One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
(1975)
- Information at Internet Movie Database
- Themes
- Healing
- Mac "cures" the Chief's "deafness" with a piece of Juicy Fruit gum.
- Institutional
Evil
- Nurse Ratched as the embodiment of the evil inherent in The Establishment, robbing others of humanity by their own complicity.
- Judas figure
- Billy betrays McMurphy out of Billy's own fear and then kills self.
- Liberation
- The escape from the mental institution to go on a fishing trip. (ch 14-15)
- The Chief's escape at the end of the movie.
- Rebirth/New Life
- In the concluding sequence, it is obvious that McMurphy has empowered at least one of his disciples to do what was once unthinkable. "Chief" hurls a limestone bathroom fixture through the window and escapes the hospital, personifying a resurrection similar to that of the closing scene in Cool Hand Luke. ("The Messianic Figure in Film: Christology Beyond the Biblical Epic," Matthew Mc Ever, Journal of Religion and Film, 1998)
- Resurrection
- The final scene's broken window as an "empty tomb" image.
- Healing
