The Movie
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a tale of non-conformity, of frustration, and ultimately a triumph of the irrepressible human spirit. R.P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) talks his way out of jail and into a mental hospital, which he perceives will be a cushy alternative. He embarks upon an odyssey he never expected, one with life-changing results. An undisciplined rascal like him, a fast hero to the other patients, is destined to get under the skin of the disquietingly restrained Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), and vice versa. On the surface she seems good at her job running the ward, but she's also proud to a fault, and patronizing as hell. Their conflicts fill many a scene in Cuckoo's Nest, and it will all end very badly for one of them.
Although this big-screen version was not widely embraced by fans of Ken Kesey's 1962 novel, it became only the second movie in history to win the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best (Adapted) Screenplay (after It Happened One Night and before The Silence of the Lambs). It was also the first time most audiences had seen the inside of mental hospital (filmed on actual locations), and it served as an education to many about the ways in which something as big as bureaucracy and something as small as personality can lead the system to fail.
The Picture
Despite the movie's honored status, this 35th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's is not a state-of-the-art restoration or remaster. The 1.78:1 image is presented at a low bitrate, displaying a soft image, generally natural if not rife with detail. Most of the film has no glaring flaws, but a few shots are painfully noisy. There's a visible grain structure, blacks are just okay, but the offending dirt smudges on Nurse Ratched's perfect cap--hard to make out in some earlier versions--are now blatant. For what it's worth, this is probably the best this movie has ever looked.
The Sound
Yes, it's a new release of one of the all time Oscar champs... and it's in Dolby Digital 5.1. This mix is woefully front-heavy: When an assistant nurse makes an announcement and music starts playing over the PA system, the surrounds remain dead silent, as they do for most of the movie. To be fair, when Nurse Ratched addresses the yard over the outdoor speakers, we do hear her all around, and there's some resonance in the track. Waves and seagulls grace the impromptu boat trip, and the shattering of a pane of glass is big and wide. Left/right directionality is decent, but the quality goes a little thin when people shout.
The Extras
Most of these extras have been previously released. There are eight deleted scenes of varying length, and an audio commentary edited together from director Milos Forman and producers Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz, all recorded separately. Charles Kiselyak's full 86-minute Completely Cuckoo behind-the-scenes documentary, which debuted back on the 1997 laserdisc, is available for the first time on Blu-ray. The video extras are in a low-bitrate VC-1, essentially standard definition.
Brand-new is "Asylum: An Empty Nest for the Mentally Ill?" (31 minutes, HD) about the sorry state of mental health facilities, reuniting many of the familiar faces for another Kiselyak doc. The box itself is packed with tchotchkes, with a custom-designed deck of playing cards (not as racy as Mac's), a beautiful little hardbound book, a press book reproduction, four mini posters from around the world, and half a dozen glossy character photos.
Final Thoughts
This one is a tough call. If you bought the 2008 Blu-ray, you're probably set, unless you just can't get enough Cuckoo's Nest, in which case the smattering of new goodies should be as much fun as a cup full of happy pills.
Product Details
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