One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is an interesting, yet powerful story. When a criminal named R.P. McMurphy joins a mental ward to escape his job duties in prison, he soon finds himself more trapped than he could have imagined. Instead of getting a vacation and taking it easy, McMurphy finds a task of helping to undo what the state ward has done to the mental patients he rooms with. He brings new ways of thinking and living to a routine life and ultimately goes against the leader of the ward, Nurse Ratched (great name, by the way). Soon trust in Ratched soon shifts to trust in McMurphy and the controller becomes the controlled.
I found this movie positively refreshing for something made in 1975. Mostly actor driven, Kesey’s characters come to life in their own unique way to form a ship of fools; with a purpose, of course. Each one brings about some sort of different need in a person. Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif) is in need of experiencing love, Taber (Christopher Lloyd) represents aggression, Harding (William Redfield) represents logic, while McMurphy represents the body for all these men. The entire ward was small pieces that when put together equal out to be a normal human being. The interesting part of this, one that most people find obvious, is that Nurse Ratched represents the establishment/government and is intent on keeping these men from communicating with each other; thus, they can’t come together to go against Ratched and her rules. Of course, I might be looking at this too deeply, but the explanation sounds sane to me (no pun intended) and nothing short of impressive.
The film is perfect in so many ways and equally as frightening. Seeing that Kesey actually wrote what he saw during his stay at a mental ward and translated it to words really puts in perspective on how screwed up the system truly might be. Having Kesey’s words translated to film magnifies this fright thanks to the simple vision of Miloš Forman. Forman’s eye on keeping the actors inside with actual Oregon inmates and doctors definitely paid off at the end of the production. Each actor not only bought into their role as a mental patient, but also played it so accurately that it seemed like they belonged there. Both Kesey’s story and Forman’s vision collide perfectly to orchestrate the undoing of insanity into sanity. But the geniuses could not have pulled it off with the players.
Of course the main player, Jack Nicholson, brought his outsider role of R.P. McMurphywith a full gambit of obnoxious insanity and sometimes normality into a very screwed up situation for the other characters to feed off of and learn from. Just like his onscreen persona, Nicholson’s ability to draw attention to his character proves almost intoxicating, as you’re wanting to learn as much as possible from McMurphy; much like the other patients. Just an excellent role for the veteran actor and one that Nicholson deserved his academy award for playing, especially with his anti-hero personality that blooms as the movie spirals slowly towards its tragic, but triumphant end.
Now, the only role that could be as interesting and well thought out (and memorable) as Nicholson’s McMurphy is the role of the Chief. Played by artist Will Sampson, he spends most of the movie in a quiet state waiting to break out from his silence. When he does break out you are just as shocked as McMurphy, which is an amazing feeling as a viewer. What’s even better is when the Chief finally ends the movie on the note he needed to end it on. You are both extremely sad and hopeful and I will say no more about it. It’s potentially one of the best endings to a film in my lifetime; certainly one of the most talked about.
If you’ve never seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest then you must see it this way. It’s quite possibly one of the best films you’ll see in your life.
Shifting to the Blu-ray portion of this review, it’s really something special. Not only did Warner Home Video take the winner of five Academy Awards in 1975 and clean up the picture so much that it’s comparable to something shot in 2010, but they did it so well that it’s certainly one of the best productions they’ve had in some time on the Blu-ray front. For example, when you see Nicholson’s character escape and grab a bus for the first time, the amount of beautiful detail on the side of the bus is gorgeous and ugly at the same time. Gorgeous because you can see the scratches, the raw details from the worn paint, but ugly because it’s a very broken down bus. Another example of how great the picture can be is how clear the ward in the asylum is and how bland it looks in HD. It heightens the experience of the movie and draws the viewer in with terrible details of how truly closed in the patients were; all of this better because of Warner’s talent for making the HD beautiful.
With all of this said, let me just say it isn’t the most perfect Warner Home Video HD that I’ve seen, but it’s darn close. There are moments where graininess does rear its head. Of course the graininess appears at the beginning and end, but never in-between those moments.
On the flip side of the video lays the audio. While nothing to really call home about, the dialogue is pretty solid in a remastered DTS-HD. The music wasn’t meant to be the focus though, as most movies of that time (1975) weren’t really soundtrack driven. Nicholson’s dialogue dominated the piece and it sounds great on Blu-ray.
For the features you get some very interesting things. The first, and most typical, are the commentary from director Miloš Forman and producers Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz. It’s truly solid and very informative. Each memory of how things went just adds more value to an already award winning film. Douglas and Forman are informative and hilarious at times. You also get a very good documentary (though aged) about the making of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I found it very refreshing to hear from author Ken Kesey (who apparently didn’t agree with the way the film was made) and then hear from the actual filmmakers Miloš Forman and producer Michael Douglas. Between the filmmakers and writer’s banter you also get some vintage interviews from the actors, minus Nicholson, and just everything you would want to know about the making of the film. It’s a long piece and a very good one at that, but regretfully a rehash. The refreshing part of the special feature department is a new interview with Michael Douglas who does a great job on adding more content to an already solid previous featurette.
The complete list of features is as follows:
– Completely Cuckoo – A feature-length documentary about the making of the film
– Full-length commentary by director Miloš Forman and producers Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz
– Brand new interview with producer Michael Douglas
– Deleted Scenes
– Original Trailer
Outside of the features, you also get some interesting packaging. First, you get a large box for the entire ultimate collector’s edition. It’s a beautiful packaging that fans of the film will adore. Inside you get a hardbound booklet that gives you even more insight about the film and its players. This is the same type of material you would get with something like Amadeus or the recently released Hamlet, where the Blu-ray is packaged within a small booklet; this time it’s separate. In addition to this, you get some cool playing cards and some actor/patient profile cards.
Truly a cool ‘ultimate edition’ set for a great movie.