Word: cuckoos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...years ago, a slogan was current that went "Support mental health or I'll kill you." One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a residue of that mid-sixties sentiment. Like the button it makes a sick kind of sense, though its message is, finally, silly and, in a simplistic way, evil. Only under flower-child aegis (Kesey's book was celebrated by Tom Wolfe, Allen Ginsberg and other gurus) could a 1975 audience be fed such sexist, crypto-fascist garbage. In the end, it's nothing more than pop psychology on the level of a counter-cultural Reader...
...FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST Directed by MILOS FORMAN Screenplay by LAWRENCE HAUBEN and BO GOLDMAN
Published in 1962, Ken Kesey's novel One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest was one of the chief literary contributions to the prevailing cultural mood of the '60s. But unlike so many popular artistic and intellectual productions of that era, the book may have the capacity to outlive its historical moment. In telling the story of Randle McMurphy and the brief, abortive rebellion which he organized in an insane asylum, Kesey demonstrated a tough-minded understanding of the subtleties of revolutionaries and revolutions...
...movie version of Cuckoo 's Nest is faithful to the external events of the novel−no complaints there. The tro ble is that it betrays no awareness that the events are subject to multiple interpretations. Jack Nicholson plays Mc Murphy as an unambiguously charming figure, a victim of high spirits, perhaps, but without a dark side or even any gray shadings. He is a fine fellow to spend a couple of hours with, but he has no depth or resonance, and his fate leaves us curiously untouched. Similarly, the zany behavior of his fellows is amusing...
...fault for this lies in a script that would rather ingratiate than abrade, in direction that is content to realize, in documentary fashion, the ugly surfaces of asylum life. One Flew over the Cuckoo 's Nest is an earnest attempt to make a serious film. But in the end the movie backs away from both the human reality and the cloudy but potent symbolism that Ken Kesey found in the asylum...