How to evaluate the film "Flying over the Madhouse"?

Flying over the madhouse was originally a novel published by writer Ken Kesey in 1962. The novel uses the madhouse as a metaphor for the American-style social form, which has a strong anti-institutional meaning. Through the hands of milos forman, an immigrant director, his complicated ideological background casts a special luster on the film. At the same time, it also gives the audience more room for speculation.

Exceptionally rich metaphors are the key to understanding Flying Over the Madhouse. Foucault, a post-structuralist theorist, put forward in his book "Madness and Civilization-A History of Mental Illness in the Rational Age": "Modern mental hospitals are important power institutions in civilized society." In Foucault's book, the madhouse heralds a classic fable about modern civilized society. The strong rebellious sentiment revealed in the film is closely related to the cultural trend of thought in the 1960s. In the 1960s, the United States was an era when "glory and dreams" were shattered, and a series of conflicts between social system and ideology were exposed in a fierce way. Anti-tradition, anti-order and anti-mainstream cultural thoughts greatly influenced the artistic creation at that time.

In the madhouse in the movie, there is always a kind of depression hidden. Inadvertently, the atmosphere seems to be harmonious, the light is soft, and even when taking medicine, there is soft music. Patients are completely free to walk around the hospital, play cards and smoke. People who behave well even have the opportunity to go out accompanied by medical staff. But only Mike Murphy saw the hidden fragile link in this seemingly perfect and quiet world.

At first, he asked to turn down the music, instead of swallowing the unknown pills in the music like everyone else. Such a move is undoubtedly a provocation to the orderly and closed madhouse. In fact, McMurphy didn't deliberately make such a rebellion. His behavior was only out of nature. His unrestrained personality is inevitably incompatible with severe repression. Under the impact of Mike Murphy, the originally stable and disciplined "crazy people" began to show the nature of normal people. They enjoy the sunshine bathed in the seaside and the happiness with women, and enjoy the happiness from life itself that they have never felt since they fought for self-resistance.

What McMurphy actually broke was a ritual. As soon as he arrived, all the procedures of taking medicine, meeting and psychotherapy were questioned. Although McMurphy's request was rejected by Rashid every time, for the lunatics who have been mechanically repeating these programs, McMurphy's actions undoubtedly touched them. This makes them have a new reaction in the face of this non-violent repression. A patient asked Rashid, "Since Billy doesn't want to talk about it, why do you have to ask him?" Charlie began to cry loudly for his cigarette. For example, after a bad boy made a demonstration, all good children were induced to have their "bad" nature.

Head nurse Rashid played the role of a vicious mother. She manages and maintains the order of the madhouse, always with a serious and dignified expression and a good grasp of the situation. She dominates these lunatics in the standardized world because she is familiar with their weaknesses. For her, all crazy people are more like children who have made mistakes, seeking discipline here. Especially for weak and stuttering Billy, she is more like a mother, a mother who regards the growth of her children as a crime. The meeting and discussion in the film also revealed that the real reason why Billy was "crazy" was that his mother prevented him from dating girls. Billy also asked Mike Murphy, do you think I don't want to leave? Because Billy thinks that as an immature child, he can only be safe in a madhouse sheltered by his mother, although he is also eager to grow up and leave. After the "coming of age ceremony" on Christmas Eve, Billy strangely recovered his normal language ability. Faced with Rashid's cross-examination, he said rationally: I can explain everything. But Rashid took out a deadly weapon against Billy. She said, think about what would happen if your mother knew? So Billy retreated to the child who was afraid of his mother's punishment and killed his mature self.

Foreman's Excellence lies not only in his successful interpretation of the essence of the original work, but also in his statement of a rebellious theme in Hollywood-style classic language and the perfect combination of narrative and metaphor. In terms of photographic processing, there are also many foreshadowing. In most photos, Rashid always occupies the center of the foreground. I often look up when photographing the head nurse and bow my head when photographing the patient. When the confrontation between Rashid and the lunatics became more and more serious, the consciousness of taking medicine and Rashid's consciousness of presiding over psychotherapy appeared repeatedly. As a conventional narrative factor, this not only delays this emotion in repetition, but also gradually expresses it as a ritual. The destruction of the ceremony means the end of the myth.

On the other hand, Indian chiefs represent another cultural feature. He came from the jungle and returned to the jungle. His resistance is not like McMurphy's unconscious stretching nature, and his deafness is not entirely to avoid injury. All this is to avoid, and refusing language means refusing to have relations with the system, so we see Sheikh as a real hermit, living safely in this prison-like space. When McMurphy realized his original strength, he took the initiative to talk to him. Finally, by releasing the shackles of his body, he let McMurphy's soul return to the jungle with him. The chief lifted the marble sink that McMurphy threatened to lift before he died, but he didn't have the strength to lift it and use it to break the shackles and fly over the madhouse where McMurphy had no time to fly.