American Icons: ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’
Louise Fletcher plays Nurse Ratched, a "perversion of feminity" according to scholar Leslie Horst, who sees the character as a warning about "the danger of women who have power." Fletcher won an Oscar.
Ken Kesey had worked in a mental hospital, but his first novel was really a parable of what happens when you stand up to the Man — a counterculture fable that doesn’t end well. Despite his far-reaching influence, Kesey was shut out by filmmakers who turned the story into an Oscar-sweeping phenomenon. "Cuckoo's Nest" changed how many people thought about mental illness and institutions.
Sherman Alexie debunks the myth of the silent Indian. We visit Oregon State Hospital, where the director played himself on screen. A psychiatrist explains how the movie gave mental hospitals a bad name, with tragic consequences. And actress Louise Fletcher takes us into the mind of one of the most fearsome movie villains — the sweet-faced Nurse Ratched. “She doesn’t see her behavior as it really is. Who does? Who sees that they’re really evil?”
(Originally aired September 20, 2013)
