You know it,
or you don't. Then get to know it. This is one of
the best
films yet set in a mental hospital.
Murphy
(Nicholson) is an ordinary prisoner on a prison farm
who fakes
mental problems to get transferred to a mental
hospital.
Initially he
thinks there is little wrong with his fellow patients
but soon
learns otherwise. What he does get right is that the
nurses'
power is being abused. And he does everything to
subvert it.
But in the end the establishment wins. The films
shows very
negative side of E.C.T.
Filmed in a
real mental hospital in Oregon, and at one time
Nicholson's
character is interviewed by a real psychiatrist. But the film did not
use real patients because they did not look distinctive enough.
There is
also the speaking impaired Native American.
Catya writes:
Chief, the Native American narrator is not deaf.
Incidentally, Louise Fletcher is a CODA - as her parents are deaf. She's
a fluent ASL user.]
Also read
the book by Ken Kesey.
Pauline Kael
says Kesey gets easy "laughs by pretending that mental
disturbance was the same as inepitude."
