One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Trailer - One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Due to the choice of location and my interest in the Sociology of Mental Illness it felt natural to discuss One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a recidivist criminal serving a short prison term on a work farm for statutory rape, is transferred to a mental institution due to his apparently deranged behavior. This is a deliberate gambit by McMurphy in the belief that he'll now be able to serve out the rest of his sentence in relative comfort and ease.
His needling of Nurse Ratched is initially just for kicks, but his sense of injustice at their treatment leads him into a battle for the hearts and minds of the patients. What he finds out only later is that Ratched has the power to keep him there indefinitely.
McMurphy goes about living in the institution, and creates a society among several of the patients, which has a large impact on the structure of the institution. His relationships with the other patients in the ward develops into a society where thoughts and opinions grow and interfere with the flow of the institution's rules and regulations, and friction is made between the authorities and the patients.
(wikipedia.org)
(http://www.directessays.com/viewpaper/11380.html)

This film challenges views of mental illness at the time held by the public and portrayed in the media. It addresses the stigma forced upon people suffering from these illnesses and the unjust treatment they receive within Mental institutions. It shows how patients can become institutionalized and therefore left unable to function in the real world, resulting in a fear to leave the hospital. It shows how extreme power is exerted over patients.



This is a scene in which Jack Nicholson''s character is receiving Electro-shock therapy. The clip is very disturbing and hard to watch. It has been considered one of the major contributions to the discrediting of electro-shock therapy and led to it being considered one of the most controversial treatments in psychiatry.
(http://www.electroboy.com/electroshocktherapy.htm)
(wikipedia.org)