphy is charismatic, friendly, but still a criminal and a slob, and not the personification of the fiery-haired Christ sacrificing himself to the flock, as in the book.
In the novel we see everything that happens through Bromden's eyes. He interprets the hospital as a monstrous Combine, where the all-seeing Big Sister (analogous to Big Brother from George Orwell’s dystopia “1984”) breaks people one by one, and the “fog machine” covers the sufferers with smoke.
In the film, everything is not so infernal. We look with our own eyes (and not through the eyes of an Indian nicknamed Chief) at an ordinary clinic for the mentally ill, where everything is quite tolerant until punitive measures begin after the attempted murder of Miss Ratchet.
However, Ken Kesey never won the lawsuit against the film's authors. And was it worth it for him to act according to the principle well known to our public: “I haven’t read it, but I condemn it”? One day, Ken had the opportunity to watch a film adaptation when, while switching channels, he came across a movie already running. But, realizing what was happening on the screen, the writer immediately turned off the TV.
How director Milos Forman rearranged the accents in the film
Literature and cinema are different things. Figurative means- from dissimilar arsenals. There is no film adaptation that translates verbal language into visual language with absolute accuracy. An attempt to introduce a voice-over author's voice into a film adaptation is generally a primitive technique born of helplessness. Yes, the best films are based on novels. And there are two reasons why such films immediately fall into the category of demand.
- Only novels that have been tested by time and reader reaction are subject to film adaptation. Nobody will make a film based on graphomaniac nonsense.
- Viewers are interested in immersing themselves in the atmosphere of the book again and comparing the image formed in their imagination with the image created by the film director and film crew.
“Passions-faces” (let's borrow a successful term from Maxim Gorky), which arose in the brain of a not entirely adequate Indian talking about his stay in a madhouse, revealed a depressing picture of the Combine suppressing the will of people. The Elder Sister is an ugly, powerful woman, a monster who destroys both patients and orderlies left and right. In the film, Miss Ratchet is a neat, pretty lady, a strict, unflappable professional who carries out her duties with excessive zeal.
She sincerely believes that the “carefully thought out order” should not be violated for the sake of some baseball on TV, and the “crime” of young Billy Bibbit must certainly be reported to her mother.
Who was changed by communication with McMurphy?
The Elder Sister, even in the neck brace worn after McMurphy's attempt to avenge Billy's death, had not changed at all. Iron Lady and remained so.
Billy changed for one night and a few moments of triumph when his friends applauded him. I even stopped stuttering.
Mac, I'll miss you...
So come with me Billy, let's leave together!
No, Mac. I'm not ready...
Never again will the unfortunate boy be ready to leave the madhouse, because he passed away, killed by the reinforced concrete principles of the Big Sister - best friend his oppressive mother, who pushed her son into the “cuckoo’s nest.”
The patients changed, feeling the smell of freedom emanating from Randall, going fishing with the breeze, hanging out at the last party. For how long?
Don't blink. Don't yawn, don't blink, The aunt is fishing for the chickens, The geese are flying across the sky... There are three geese in a whole flock... They are flying to different parts, Some from home, some to the house, Some over the cuckoo's nest... The goose shouts to you: drive ...Two-three, come out.
It was from this awkward children's rhyme that Ken Kesey took the line that became the name of his worldwide famous novel. Published in 1962, it became one of best works beatniks, a play was staged based on this novel, and then a film was made. However, the film’s path to the audience was long and difficult: the now legendary film by Milos Forman appeared in theaters only in 1975. So a little interesting facts from the history of the film.
Plot
The plot of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is well known: a newcomer, prisoner Randle Patrick McMurphy, is admitted to a psychiatric clinic where a variety of patients are kept. He must undergo an examination to determine whether he is feigning insanity or not, and then return to prison or remain in the clinic. McMurphy's freedom-loving spirit does not allow him to come to terms with the despotic order that reigns in the clinic: he literally brings some patients back to life and gives others a sense of self-worth. As a result, McMurphy is given a lobotomy, turning him into a weak-willed human shell, and the Leader, on whose behalf the story is told, kills him, thereby freeing him completely.
History of the film
In the USA, the film is launched by producers who own the rights to the production. The rights to film the novel belonged to Kirk Douglas, the same one who is remembered for his role as Spartacus. He dreamed of this film, negotiated with Milos Forman, who was then living in Czechoslovakia, but failed to start production. Studios were afraid to invest money in a film about psychiatric clinic, Foreman lived in Eastern Europe and couldn’t even receive the novel by mail for review... Only Kirk’s son, Michael Douglas, who in 1975 found the money and signed a contract with Foreman, who had by that time moved to the United States, was able to get things moving.
Nicholson
The success of the film largely depended on who would perform main role— rebel McMurphy. Today he is a recognized star of the first magnitude, whose name alone can make a film a box office success. In the 1970s, he was certainly famous; he already had the films “Easy Rider” and “Five Easy Pieces” under his belt, but these were rather arthouse films. And this fully corresponded to Forman’s idea: he wanted to get a famous actor for the main role (the public had to be interested in the film), but not a megastar, so that there would be no hype. By the way, Kirk Douglas himself dreamed of playing McMurphy, he played this role in the theater, but while the script was waiting in the wings, Kirk simply... grew old.
Interestingly, during filming, Nicholson and Foreman's positions on the plot and the character diverged, and they stopped talking to each other. Communication took place through operators.
Casting
For the remaining roles, Forman wanted to take actors who had not yet appeared in films. Today, many of them are A-list stars, such as Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd. In total, about 3,000 people passed the casting.
Hospital
Filming took place in a real psychiatric hospital, and in the very city described in Kesey's novel (Salem, Oregon). True, they filmed in an empty building. The management of the hospital did not object to the film: the “magic of the novel” worked, which became a real bestseller in the States. The clinic staff even starred in the film, for example, the role of the hospital’s chief physician was played by... chief physician Dean Brooks.
Improvisation
"Forman is most interested in capturing accidents."- one of the actors who played in the film said about him. The director really valued improvisation on set. Then he asked me to come up with lines for my characters on my own. Then he filmed and left during editing the live reactions of the actors, and not “acted” according to the director’s orders. The actors felt free and fantasized about how their character might react in this or that situation. Many of McMurphy's "eccentricities" were invented by Nicholson himself on the set. And Foreman often filmed actors while they were in character but didn't know the camera was working.
Fishing scene
One of the most emotional and intense scenes in the film is the fishing scene during which the patients escape from the clinic. However, Forman did not want to film it, fearing that it would stand out from the general outline of the picture. Producer Sol Seintz persuaded him, and, as history has shown, this decision was the right one.
Big Five
Blockbuster or art house, independent film or the brainchild of a big studio, we always strive to find out how many Oscars the film received. So “Cuckoo” became second in history American cinema a film that won the “Big Five” - Oscars in all five of the most important categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best female role and the best script. The previous record-breaking film was It Happened One Night in 1934. After “Cuckoo,” the record was repeated by “Silence of the Lambs.” That's all for today.
And the last one unusual fact— the film lasted at the box office... 11 years! Yes, back in the 1980s it was shown in cinemas in Sweden. And this is completely understandable: after all, inspiration, skill and faith came together in the film - in cult cinema.
