Better In Your Head?--ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST

 

Spoiler Alert: it's a mean, mad world.

THE BOOK-Written by Ken Kesey, released 1962

THE MOVIE-Directed by Miloš Forman, written by Laurence Hauben & Bo Goldman, released 1975

THE STORY-Nuthouse, loony bin, funny farm, laughing academy. Where society's mentally iffy go to stew. Inside an unnamed Oregon psych ward, patients languish under a despotic caregiver. Then along comes a man named McMurphy, full of hell and questions. 

MIND THE GAP-I take umbrage with the idea of Randle McMurphy as a redemptive figure who drags his fellow cuckoos kicking and cooing along the road of self-discovery. McMurphy wasn't interested in the other guys being themselves; he wanted them to match his idea of what a man should be. 

This is more obvious in the book. Kesey's McMurphy is a big ol', brash ol' fella, crass and calloused, red curls trapped under a motorcycle cap, all man all the time. Onscreen, Jack Nicholson plays the sacrificial lion as a naturalistic spectacle. His McMurphy is not a swaggering urban legend pushed into purgatory. He is a victim of stunted society, someone of whom much is expected despite a wealth of evidence, and someone condemned despite a dearth of evidence. 

The supporting cast is super-solid. Brad Dourif, especially, is nicely bugged-out as Billy Bibbit. Unfortunately for William Redfield, he went all-in against the devil's hand. His character, Dale Harding, is a stand-out in the novel, a self-loathing pretty boy queer given to fits of grandiloquence. Film Dale is a weak-eyed, saggy-faced wimp, ruthlessly needled by other patients in scenes that overstay their welcome without fail.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest urges us to gather up our courage and fight the better fight. The question of who precisely constitutes "us" is a healthy one to ask. Ken Kesey stood with one foot in the Beat swamp, and the other foot in the hippie pool, and for all the hype about freedom and acceptance, lots of the guys in those movements weren't exemplars of sensitivity and inclusion. 

Women in Nest are assigned value based on their distinguishing feature. Whether a pair of welcoming breasts or an vindictive open mouth, women are intent on the dispensation of debilitating blows against masculinity in their quest to replace men atop the pyramid. Dale Harding flat out states: "We are victims of a matriarchy." Specifically, they are victims of Nurse Ratched.

What a name! A sincerely wretched person, Nurse Ratched puts the "bitch" in "habitual torture." A model representative for the maddening bureaucratic machine, her self-control is even more breathtaking than her skill sewing seeds of suspicion. Thus, villainous. Louise Fletcher's performance as the silver screen's most supreme Queen of Demean is undeniable. 

Before anything, Cuckoo's Nest is immensely valuable as a chronicle of a time in American history when we mistreated our unwell so horrifically that it's no far fling to declare mental institutions robbed certain unfortunates of their very personhood in the name of "betterment." Several years before my birth, the man partially responsible for said event underwent electroshock therapy to "jolt" his brain free of the bottle it'd been trapped inside for almost twenty years. I never knew the man he was before, and the differences apparently weren't insignificant. I knew a man who moved slower than most people, spoke slower than most people. His eyes never betrayed the world behind them. I feel duped, still.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-A field goal that shoulda been a touchdown.

The book belongs to "Chief" Bromden, an imposing "Indian" patient allowed unprecedented access in the ward thanks to a feigned handicap. Through his eyes, Cuckoo's Nest is a more unique, thoughtful tale. His own hardships (tumultuous childhood, hallucinations) lead Chief to develop a dark view of society, a fascistic nightmare-scape he calls "The Combine." Disturbing, beautiful stuff. 

The movie belongs to McMurphy--Nicholson--to its ultimate detriment. While the shift in focus makes for a less unsettling, more digestible experience, the greater message was lost, and Ken Kesey avoided the film for that reason. "They took out the morality. They took out...the conspiracy that is America."

There is nothing moral, or intellectual, about Forman's Nest. Men are such beasts, women are such burdens, who's truly crazy in a world gone mad, yeah yeah go bleed all over a marble floor.