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I need help, but I think this could be a discussion too,
What is the most memerable scene in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest (The movie) I have to show a clip of the movie but I havent watched it in awhile and the teacher has the DVD, what part is the most significant and makes the film great?

Also, the film has been regarded as "Culturally significant" and is a hard hitting comment of early mental treatment and research and can be compared to "A Clockwork Orange"
Discuss?

First of all, One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest is a great film! As is A Clockwork Orange.

Secondly, the scene that you should right about is at the end when the big Indian guy smashes the window and runs free. You could say so much about this seen!

I think a crucial scene from the movie is the whole scene of voting for the baseball game excursion, and then when the nurse (Ratchet is it?) disqualifies the vote and the patients start cheering watching the blank screen on the TV...

Or when the Chief breaks free at then end... but that doesn't really show the treatment of the patients... as powerful as the scene is.

I believe the definitive scene of this movie is near the end, when Billy (who stutters terribly) gets laid and in the pleasure that follows loses his stutter. Nurse Ratched then dominates him, threatening that she will tell his mother, and Billy's stutter comes back with a vengeance. As a result, Billy commits suicide, which leads to McMurphy exploding in a fit of violent rage and attempts to kill Nurse Ratched.

This seems to point up the fact that these institutions, left unchecked, tend to do more harm to the patients than good. In fact, the moral seems to be that most of these people can cure themselves and that maybe, just maybe, the ones who are the real problem are the ones who are supposed to be helping the patients to begin with.

Ultimately, of course, they decide that McMurphy is simply too dangerous an individual and beyond help, so the give him a full frontal lobotomy.

It is the Chief who ultimately flies over the cuckoo's nest when he throws the marble hydrotherapy fountain through the window and runs off to Canada. Oddly, we sympathise with the Chief when he kills McMurphy because he will not allow him to continue living as a shell of what he was and what he stood for. This is also an important part of the movie, because we view the euthanising of McMurphy as being a good thing, rather than murder - which is what it was.

And, that sets up an interesting paradox:

Was the Chief a murderer, or was he doing what any of us would have done in his situation? Was it right or was it wrong? This is an important question that must be answered but something that we simply don't want to dwell on because the answer might stir us to unrest come the evening time...

All in all it is difficult, at best, to name a specific scene that is indicative of the entire movie. There are a great many points made in the whole of it and to try to boil it down to one, specific scene as being definitive is not easily achieved.

It is easy to see why this movie took 5 Academy Awards that year and is listed as #20 of "America's greatest films" by the American Film Institute.

Mike.

I think Mike has just done your homework for you!

Juicy Fruit.

A Clockwork Orange... uhhhh

Thanks for bringing back bad memories... Great movie, but OH SO graphic!

Michael, you SAW A Clockwork Orange?!?!?!

That's enough to make a young lad like you end up in the above cookoo's nest!

Stay away from that kind of stuff at your age please!! As you probably have already found out, it's for your own good. Seriously!

What can I say, I go for the classics!

But yes, for sure I am staying away from this from now on! Yeesh it was explicit.

Kenneth wrote:Also, the film has been regarded as "Culturally significant" and is a hard hitting comment of early mental treatment and research and can be compared to "A Clockwork Orange"
Discuss?

Only in terms of cultural significance.

Michael Kras wrote:A Clockwork Orange... uhhhh

Thanks for bringing back bad memories... Great movie, but OH SO graphic!

That's why it's a 18 not a PG.

It's a serious work of cinema containing very adult themes, not Nightmare on bloody Elm Street!

I personally don't believe that "A Clockwork Orange" can be compared to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." These are two very different angles of approach.

While you may site that either way (lobotomy vs. conditioning) is a form of mind control, one is still a medical procedure that cannot be reversed, the other is a conditioning, which, in the end proves to be reversible.

In my considered opinion, we are also dealing with two very different individuals. One is the 15 year old Alex, who is a violent young man and the other is a 30 something McMurphy, whose violence stems from the refusal to be forced into what others consider "sociable."

One would seem to dictate the circumstance while the other would seem to be a victim of circumstance.

Two very different characters in two very different situations.

Nevertheless, I would not put one screenplay or novel above the other, as they both are exceptional stories with exceptional actors/writers telling the story.

Still, not comparable, to my way of thinking.

Mike.

Alex was 15???? WOW

Michael Kras wrote:Alex was 15???? WOW

In the book he was, yes.

If you really want to shock yourself, read "1984". Don't cheat and watch the film. It's cr*p. Read the book. It's pure evil and it's becoming increasingly true...

Tomo wrote: read "1984". Don't cheat and watch the film. It's cr*p. Read the book. It's pure evil and it's becoming increasingly true...

Doubleplusgood in fact.....