Actors & Acting | "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

Isabelle Gomez

June 10^th, 2014

THTR 201

Kamarie Chapman

Final Exam – Vlog

Script

Hello Viewers!

My name is Isabelle Gomez.

In this vlog I will be talking about how vastly and vitally important actors and acting are as components in films and I will talk about the latest film we have watched in class, the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Our textbook makes a good point about how people associate a specific persona or a kind of person with certain celebrities like Jack Nicholson. As described in the textbook, the roles that Jack Nicholson usually play are characters that are “normally crafty, strong, menacing” and charismatic. If people want to watch a menacing, volatile character, it would be perfectly understandable if those people chose to watch a film starring Jack Nicholson. From films like The Shining, Anger Management, and A Few Good Men to name off a mere few, Nicholson has played an angry, intimidating and oftentimes psychotic role.

Now in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Jack Nicholson definitely exemplifies a character that parallels his reknown persona in his protagonist role as McMurphy. McMurphy does feign insanity to be admitted into the ward instead of being sent to prison, and his rambunctious entrance to the ward, his numerous acts of rebellion and finally choking Nurse Ratched all go along with Jack Nicholson’s volatile persona as an actor. Nicholson’s charisma also comes into play when portrays McMurphy as genuinely caring about and interacting with the other ward members with companionship and compassion.

And with an awfully wonderful protagonist there is also the awfully terrible antagonist that is Nurse Ratched. This role has made so many impacts on society’s views. Her heartless character has become the stereotype for the torturing nurse for what is called the “battle axe” nurse. Nurse Ratched is also often associated with the corrupting influence of power and authority in bureaucracies like the mental institution that the film is set in. I don’t think it comes as a surprise that Louise Fletcher won Best Actress in a Leading Role for Cuckoo’s Nest.

Acting makes this film so dynamic also because many of the actors are portraying mentally ill patients. From tantrums and ill habits to loud and aggressively unwilling apprehensions by the guards to Billy Bibbit’s stuttering, all of these actors convince audience members that they are genuinely unstable in mentality. The acting is great if you can’t tell that it is all an act. Danny Devito, Brad Dourif, Will Sampson, Christopher Lloyd and all of the other actors that played patients all convince us viewers that they are their crazy characters.

Skilled acting allows viewers to easily immerse themselves into the stories of the films and to invest themselves and their hearts into the characters. Jack Nicholson acted so skillfully and so well that you want his character McMurphy to succeed and we love him for attempting to awaken the ward members and our hearts are ripped out of chests and our blood boils with anger when we watch McMurphy’s personality cut away by the lobotomy. Like McMurphy without his boisterous and uplifting persona, films without actors would be lifeless.

Works Cited

Barsam, Richard and Dave Monoham. Looking At Movies. Fourth. W. W. Norton & Company, 2013.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Dir. Milos Forman. Perf. Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher. 1975.