Cuckoo for Cuckoo's Nest

In which I post another thing I did for a class here.  Because I need to.  I've kept this to my prof & a few friends for too long - the world must know my feelings on this "celebrated" film.

WARNING: IF YOU SWEAR BY THE "CLASSIC" FILM ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, PREPARE TO HAVE YOUR LOVE CHALLENGED.  BECAUSE IT IS NOT THE FILM YOU THINK IT IS.  THE AWARDS WON ARE IRRELEVANT IN MY EYES.  ITS PLACE IN FILM HISTORY IS IRRELEVANT.  MY STANDARDS ARE MUCH HIGHER THAN YOURS.

Cuckoo for Cuckoo’s Nest: A Now and Then Response

If you know me, then you know that Miloš Forman’s rendition of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) is far from my favorite film.  The first time I read Ken Kesey’s novel, I was in 7^th grade.  I probably wasn’t old enough to absorb every nuance, but I adored it and all of its characters.  I feared Big Nurse; I cheered for Chief Bromden; and I wept for McMurphy.  The book is very dear to me.  The first time I watched the film was for a TIES assignment in sophomore year.  Our teachers would make “bundles” of mixed media and we would have to find the link “tying” them all together.  This bundle was “mental health” and it included Forman’s film, The Bell Jar, Girl Interrupted (both the book and film; contrary to what I feel with Cuckoo’s Nest, I prefer the film), one article on mental health and Hollywood, and one Wikipedia article.  I enjoyed the film, but… it wasn’t the same.  I was underwhelmed by many of the cast’s performances.  They had won Academy Awards and yet, that didn’t make any difference; I felt so distanced from them.  I didn’t fear the Big Nurse – she wasn’t big in stature or in presence; she was a deflated, mediocre version of herself.  I didn’t cheer for Chief Bromden – he was relegated to a secondary character; even though this story is HIS story.  I didn’t weep for McMurphy – instead of being compassionate to his fellow men, he was cruel; he was far from the McMurphy I knew and loved.  But my TIES assignment wasn’t the place to critique the movie.  And I didn’t have the necessary language to do so.

I randomly watched the film for a second time to get a better impression.  It was junior year, and I had recently re-read the entire book and had done an extensive character analysis on McMurphy.  And yet none of that was in the film.  I became very angry.  I would watch scenes and flip furiously through the book.  I would look up at the screen in horror.  I felt insulted by this film.  The characters just didn’t add up.  Even the plot had been subjected to “creative license,” which then changed character dynamics around – character dynamics that are essential.  And for years after that, whenever I even saw the name of the film, I would react with a grimace or an eye roll.  But what good is that?  How constructive is that?  

          

I’ve watched segments of the film (because that’s as much as I can stand) since then, including our time in class.  I still don’t like the film – that will never change and besides, I owe no film my unconditional love and affection; I’m free to dislike and like whatever film I choose, but I have to be more constructive with my disliking.  The difference between now and then is that now, I have the language to properly critique a movie – besides its plot and how accurately actors portray their characters.  I’ve always liked films, but I’ve never truly studied film before.  And since I’ve never studied film before, I could never give suggestions other than: “recast this person” or “change this aspect of the plot.”  That’s a very limited range of critique.

Because of Film History 2, I’ve been exposed to the film Persona (1966) and the Vimeo video essay “What is neorealism?”  Even though these have no direct ties to Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, they have changed how I think about the film.  They have inspired me, if I ever were to take on such a monumental challenge, to not only revise the film, but maybe even perfect it.  Then, I had no idea how to translate the book accurately to the screen.  Now, with the help of this class and those two sources of inspiration, I have a better understanding.

I have blogged extensively about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on Tumblr.  There is a tagging system that makes Tumblr so appealing, allowing its users to create communities based on one tag – in this case one book.  However, this tag does not discern book from movie, so we have people spazzing about the film, posting the same stills over and over again, and fawning over Jack Nicholson’s performance.  I have since gotten used to this.  But us book purists post meta-analysis on the book.  The rough draft of this essay, before I even knew that I could make it into my “Now and Then” topic, was posted on Tumblr.  Besides editing out the swearing (because I get very passionate and heated about the book versus the movie… and that manifests as LOTS of swearing), I have expanded, revised, and refined my ideas.  These ideas are not limited to the flaws of the actors, the screenwriters, or even the director; these ideas critique the very system the movie was made in.  Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was created in a system that favors individual actors, when an ensemble would capture the true essence of the book; a system that favors “Hollywood” safeness, as opposed to avant-garde editing and neorealism; a system that erases so much of what makes the book special just to make it more marketable to the public.

I am very privileged to have watched Vimeo user kogonada’s video essay on neorealism.  In his “experiment” that compares Hollywood and neorealist ideologies, he finds poignant contrasts.  Hollywood never follows characters it deems as “disposable” to the plot (kogonada).  Characters and situations that divert focus from the primary characters are seen as “excessive diversions” (kogonada).  Even the act of walking is something that needs to be cut down or out completely (kogonada).  Implied movement is preferred to actual movement; implied interactions are preferred to actual interactions – especially with secondary and tertiary characters (kogonada).  Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, as well as many films of that time and today, are guilty of this mindset.  Like kogonada’s hypothetical movie on the left (showcasing Hollywood camera patterns), the camera stays with McMurphy.  We rarely follow or linger on any of the other patients, and as a result, we rarely see the organic relationships that develop so naturally in the book between McMurphy and those that treasure him.  According to kogonada, neorealist directors, like DeSica, focus on the “absence” their main characters leave.  We rarely see this absence when McMurphy exits a frame; we only see this with his death.  But the very nature of the book is understanding McMurphy through the other Acute patients.  We cannot understand one party when the other is completely ignored.  It’s foolish to think that we can’t get additional insights from other characters; it’s foolish to think that isolating our main character from his surroundings (in a story where the surroundings and those fellow souls suffering through it are everything) will give us more information.  Thus, a more accurate adaptation of the film, and a much better film overall, would be an ensemble film.  It should be obvious that every character matters (every single character written in the book exists for a reason; why else would Kesey create them?), and yet it isn’t in Hollywood.  Even with superstar ensembles (as seen in so many films, past and present), we focus on the stars themselves making up that ensemble before all else.  Sometimes you need to catch the industry off guard and take the underdog approach.

I agree that the medium makes the message.  Obviously there has to be edits in order to translate the printed word into the visual world.  But I’m not a fatalist about this.  I don’t believe that everything will inevitably be lost in translation; I believe that an accurate representation can and will be made – one that showcases the true nature of the book in all its disgusting glory.  But we have to turn to neorealism.  The “excess” scenes and interactions that Hollywood so hates, which kogonada exposed, are what the book thrives on – and what neorealism treasures; it’s only natural to pair them together.  Neorealism takes a visual-realist documentary-style approach.  It strips things down to their essence; it presents things as they really are.  Even when portraying something as serious as mental illness, Hollywood productions get caught in the glamor of it.  In popular culture, we expect there to be a glamor in mental illness.  Tumblr internet culture romanticizes certain disorders, disturbingly enough.  The film can NOT portray this.  Mental illness in this day and age is terrifying for the self (and deadly in a variety of ways, depending on the disorder and stigmas surrounding it), but back in the time the book was written, when human rights were tossed to the wayside, it was unimaginably terrifying to have a disorder.  Here in a medical institution, supposedly sworn in to protect you and certainly save you from any further harm, we have unspeakable evils.  They are beyond glamor, beyond romanticized delusions; this is how the medical world really was.  In many establishments, you didn’t matter; you weren’t even a person, as far as they were concerned.  Improper electroshock therapy, lobotomies, and forced solitary confinement are to be expected.  And the psychological warfare waged by every person of authority, from the black aides to the big nurses of the Combine, is just a given.

Neorealism casts non-stars in its roles – especially people of that class or financial situation.  But what are the ethics of casting people, with preference because of their mental disorders?  And with the extensive mental health problems in the book, would that require you to find people with those exact disorders?  What is the line between acting and not acting?  What is the line between consent and exploitation?  It was relatively easier for DeSica in his day and age, but what about now?  And by hiring people who already have disorders, and by submitting them to the strains that the script will demand (especially if they happen to be method actors), that might put their real mental health at risk.  Some would say that this is necessary in making good art – like directors shooting dangerous car scenes without any permits and risking the personal safety of their stars and the unaware drivers around them, but is it really so easy to defend?  The actor who’s selected to play Billy Bibbit must not be compromised.  Because out of all of the patients under Nurse Ratched’s reign, he is hit the hardest.  She kills him.  Taking on a character that sustains that much mental trauma… it’s not to be treaded lightly.  Jack Nicholson (supposedly) warned Heath Ledger about the role of the Joker, and some suspect that the strain was too much for Ledger to bear.  I would hate for anything to happen to an actor because of the role’s nature.

The ideal would be every single character being played by a non-star – actors just starting or people who just “found.”  Sometimes with famous people playing iconic roles we can’t move beyond that – oh it’s Jack Nicholson playing McMurphy, instead of Randall P. McMurphy played by Jack Nicholson.  So instead of seeing McMurphy move about, we’re watching Nicholson’s McMurphy – and we’re aware that it’s Nicholson in a role, instead of getting fully immersed.  It’s not wrong to love a movie because of a single actor’s performance in it – I’m guilty of it – but when we’re more taken with their persona, rather than their actual portrayal of the character, we move away from the true essence of what the film should be about; what neorealism is so painfully about.  The two “stars” championed in Forman’s film must be unknowns.  First, in order to distinguish them from the Academy Award winning portrayals of McMurphy and Nurse Ratched; it’s much easier for someone with nothing to lose to surpass a giant, instead of someone with an already established career fretting over the fact that they’ll be constantly compared to Nicholson’s or Fletcher’s genius.  Second, all attention can’t be showered on the two “star roles.”  This doesn’t mean that if they have excellent performances that they should be denied due praise.  Praise and admiration are different from ALL the attention from the camera and the press.  Who’s to say that an actor playing the role of Harding steals the show and wins Best Supporting Actor instead?  Perhaps because of sheer body language alone, since the role places heavy emphasis on emotion through hand gestures?  Perhaps in a genderqueer, queer portrayal of Harding?  Which would still be supported by the canon text?  Fully supported by dialogue in the novel between McMurphy and Harding, which could be read as queer?  Which wouldn’t be condescending, like Nicholson’s McMurphy repeating “Hard-on” with a nasty tone, but would actually be affectionate?  Full of winking and grinning and “friend” and actual hand-holding?  Which would still be closer than Forman’s Harding?  Who’s to say?

Unlike Hollywood filmmaking, as shown poignantly in “What is neorealism?,” the shot cannot linger on McMurphy solely; we must linger on the space that he leaves.  And since kogonada speaks of walking, there aren’t any walking scenes of the Big Nurse that inspire fear.  The only thing to fear in the hospital is fear itself, manifested in Nurse Ratched.  Her title “Big Nurse” is conveyed not only by her size, but how she talks and moves.  Her physical presence demands attention, but she also psychologically takes up space.  She overwhelms you with her power, and this power needs to be reflected accurately in-camera.  The choice of angles is relatively safe, even for the time.  There needs to be more shots looking up at the Big Nurse, from below her – which is where the Acutes and Chronics are.  Capturing her at oblique, even unflattering angles that make female subjects appear “fat,” is key.  The Big Nurse is just that – she is BIG.  There should be no fear in exploring this.  There should be no fear in disorienting the audience with angles and editing – that’s precisely what the book aims to do.  There’s even fear in the way that Nurse Ratched portrays her own sexuality.  She constrains her bust, denying the patients the right to see her as a sexual being.  She is literally above them, unavailable to them.  But during her fall, her femininity – which should be caring and kind, as is the stereotype, but also as is the expectation for being a “normal” human being – is exposed; her bosom spills out.  No longer is she an unattainable godlike figure, above sexuality; she is human and of the flesh – womanly, sensual flesh.  Fletcher and her Big Nurse are stripped of any sexual imagery; she is, like most things in the film, sanitized.  Which is quite ironic, since Hollywood usually bucks at the chance to sexualize its women… but somehow not here.  In all aspects, the first attempt’s Big Nurse is tame.  And this might sound bitter, and a bit like my “then” self, but I am tired of reading critique from people who have not read the book.  If they believe that Fletcher’s portrayal was terrifying, then they are in for the rudest of awakenings.  I am not afraid of her Nurse Ratched.  I almost laugh at the consequences McMurphy faces at the end of the movie; they’re almost out of place coming from her.  She doesn’t rule with an iron fist; she doesn’t have the respect that he needs to so painfully violate in the book.  She is not a character that I hate with a passion.  On the contrary, she has been declawed; she has no orange nails to sear into the flesh of the Chief; she has no orange-lined lips, whispering lies into Billy’s ears; she has no cunning eyes that see through McMurphy’s smooth-taking ways, right to his plans.  How can I take her seriously when we refuse to give her character due respect?  I hate the Big Nurse, but she deserves better than how she was portrayed.

This applies to our second star too – McMurphy.  Much like Nurse Ratched, Forman’s attempt misrepresents and mischaracterizes him.  When McMurphy should be kind, he’s made to be cold instead; when McMurphy is humanized, he’s overly glorified and idealized.  McMurphy is our hero, there is no mistake about this, but he is also human.  He is not Nietzsche’s Overman; we cannot, and should not, hold him to Superman übermensch standards.  In the book, we are supposed to have a conflict of character – and you would think that a character arc coming from the Vietnam era would be able to convey this to a painfully accurate degree, but it just falls short.  Kesey’s McMurphy is a complicated individual; we’re supposed to feel awful for putting him on such a pedestal – for holding him to an Overman’s standard.  Because McMurphy feels the weight of these expectations; he feels that responsibility in the end.  He makes the full character arc – from selfish, despicable man to selfless Christ-figure.  And yet… this sacrifice comes at a great cost.  When he puts us on his back, we don’t question it.  We don’t even ask him to share the load, unless we factor in the Chief (but the film erases Chief Bromden, so truly McMurphy is alone.)  McMurphy feels that this is his battle and his alone – his literal cross to bear for his sins for coming in here.  The adaptation must battle between the two McMurphys: the ideals that we’ve applied to him and the man himself.  We can’t deny or censor what brought McMurphy to the hospital in the first place.  He’s willing to work the system for his own benefit; he’s willing to sacrifice other lives for the sake of himself; he’s willing to joke about the questionable deeds he’s done.  At first he can’t wait to leave; he can’t wait to rid himself of these basket cases; he is the most selfish man in existence.  But they grow on him – and so does he on us.   But that growth is meaningless if we don’t fight McMurphy in the first place (for the correct reasons, which I will get into later).  The book blends both the idealized with the realized, but we have to distinctly identify the two – or else we risk severe misunderstandings.  In class we discussed the irony of The Godfather (1972): how Michael is a metaphor for Nixon and the questionable morals he employed.  Yet instead of vilifying a Nixon character, who deserves such a fate for obvious reasons, we rally around Michael; we cheer for him.  The irony utterly backfires and we don’t care.  And even though I understood the exchange between Kay and Michael about naiveté and killing, I CHEERED for Michael.  I was so on edge when he was about to kill his first two men; I was in awe that he had the audacity to time his massacre during his godchild’s baptism.  Similarly, our collective response, made worse by his portrayal in the movie, is to blindly uphold McMurphy and his sacrifice without claiming our own responsibility; to blindly uphold McMurphy through all circumstances – especially in the movie.  We cheer for him during Forman’s adaptation, but do we fully know why?  McMurphy, when he begins to really bond with his fellow patients, cares for them dearly.  He jokes with them, but he is not cruel. 

But in the movie, McMurphy is verbally abusive and in some instances, an agent of the Combine – the latter of which infuriates me beyond belief.  I understand that Nicholson’s McMurphy is supposed to be an anti-hero, a rallying icon for counterculture, but when you give this symbol blind rage, anger to the point where he actually reinforces the villains of the book, I can’t watch without a few qualms.  This isn’t to say that McMurphy starts off in the hospital all happy friendship sunshine time.  But what he never does is deny people’s humanity – that’s what sets him apart in the first place.  From the time he walks in, he thinks about the treatment of those around him.  But in the film, he says, very snidely to Martini as they play cards, “there’s real people here” trying to play.  Emphasis on “real people.”  McMurphy is denying Martini’s existence as a “real person.”  He is actively denying Martini’s humanity and worth as a person.  He is denying Martini’s right to play cards and to exist in the same plane as himself, as a “real person.”  He’s not just being a dick; he is doing what the Combine does to the rest of them on a regular basis: strip them down to afflicted people who don’t deserve common respect.  McMurphy, in the film, is also verbally abusive to Billy: a man whom he gives unconditional love in the book; a man whom he would NEVER press buttons; a man whom he would never look at with a hint of malice, let alone speak to him with it.  McMurphy is affectionate with Billy; he understands how harshly the Big Nurse treats him – and how susceptible he is to it.  He tries to lighten things up; he succeeds in getting Billy to laugh, blush, and feel “normal,” for once.  But in the movie, they can’t even share the same frame.  When we watched it in class, I almost started crying when Nicholson’s McMurphy retorted, “Get out of the way, son; you’re using my oxygen.”  It makes no sense, with this relationship in the context of the movie, to suddenly risk your life for someone you despise.  Billy’s death is McMurphy’s last straw; this is the Nurse going too far, overstepping her boundaries.  Sometimes a character having an epiphany works, suddenly coming to terms with his hatred and realizing that it was foolish, but not here.  By failing to establish that relationship, by denying its power – again allowing us to see more about McMurphy through his relationships with other people – we miss so much depth that the book gives us.  Without this, how can we grieve with the Chief after it’s over?  How can we empathize with Chief when he ultimately makes his decision with the pillow?  We can’t.

One of the grave injustices, although I can’t be entirely surprised (even with our films now), of this adaptation is that it greatly erases Chief.  When we watched our 20 minute segment in class, I kept wondering: where’s Chief?  In 20 minutes, Chief Bromden has only 15 seconds of screen time.  Throughout multiple scenes that he was obviously present for the book, he wasn’t even in the frame – or even in the furthest reaches of the mise en scène.  Because McMurphy is our star, played by a star, Chief Bromden falls by the wayside.  Even though the entire novel is told through his eyes, his first person, his entire experience, he does not matter to Forman, the writing team, and as a result, the audience.  He’s there to throw the thing out the window this one time, but what else?  Him and McMurphy share gum and laugh a little bit, but what else?  In order to improve upon the film, Chief needs to be included in the first place; he needs to actually take up physical presence in the frame, in every frame.  Our constant isn’t McMurphy, contrary to the Hollywood system, but Chief Bromden.  He is our lead of color; he is the man truly fucked over by the Combine, not McMurphy.  The Chief’s heritage is the elephant in the room, but we have to address it – it’s a large part of the novel.  The Chief’s power in society literally shrinks because of institutionalized racism.  His “size” of his physical body is equal to his size in society.  By removing this metaphor, we lose so much insight into the Chief, and into how cruel the Big Nurse really is.  If Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) can convey a change in size, and likewise a change in character, then why not for Bromden?  And against Nurse Ratched, sometimes silence speaks louder than words or physical action.   Yet this doesn’t always translate well onto the screen.   We want our men to be abrasive anti-heroes that make the full 180 degree change.  But again I cannot stress enough: THIS IS NOT MCMURPHY’S STORY; THIS IS CHIEF BROMDEN’S.  He is always there, absorbing and noting, acting deaf and dumb.  But just because he’s deaf and dumb, or feigning it, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t matter – it doesn’t mean that we downright ignore him.  These sorts of characters aren’t received as well as the overtly physical ones.  And in a way, the Chief reminds me of Sansa from Game of Thrones.  She plays the quiet game, nodding and smiling; it’s not the most exciting game to play, but she survives.  Chief survives a long time – and he’s still running.  He’s a survivor.  Despite all that’s happened to him, he’s still here.  We can’t ignore this.  Chief’s silence is deafening and much like Nurse Ratched, his presence is overwhelming, even when he’s at his smallest.  He is our narrator and our guide… but how can he guide us when he’s not even there?

Like I said before, many films aim to be safe.  Why should this film adaptation be safe with its angles and editing?  Disorienting the audience is precisely what the book demands.  And when it’s done correctly, there’s nothing aesthetically better.  Persona was that film that really resonated with me aesthetically.  It reminded me of my favorite tv show, Fringe, and it reminded me of one of my favorite books, the one being discussed here.  The beginning of this film, upon first watch, seems so… out of place.  Why would we start off a film with such horrible images?  Why are we mixing ultraviolent Christ images with the subtlest flashes of penises?  You feel so lost, but I felt that while reading Kesey’s beginning.  Why has this character been running?  What does an air raid have to do with a mental hospital?  What is the Combine and why does it matter?  Why is this character called Chief?  All these things that are seemingly unrelated – they are related.  And we flash back and forth to them, just like Persona from the child, to the women, to seemingly “random scenes;” just like Chief when he flashes to his past, to the fog, and to the chilling present.  This dissonance you feel at the beginning of the film, for the absolute first time, throws all of your senses in flux.  You are being bombarded with screeching and thumping, so dissonant that it doesn’t even sound like music, paired with seemingly schizophrenic and seizure-inducing visuals.  This level of discomfort and insanity is what the book is the entire time.  This on the edge biting your lip and gripping the seat shouldn’t just be felt when McMurphy experiences his shock therapy or lobotomy; it is supposed to be CONSTANT.  Forman misses this, but the film cannot miss this.  His film is too safe, too sanitary.  Even if you make the colors completely white (however in my mind’s eye whenever I read excerpts from the book, I picture the whites of the lights and walls to have a greenish tint – a sickening out of place shade that should not be there), it needs to be an uncomfortable white.  Part of what makes the novel so legendary is its imagery.  I’m made uncomfortable by Forman’s film for all the wrong reasons.  Everything feels too clean – to a sloppy degree.  Everything feels too beige, too familiar.  When I think of institutionalized fear, the last color I think of is beige.  There’s a difference between sanitary and suspiciously sanitary, which is what the book is (mixed with true gore.)  Underneath the façade lies the corruption that the Combine wants to hide (supposedly).  If you want to make the place too clean, make it an off white – a white so white that it’s unhuman.  You’re supposed to question everything – along with the Chief and along with McMurphy.  And it’s better, in my opinion, to err with Chief’s version of the hospital than what might be the “true” version.  Since he is our protagonist, we should see things through his eyes – through his filters.  Because one of the ultimate questions is: do you believe Chief Bromden or not?   Are there really machines embedded in the walls?  Are there really cogs in the pills?  Are there people hanging on those walls, literally nailed to them as their blood drips down?  Is the screaming a pre-existing factor or an effect?  Is the fog from the Big Nurse, keeping them in a daze and sedated, or is it only the Chief’s fog?  Is the fog a metaphor for her power or for Chief’s lack of it?   But instead we erase it completely.  We have a sloppy basketball scene eating up time that could have been allotted to exploring the surroundings.  But Hollywood focuses only on McMurphy.  His surroundings as a character aren’t important.  But by failing to address it, we fail to address true fear.  McMurphy rises against this fear when he lashes out at the Big Nurse.  When we fail to address this… we actually downplay his heroics.  How ironic for Hollywood; they thought solely focusing on him would make him more of a hero.  That is not the case.

The editing (as well as the cinematography) for Persona is remarkable.   The nailing of the hands juxtaposed with a safe medical setting… it goes with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest more than it should.  It treats bodies like you would with abstract art.  It examines corpses as beautiful sculptures, sitting on the gurneys waiting… and yet breathtakingly beautiful (mostly because of their lighting.)  But we can’t admire this beauty for long.  We go right back into the ruthlessness; we question the identity of our protagonists from the very beginning – looking so similar to each other, as the young son grasps for the two of them, painfully out of his reach.  The dissonant sounds explode, crash, scream at us.  We know what it’s like to live in Chief’s head for a few seconds – when the air raid blasts in.  We are disoriented, just as he is.  We are not safe.  We are being watched.  We are helpless.  Through the mess of images, safe and unsafe, grotesque and beautiful, we reach in for McMurphy – he’s the only one to notice the deaf and dumb.  We reach for him and he reaches back.  He saves us; he saves Bromden.

This mess of confusion, running like a stream of consciousness, endless images and sounds crashing together, jumping one on top of the other, seems like an editor’s dream.  And yet why hasn’t it been made?  With the car chase editing masterpieces, why haven’t we applied such vivacity to mental illness?  We have Requiem for a Dream and Trainspotting, which have improved upon the first attempt’s staleness, but I want a better Cuckoo film.  The editing needs to reflect Chief’s subconscious; how painfully difficult it is to navigate in a world controlled by the Big Nurse.  We need to struggle against the harshness of the environment: the overt and the covert.  Chief Bromden’s mental state is our true narrator, its reliability up for debate.  It takes on its own character, and yet Hollywood and the Hollywood style does not value its importance.  This isn’t the mental state of the “main star,” and it isn’t a “real” character; many productions would like to play it safe.  That’s two strikes.  But such an important part of the narrative is Chief regaining his agency – his actual strength, conveyed by his physical size.  Much like the BIG Nurse and her physical and psychological space, Chief takes up both planes of space.  But the original does not address this, apart from yes throwing the thing out of the window.  There is no physical change, and little psychological change.  Yes he is “triggered” by the death of McMurphy, but this is a gradual process.  Oh but processes, just like walking, need to be implied.  We cannot actually show the slow growth of the Chief; we have to jump cut around.  And even worse than that, we have to remove it completely.  They argue that it’s “implied,” but it needs to be an overt process.  Too much of the film’s story has been “implied” – out of laziness.  So much has been erased just because it doesn’t follow the formula.

This erasure is the most infuriating thing.  Even if we had casted “better” actors to play the roles, what would they be able to do with a broken script?  What would they do with a non-neorealist sense of making film?  But it is unforgiveable to erase the real main character.  I will repeat now and for the last time: this was never McMurphy’s story.  This was always Chief’s.  It begins and ends with Chief.  And it goes beyond the opening shot being Chief and the ending shot being Chief.  The very nucleus of the book is Chief Bromden and this film does not present this at all.  And every other character besides Chief has a pivotal role; they’re not all bit parts.   Every character, no matter how small, has a purpose.  Each exchange with all of these “expendable” characters matters.  And yet they’re glossed over.  Every nurse, every Chronic, every Acute has characterization and lines that MATTER.  But with the Chief… sometimes you have to address the racist elephant in the room.  Unfortunately, this silly Indian is treated the same in the Hollywood system as he is under the reign of the Big Nurse.  And yet instead of “deaf and dumb” being a mechanism to survive, an act of revolt, we are stifling Chief Bromden and his actor.  We are erasing the very important racial commentary in the book.  We are washing it all away to make it much more palatable.  And to make Jack Nicholson that much more important.  Instead of critically thinking about Chief against the Combine, we only think about a tailored McMurphy.  And even with McMurphy, we don’t truly reflect on the abuse McMurphy faces, and how helpless he is as he sees his fellow patients forced into such horrors.  We don’t feel Bromden nor McMurphy’s terror; we don’t see how terrifying Nurse Ratched really is.  It’s almost a mockery.

But the biggest mockery is the destruction of the book dynamic between McMurphy and Chief.  Through Chief, we understand McMurphy; through McMurphy, we understand Chief.  McMurphy shares facets of himself to nearly everyone in the hospital, but with Chief he bears his soul.  And McMurphy is the only soul Chief has ever opened up to – the first person he’s talked to in years.  I can count on one hand the meaningful interactions they had in the movie.  One scene with them sharing gum, which seems to be an aesthetic favorite for many fans, does not a relationship make.   Know my rage when I say: the entire book is them developing a relationship.  Chief, through this questionable felon, literally regains his strength and his hope.  They grow “bigger” together in power and agency; they take on the hospital together.  And as a result, McMurphy dies twice.  First, the lobotomy, the death of the soul and what was truly him.  And then… his best friend is forced to kill the body, in order to preserve the memory of the soul.  But McMurphy, or whatever husk of a man is left, struggles all the same.  And Chief grieves all the same.  And yet… I feel so apathetic in the film.  I sob like a child whenever I read this scene and yet when it’s translated to screen – which usually has me bawling in hysterics – I feel… nothing.  But that’s what happens when you mishandle your characters and all of their interactions.  The big scene falls flat; it resonates shallowly – with no one.

It has been my dream to create a remake of this film.  So much is so wrong, down to the very system it’s built on.  I’m cuckoo for Cuckoo’s Nest and its characters, plot, images, and symbolism.  It is my baby.  And it hurts me to see it so mishandled, distorted, and erased.  And perhaps even though neorealism and Persona might not solve all the problems (perhaps we can never remedy all the problems) it’s better than Forman’s attempt.  Film classic or not, I will treat the film the way it wishes to be treated.  I would give it respect if it respected the source material and more importantly, the audience.  I deserve better; I know better.  Then, I didn’t know how to improve this film, but now I do.  And in the future, I’ll have even more ideas.  But the constant is my admiration for this work.  I will ALWAYS be cuckoo for Cuckoo’s Nest; no film can take that away from me.