One Flew over the Cuckoo`s Nest I. Film – 1975, director: , starring

One Flew over the Cuckoo`s Nest I. Film – 1975, director: , starring

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
I. Film – 1975, director: _______________, starring:_____________________
(R.M.McMurphy), Louise Fletcher (__________________),Will Sampson
(______________), …

based on a novel by __________________________ published in 1962

briefly describe the most important events in the story
II. Characters - describe their personalities
1. R.P.McMurphy
a. What are his reasons for behaving the way he does?
b. Why does he oppose the Nurse so much?
2. Nurse Ratched
a. What does she symbolise?
b. Comment on her name1.
3.
Chief Bromden
a. What role does he play in the film?
III. Title
The title comes from a nursery rhyme which in the novel Chief Bromden remembers as he is awakening from a
shock treatment. It was part of a childhood game played with him by his Indian grandmother:
Ting. Tingle, tingle, tremble toes, she’s a good fisherman, catches hens, puts ‘em inna pens…wire blier, limber
lock, three geese inna flock…one flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest…O-U-T spells
out…goose swoops down and plucks you out.
What is the significance of the title? What place and what characters from the film (novel) does the rhyme refer
to?
IV. Themes – What are some of the themes of the film?
1
a part of a machine which allows movement in one direction only. It is usually a wheel with teeth-like parts which either slide over
or lock against the free end of a bar.
IV. Themes
1. The main conflict in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is described in three different ways: as the struggle of
the "sane individual vs. a crazy institution," "man vs. machine," and "a primeval, wild, unsocialized, antifamily form of masculinity vs. asexual women, institutions, and society that want to tame it."
a. Discuss how these views differ from one another.
b. Choose the theme that you think most accurately describes the conflict and explain why.
2. The mental hospital is clearly meant as a microcosm of America in the early 1960s, a picture of the world
the hippies and others are rebelling against. In what ways?
3. Kesey states that One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest helps the reader to "question reality" by "tearing away
the fabric of what we've been told is reality and showing us something that is far more real." Do you agree
with Kesey's analysis of his book?
V. Film vs. book
1. Nearly all the top U.S. film critics gave the film positive reviews, heaping particular praise on Jack
Nicholson’s portrayal of McMurphy. Their reservations related to the film’s simplification of themes in Kesey’s
novel. Kesey, for his part, never wanted to see the film. He was so upset by the film’s choice not to use another
character, Chief Bromden, as narrator of the story that he sued the producers. Nonetheless, the film succeeded
with the public at the box office: made with a budget of $3 million,
Cuckoo’s Nest grossed $112 million after release. At the 1975 Academy Awards, the film won the five top
honours—Best Picture, Best Director (Miloš Forman), Best Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress (Louise
Fletcher), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Bo Goldman and Lawrence Hauben). It was the first film to sweep the
top five Oscars since 1934’s It Happened One Night.
SparkNotes: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: Context [on-line]. [cit.2010-10-12]. http://www.sparknotes.com/film/cuckoo/context.html
2. Read the plot overview and list some major changes:
VI. Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey was born ____(1) September 17, 1935, ____(2) La Junta, Colorado, and in 1946 he and
his family moved ____(3) Springfield, Oregon. In both high school and ____(4) the University of
Oregon, Kesey was a champion wrestler. After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree ____(5) the
University of Oregon's School ____(6) Journalism in 1957, Kesey attended Stanford University's
creative writing program. While at Stanford, Kesey participated ____(7) U.S. Army experiments
involving LSD. These hallucinogenic experiences would change Kesey's outlook ____(8) life and
inspire his writings.
He published One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ____(9) 1962 and the Oregon novel Sometimes a
Great Notion in 1964. Both novels explore what Kesey saw ____(10) the conflict ____(11) modern industrial society and
individuality, a struggle between conformity and freedom. This struggle was also central ____(12) Kesey's personal
life, where he turned ____(13) psychedelic drugs to find personal liberation.
Considered a founding father ____(14) the 1960s counterculture, Kesey promoted drug use ____(15) a path to
individual freedom. He founded a group known as the Merry Pranksters and in 1964 he and the Pranksters traveled
the country ____(16) a colored school bus named "Further." This bus was sometimes piloted ____(17) Neal Cassady, a
Beat icon made famous in Jack Kerouac's 1957 largely autobiographical novel ____(18) the Road. The Pranksters were
notorious ____(19) their “acid tests” and became the inspiration ____(20) Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid
Test, published in 1968.
In 1965, Kesey's drug use landed him in jail ____(21) six months. Upon his release, Kesey moved ____(22) a farm
____(23) Eugene to raise his family. He would publish a loosely organized memoir ____(24) his experiences ____(25)
1973's Kesey's Garage Sale. In 1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest became an Oscar winning film and Kesey
briefly worked ____(26) a professor of writing ____(27) the University of Oregon. He published his third novel, Sailor
Song in 1992, and lived in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, ____(28) his death on November 10, 2001.
Ken Kesey Biography [online]. [cit. 2011-11-05]. URL: http://www.ohs.org/the-oregon-history-project/biographies/Ken-Kesey.cfm