ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST

US, 1975, 134 minutes, Colour.
Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, William Redfield, Will Sampson, Brad Dourif, Danny de Vito, Christopher Lloyd.
Directed by Milos Forman

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest defies easy summing up. What is one to say about hilarious, harrowing and alarming events in a mental institution? Advertising asked who is really sane and perhaps this is the right question. What is sanity, what is madness? What are the criteria? Who makes the rules? Why are there rules? How should they be enforced? What is the nature of genuine humanity and happiness? Is sanity curable? Is cure being like the sane enforcers of regulations? Czech director Milos Forman (The Firemen's Ball and the satiric look at America, Taking Off) tellingly portrays victims and victimisation. Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher won Oscars as did the film, the director and the screenplay. Supporting cast (some inmates of an Oregon institution) are excellent.

1. The significance, tone, symbolism, jargon of the title? The reality of it, the irony, the indication of themes?

2. The film was the work of a Czech director. What did he contribute to American material? How well did he shape it? An outsider's insight into America?

3. The blending of the work of professional actors, with locations and authenticity, the inmates of asylums? How well did it capture the atmosphere of the early 60s?

4. The car moving from outside? Now was the audience outside the asylum at the beginning of the film? What brought the audience in? The initial car ride, the presentation of the ward? The contrast with the end and the ward and the Chief escaping out into the countryside? The tone of the music at beginning and end?

5. The presentation of the institution as an institution: how bad was it, how good, how necessary? The fact that there were only a few committed patients, the voluntary patients? The nature of each ward? The look of the ward, its rooms, beds, its routine: the medication, the group work, the recreations like cards etc.? The various individuals in the ward captured in portrait? Their interactions? How did the audience respond in general to all this? How necessary are asylums?

6. The impact of Patrick Mc Murphy? His bursting into the film, his cheerfulness, his kissing of the attendant, his attitudes? The interview with the doctor and the background from his file, his explanation of brawls and girls? His charm and his shrewdness? The ordinary man, getting out of work, risking the asylum? What kind of figure was he for the film? How much of a twentieth century American everyman? Victim, Pied Piper?

7. How well did the film illustrate and build up his impact on the ward; his relationship with the men, his commanding of the cards, his dirty cards, his jokes, gambling and the cigarettes, the basketball, his presence in the group work?

8. How did the audience see the ward through his eyes and his criticism? His unspoken frowns and grimaces at the group work? His considering of the rules, his awareness of Nurse Ratchet's manipulation and control, his way of reacting, especially for the votes for watching the television? His disappointment and frustration and then pretending to watch the series, his persuading them that they were watching the series, their faces reflected on the empty television?

9. The contrast of Nurse Ratchet: her arrival, her big statuesque figure, a dominant role, a dominant character? Her style, how genuine a character was she in wanting to do good for the inmates? Her capacity for manipulation, her using the letter of the law, her unctuous personal tones during the group work, her fixing of the rules, especially after the vote?

10. Comment on Nurse Ratchet's way of dealing with each of the men on the ward? The contrast with her dealing with her quiet assistant, the Negro aides? How was the doctor a contrast with Nurse Ratchet in his attitude towards the patients? His interviews, understanding McMurphy?, the meetings to discuss the sanity of the patients, the various people who contributed judgements?

11. How important was the outing sequence for McMurphy's frustration, his escape and taking the impersonating the doctors and introducing all the inmates as doctors? The exhilaration of the fishing, Cheswick steering the ship, Candy and the sexuality? silly? The consequent meetings after the trip? The frustration built up, leading to shock treatment after the brawl? The contrast between happiness and pressurisation?

12. Why did Mc Murphy arrange the party? His reaction to the shock treatment? His wanting to escape? The using of the caretaker and everything getting out of hand? The effect of the alcohol on each of the patients, even those who were vegetables? The whole thing getting out of hand, the dancing, the prostitutes? The importance of the prostitute taking Billy for the night? The fact that Mc Murphy and the Chief went to sleep and the escape was a failure?

13. Comment on the characterisation and impact of each of the principal inmates: Mr Harding, his sexual problem, his snobbery, intellectualising and vocabulary, his dominance at cards, his preoccupation about sex? His hostile attitude of Mc Murphy, his domination of Cheswick and Martini? His gradually becoming involved in all of Mc Murphy's pranks? Cheswick: his wanting to be onside all the time, his voting with Mc Murphy, a genial character yet going berserk at the meeting about his cigarettes? Billy: young, his stammer, his cringe, the background of his wanting to marry, his mother, Nurse Ratchet's emotional blackmail, the suicide attempt - and the preparation for his final suicide? His genial liking of Mc Murphy? Taber: the big man, making bets? Martini: his grinning, ruining all the ward games? Frederickson and Sefelt moving together? Scanlan, the old man presiding? The old men, the dancer, the vegetable?

14. The importance of the character of the Chief, His dominant physical presence, sweeping the ward, participation in the basketball, his pretence and its revelation? The build-up to the escape when he was ready? A man of compassion and his learning to admire Mc Murphy? The importance of his explanation of his Indian heritage, the death of his father? His reaction to the result of the treatment? The importance of his killing Mc Murphy and escaping? How did he take over the mantle from Mc Murphy?

15. Nurse Ratchet's response to the all night party, her dominance of them all, her manipulation of Billy, her responsibility for his death? The audience sharing Mc Murphy's hostility, his throttling her?

16. The irony of showing the ward back to normal, everybody doing the same thing, the same kind of apathy that they had before when they were worried about cigarettes rather than important issues and exasperating Mc Murphy? Nurse Ratchet with the brace on her neck but just the same as ever?

17. The importance of seeing Mc Murphy as a vegetable, the emotion when the Chief killed him? The Indian being free of him?

18. How well did the film give attention to character detail, use of close-ups etc.? How much wisdom in the comments, the madness, the anger and rebellion? How angry and rebellious a film was this? How symbolic, realistic?

19. Themes of sanity and insanity, freedom and rules, control? An American problem of freedom and manipulation?

20. The film quickly became a classic and won many awards. Why?