| |
1970s |
| |
Breaking Away, Directed by Peter Yates
Cabaret, Directed by Bob Fosse
A Clockwork Orange, Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Coming Home, Directed by Hal Ashby
Grey Gardens, Directed by Albert and David Maysles
Halloween, Directed by John Carpenter
Harold and Maude, Directed by Hal Ashby
Jaws, Directed by Steven Spielberg
The Last Picture Show, Directed by Peter Bogdanovich
McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Directed by Robert Altman
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Directed by Miloš Forman
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Directed by Tobe Hooper |
|
|
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Directed by Miloš Forman
United Artists, November 19, 1975 (US)
Screenplay: Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman, based on the novel by Ken Kesey
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Danny DeVito, Will Sampson, Brad Dourif, William Redfiel, Peter Brocco, Josip Elic, Delos V. Smith Jr., Sydney Lassick, Scatman Crothers, and Christopher Lloyd
Nurse Ratched is a fucking cunt. What else can you say? How can you sugar coat it? She’s a bad person? That doesn’t scratch the surface. It’s funny. I see the actress Louise Fletcher and it is tunnel vision for me: Nurse Fucking Ratched. That’s how good her performance was and how real her character is. In other words, absolutely infuriating. The things that this monster does to Randall P. McMurphy and the inmates in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest make my skin crawl.
Randall P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson): What do you think you are, for Chrissake, crazy or somethin’? Well you’re not! You’re not! You’re no crazier than the average asshole out walkin’ around on the streets, and that’s it.
We’ve all been there. We’ve all had our encounters with overzealous authority figures who cream themselves over petty power trips. They are our own Nurse Ratcheds. If you have not experienced the anguish, just count your blessings and beware because they’re out there, lurking, ready to pounce, ready to make sure you know that you are lower on the totem pole. They live to micromanage, manipulate, control, and ultimately squash. More often than not, it’s the result of an utter lack of control that they have over their own pathetic lives that lures them to the dark side. And perhaps what is so infuriating is that these sad nothings of the world actually think they are really something. It makes them feel oh so good to make sure you know it too. It validates them.
Thankfully, there is a silver lining. Whether or not you let the bitch expose your weakness is entirely up to you. Of course it’s not an easy game to win. No, it is definitely not easy. We all have buttons. The best you can do is recognize what these weaknesses are before they are exposed and then guard them with all your might. From there, the fun begins as you sit back and enjoy the show. When it begins to sink in—when Ratched begins to realize that no matter what she does she cannot touch you—that is when you’ll taste the spoils of victory. It is a flavor so magnificent that it can’t possibly be described.
-G
|
|
 |
