| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
Randle Patrick McMurphy, a serial petty criminal who has been sentenced to a relatively short prison term, decides to have himself declared insane so he'll be transferred to a mental institution, where he expects to spend the rest of his time in peace.
McMurphy's ward in the mental institution is run by an unyielding tyrant, Nurse Ratched, who has cowed the patients--who are mostly there by choice--into dejected institutionalised submission.
McMurphy becomes ensnared in a number of power-games with Nurse Ratched for the hearts and minds of the inmates. All the time, however, the question is in the mind as to just how sane any of the players in this actually are. Eventually McMurphy overplays his hand and he is lobotomised.
Kesey's novel, which is in the form of a first-person narrative by one of McMurphy's fellow patients, raises a number of interesting questions about the nature of the state and power structures and could be interpreted on a number of allegorical levels. The film is much less introspective and focuses mostly on the conflict between McMurphy and Ratched.
The film was widely acclaimed and won Academy Awards for Best Actor for Jack Nicholson (who played McMurphy), Best Actress for Louise Fletcher (who played Nurse Ratched), Best Direction for Milos Forman, as well as Best Picture and Best Adapted ScreenplayThe Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source (usually a novel or play). See also the A. It ranked number 20 on the American Film InstituteThe American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act. The Ame's list of 100 greatest American films, and consistently ranks in the top 15 on the Internet Movie DatabaseThe Internet Movie Database IMDb , owned by Amazon. com, is an online database of information about movie stars, movies, television shows, commercials, and video games. The IMDb has an extensive amount of information on works, including basic details such. However, some mental health advocates have criticized the film for having unrealistic portrayals of mental hospitals and mental illnessThe Scream, the famous painting commonly thought of as depicting the experience of mental illness. A mental illness is a psychiatric disorder that results in a disruption in a person's thinking, feeling, moods, and ability to relate to others. Mental illn. Kesey himself also did not hide his dislike of the film, particularly the casting of Nicholson as McMurphy.
The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of CongressThe Library of Congress the unofficial national library of the United States, is one of the most important libraries in the world. Originally founded as a research library for the United States Congress April 24th 1800, its original collection were the bo and selected for preservation in the United States National Film RegistryThe National Film Registry is the registry of films selected by the United States National Film Preservation Board for preservation in the Library of Congress. The board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized in 1992.