One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

The weight of the message and ability to emotionally move the viewer presented in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest rests in the constant reminder that these were real moments in history, real people that changed history. In attempting to cinematically reenact and convey the important events that took place, even with sufficient information and material from the original book and play, the dedicated film artist would construct his work and efforts around the original sources with careful research to the actual events, and less on the reiterations of other authors. No matter how accurate another authors’ words are, they still contain an artistic bias which stems from the author’s writing style. Therefore, best to go to the historical sources. While the directors and producers had to research history and literature to relate and achieve the desired dedication to accuracy, the actors’ ability of dedication rests in a fully separate medium. The concept of acting is particularly bazaar; choosing to remove your identity and fully embody the role of another entity for the sake of art. It’s one thing to impersonate a friend or a compatible stranger, roles easy enough for an actor to take on because the other identity relates to theirs, but how easily can you relate and understand the existence of a clinically disabled or damaged individual? Through interacting and connecting with people of these conditions we can gain insight of how they may feel, but to be able to feel and behave in a self generated manor that is, neurologically, not familiar to us, is an insurmountable  feat of dedication by any actor. While Jack Nicholson and Will Sampson are incredibly talented actors, I’m positive they had personally connected and interacted with individuals of such mental conditions at some point in their lives, and had received a form of training to better comprehend the day to day actions and lives of such individuals.