Ken Kesey wrote the book in 1962, the movie was released in 1975. At Stanford in 1959, Kesey volunteered to take part in a CIA-financed study at the Veterans Hospital on the effects of LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs. Kesey wrote many detailed accounts of his experiences with these drugs, both during the study and in the years of private experimentation that followed. His role as a medical rat inspired Kesey to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1962. Kesey died in 2001.
Movie is set in the world of an authentic mental hospital (Oregon State Hospital in Salem, Oregon), a place of rebellion against the Establishment, institutional authority and attitudes (personified by the patients' supervisory nurse).
Central theme is there is a fine line between normal and abnormal behavior.
The TITLE OF FILM COMES FROM OLD FOLK SONG THAT INCLUDES THE LINES….ONE FLEW EAST, ONE FLEW WEST, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST. (EAST AND WEST ARE OPPOSITES AND REPRESENT McMurphy AND RATCHED….THE HOSPITAL IS THE NEST AND THE CHIEF FLIES OVER IT)
STORY SUMMARY
The prison officials think McMurphy’s been "fakin' it," to get out of the hard work details of the prison work farm. He is sent for an evaluation.
First with subtle mind games, he rebels unwilling to yield to her power, he is accused by those in power of being upset: When the Nurse offers an alternative method to taking pills orally, McMurphy decides to take his pill (but then in a symbolic, antagonistic gesture doesn't swallow it.)
The patients are organized and controlled through a rigid set of rules and regulations. The contest of wills with the Nurse is played out as a struggle to win the other inmates over to his way of thinking and behaving by establishing a political majority, to lead various group insurrections, and to emphasize how they have been denied their freedom of will:
McMurphy begs Nurse Ratched to watch the opener of the 1963 World Series. The Nurse proposes a vote to decide the matter - "let majority rule" - already knowing that authority and power are on her side against the slavish, malleable, drugged-out patients.
As he strides from the room, he turns toward the patients, refusing to acknowledge defeat, maintaining by his example that it is better to try and fail than to meekly accept an unsatisfactory status quo: But I tried, didn't I? God-damn it. At least I did that.
Cheswick proposes another vote about watching the second game of the World Series. Nurse Ratched adjourns the meeting and closes the voting. McMurphy pretends to be enjoying the second World Series baseball game on television in a contest of wills with the Nurse. His excitement proves infectious - the other patients join him and look up at the television screen that reflects their faces.
He hijacks the field trip bus and escapes with his fellow inmates for a wild fishing field trip. On the way, he picks up a prostitute friend named Candy.
Dr. Spivey's office, the institution's doctors agree that McMurphy is "dangerous" and possibly a threat to society, but probably not crazy. Nurse Ratched wants to keep McMurphy in the hospital, not to "help him" but because she is determined to control him and break him:
After learning that he won't be released in 68 days, McMurphy asks Nurse Ratched . He realizes that most of the patients are voluntary and self-committed, and have the freedom to leave at any time if they choose: " there are very few men here who are committed - there's Mr. Bromden, Mr. Taber, some of the chronics, and you."
Inspired by McMurphy's instigating, "challenging observations," the patients begin to use their minds and express their feelings, questioning Nurse and the system
McMurphy smashes his fist through the glass. As punishment, Cheswick, McMurphy, and Chief sent to receive electro-shock treatments. McMurphy realizes, Bromden, has faked being deaf and dumb. He jokes to Billy about the effectiveness of shock treatments that he received:
The patients mindlessly watch a TV news broadcast where an announcer speaks about the "possible opening of the Berlin Wall during the upcoming Christmas holidays." [The obvious parallels are drawn between their own walled-in imprisonment and their powerlessness.] Another news story, heard in the background, describes the arrest of three men (on a misdemeanor charge) who were allegedly involved with the dynamite bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed three innocent Negro children while they were attending services. [This event prefaces the similar deadly fate of innocent, child-like Billy Bibbit in the film's next scene.]
McMurphy's plans a pre-escape party with alcohol and prostitutes. McMurphy has an opportunity to leave, but hesitates when young Billy Bibbit expresses disappointment at the departure of his friend
The patients applaud his conquest when he joins them in the ward, smiling from ear to ear. But Billy is forced to "explain everything," and made to feel guilty about experiencing and enjoying sex:
Threatening to inform his mother about his behavior, thereby emasculating him, the repressive Nurse knows how to exploit Billy's weaknesses. There are disastrous results - Billy begins stammering again and feels so guilty and self-hating that he commits suicide by slitting his own throat.
McMurphy goes crazy beyond control when he learns of Billy's death, feeling personally responsible for his new-found friend, he attempts to strangle her for having cruelly contributed to Billy's suicide. In the middle of the night, McMurphy is returned to the ward - lobotomized, glassy-eyed, catatonic, totally passive, and obediently captive.
In the film's conclusion, inmate Chief Bromden realizes that "Mac" has had surgery on his brain. [A frontal lobotomy is the surgical severance of nerve fibers connecting the frontal lobes to the thalamus, a severe procedure commonly practiced in the 1940s on mentally-disordered patients.] He hugs his friend and then ends his misery to free him from the bondage of his existence in an act of mercy killing. Bromden smothers and suffocates McMurphy with a pillow. Then, inspired by McMurphy's liberating example, he picks up the marble wash station from the tub room and smashes through the window with it. He escapes from the cuckoo's nest, flying away to the outer world.