A VIEWER'S RESPONSE TO"One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" (1975)
A VIEWER'S RESPONSE TO|
In thinking about the movie tonight, I was struck with how free a character Mac was. Authorities and limits didn't mean anything to him; neither did routine or regularity. It was disturbing in a way to think how he might live his life. Not because of what he would or wouldn't do, but because he saw himself as free. Disturbing that we might choose whether or not we want to be free. This got me thinking about one of the themes; how we learn to restrain or lock ourselves up. Billy and Cheswick had all agreed somehow that they needed this structure, even while it demeaned them constantly. The Chief was bigger than any of the guards but was docile. He also felt he deserved or needed this place. And Mac in a way admitted himself, if the line about him trying to avoid work detail in jail is true. These guys weren't physically restrained to be there. It was inside of them somehow. Nurse Ratshit didn't physically hit them; she just kept reinforcing the invisible restraints of shame. Not that she wasn't evil in how she did this, and not that the guys weren't loony in some ways. But it seemed like the big thing that kept them inside was a lack of belief or image of themselves as free. She kept them down by playing themselves back to them. Maybe that's where the real need was, for these guys to develop this kind of imagination of themselves as free people. Mac was great for that, because he assumed they were like him. When I think of freedom in this way, I'm not meaning a denial of faults or limitations. This wouldn't be real freedom because it wouldn't require courage. It's more where these realities don't ultimately matter because something else matters more. What would that be? What had Chief found? He had found his spirit. If you can get in touch with what you really believe, or what you really value, or what really moves you. Of course, Chief hadn't found this on his own. Maybe we don't discover we're free except through other people. But at the same time, it's true even when we don't know it. Just some late-nite thots, |
You can add to the discussion by writing here.