-How One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Creates Conflict.

When you boil One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest down to its most basic roots, you take away all the social commentary, the reflection of a changing world, and just focus on the central idea, you find the most basic story of all, a tale of two conflicting ideologies fighting over power. The film uses this very basic concept to dive into much more complex issues, but in order to fully explore those issues, we need to begin by looking at how the film creates this conflict. It begins with McMurphy entering the hospital, well actually I lied, it begins with this shot, a beautiful landscape, it's natural, it's peaceful, it's just a piece of life, in the background a tribal drum beats, and this is where McMurphy is introduced, this is where he's from, he is a wild man, a free spirit, someone who is not meant to be civilized, and he is being taken to a place where that will immediately happen. When we cut to the hospital itself, pay attention to the audio, the tribal drum is instead replaced with a ticking clock, everything here is on a schedule, everything is controlled, and everything is ruled. When McMurphy enters the prison, it is immediately clear that he doesn't belong, pay attention to how he wears dark colors, the same as the officers who are about to leave, while everybody else, the guards, the patients, and nurse ratchet, all wear white, he belongs on the outside, not on the inside, and when he's first taken into the hospital, he immediately begins to disrupt the everyday patterns, he interacts with the other patients and brings something new into their lives, their mundane rituals are instead replaced by something that's different, it's chaotic. This is the introduction of one of the first major ethical questions that the film raises, is this the stability that these patients need, or do they need to experience something chaotic and random, much like life? Obviously a lot more research has been conducted in the past 57 years since Ken Kesey's novel was published, but from the very beginning and throughout the entire film, the question always lingers, is McMurphy's chaos good for the patients? That conflict is introduced very quickly when we meet nurse ratchet, the engine that makes the machine that is the hospital work, she is the exact opposite of McMurphy, she thrives in an environment of complete control, control which she must have, everything must be done on time and in the way in which she would like, I think that it would be safe to say that she does have a care for these patients, she wants them to be better and to become healthy, and the only way in which she thinks that is a possibility is through the order that she values so much. During the group discussion, it is clear that she knows these men very well, she knows what to say to make them happy and Of course, on the flip side, she also knows what upsets them and what to say to get them in a state of unrest. The conflict takes time to build up, early in the film nurse ratchet chooses to simply ignore McMurphy's antics, it's only when he begins to interfere with the daily routines in the rurals does she begin to stand up to McMurphy, and this causes a chain reaction, McMurphy chooses to be in the hospital because he would prefer to be there than in prison, and while he is in the hospital, he wants to do what he wants to do, there is no real need for him to be there, after all he's nurse ratchet begins to take privileges away from him, in return McMurphy goes on the offense, he wants to be in charge or at the very least have control over himself, so one week, i bet in one week i can put a bug so far up her ass she don't know whether to ---- or whine or just watch what do you say to that, this conflict begins when he tries to control other patients, this however is of course nurse ratchet's specialty, and she uses this to get under his skin, the promise that he made was reflected back onto him, even though nurse ratchet upsets him more than he upsets her, McMurphy does gain something valuable here, he becomes an authority figure to other patients, look at how director Milos Forman shows off these two contrasting ideas, during the first vote, so all those in favor raise your hands, the camera is almost always steady, it frequently cuts back to nurse ratchet, in the next vote however, everyone in favor of changing the schedule please raise your hand, the camera moves around, it doesn't focus on nurse ratchet so much as it does the other patients, it shows that McMurphy is literally breathing life into the ward, he is seen as her equal, and although she obviously has power over him, that doesn't matter to the other patients, and that is what gives him power for himself, this back and forth conflict continues, McMurphy does something, nurse ratchet responds, often by taking privileges away from him, to McMurphy, he is living the life that he wants to live, he is having fun, and part of this fun comes from engaging ratchet in conflict, and as this continues, he notices a real change in the patients, they begin to change, they are different, they become aware of their situation, and become aware that they are much less like patients, and much more like prisoners, while he notices this change in them, he also begins to change himself, he becomes much more compassionate and much more caring, McMurphy begins to redeem himself by showing that he truly cares for the other patients in the hospital, they start to fight against the rules that are pushed upon them, and they begin to live the lives that they want to live, he never intended to, but McMurphy in essence gives the other prisoners self-conscious and free will, they are no longer blindly following the orders that nurse ratchet gives them, instead they make decisions for themselves, however knowing that you're a prisoner and being set free are two very different things, and once McMurphy realizes what he did, he makes it his mission to set the other prisoners free, of course standing in his way of this is nurse ratchet, someone who holds the prisoners down, but does it because she thinks that it is for their best, this is the peak of the ideological clash, because both characters think what they're doing is for the best for everyone in the ward, a big moral question that the film asks, is nurse ratchet a villain, she's clearly the antagonist of the story, that is she stands in the way of McMurphy, our protagonist's goals, but to put it frankly, is she a bad person, and for the vast majority of the film, that question doesn't have an easy answer, she hides behind her position, she has the excuse of saying that she is simply doing her job, she certainly is unlikable, but we never really know what to think of her, it isn't until the very end, two events show us who she really is, first her beratement of billy, which leads to his suicide, you know billy what worries me is how your mother is going to take this, and next the pleasure that she gets from watching McMurphy suffer, and seeing her enjoy his suffering, is what makes his lobotomy worth it in a way, on a physical level he loses, but he proves ratchet to be wrong, he shows the other prisoners what it means to be free, and showed chief how to become physically free, in the end McMurphy sacrifices himself, and becomes the ward's accidental savior. Hey everyone I hope you enjoyed, this is a movie that means a lot to me, it has such an important message from which I think that we can all learn, and I hope I was able to shed some light on that message in this video, please let me know what you think of the movie, there are a lot of different aspects to it, and a lot of different opinions, and a lot of questions that don't have an easy answer, and I'd love to hear your opinion, so please drop a comment and let me know, in case you missed the last video on Widows, I put a link to that on screen. Tomorrow expect a video on the Oscars, and thank you for watching.