QUEST - Completely Cuckoo Making of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (1997)
Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy – manic free spirit Randle P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is sent to the state mental hospital for evaluation, when he was playing crazy to avoid prison work detail. The swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness. “Completely Cuckoo” is a documentary which looks back on a more successful screen adaptation the transformation of Ken Kesey's novel “One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest” into one of the most celebrated movies of the 1970s. Ken Kesey's groundbreaking novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” was once written off as unfilmable because of its risky subject matter and anti-authoritative vision. It finally made it to the screen in 1975, and racked up nine Academy Award nominations (winning the 'big' five), and it also established Jack Nicholson as the leading actor of his generation. Interviews include the late Kesey, director Milos Forman, cast members and producers Saul Zaentz and Michael Douglas, and revelations include the fact that Forman considered hiring Burt Reynolds to play the rebellious RP McMurphy, because of his “cheap charisma”. Forman starts off by telling us that for him, the institution depicted in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” is like the politically repressed Czechoslovakia of his youth in microcosm. There are also the recollections of the cast, who were kept locked up in the real mental institution to get a feel for asylum life! “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” is a film famous for winning the top five Oscars (Best film, actor, actress, director and screenplay) in 1976 – a rare feat. The film remains a hugely admired counter-culture classic from the New Hollywood era. Its stark realism, brilliantly performed by an ensemble cast, produces a gripping, often hilarious and harrowing drama that perfectly reflects the counter culture of the 60s and 70s.
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