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"Ratched," Cuckoo's Nest...and "Psycho"

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
13 replies | jump to latest

Netflix is running a new series called "Ratched." Yes, it looks like another famous movie and key character have been raided and ransacked for cable(streaming?) value.

The more familiar name in movie history is "Nurse Ratched," and she was played in the 1975 Best Picture winner by Louise Fletcher. Fletcher was a little-known actress who got this juicy role only after a bunch of bigger names(Anne Bancroft and Jane Fonda among them) turned it down. The turn-downs were evidently on the basis of how horrible Nurse Ratched really turns out to be -- so horrible that anti-hero Jack Nicholson physically attacks the Nurse and tries to strangle her at the film's climax. No "major" Hollywood actress wanted to play that kind of villainy.

Louise Fletcher won the Best Actress Oscar...most deservedly. Part of the reason is Jack Palance's saying "The character wins, not the performance," but I think with Fletcher, it was the character(Nurse Ratched is a famous "type" now -- Hillary Clinton got that name in some circles; conservative I suppose, and THAT's another matter) AND the performance. Fletcher chose to play Ratched as a blank-faced bureaucrat with a very soothing voice...whose Control Freak dictatorial manner and sadistic urges would only come to the surface at key moments.

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is a very 70's picture. Filmed in a semi-documentary style(with some real mental institution employees playing parts, and even the Governor of Oregon doing OK as a fishing marina boss), and a downbeat ending(from Last Detail to Chinatown to Cuckoo's Nest, Nicholson usually lost, in different ways) ...followed by a rousing, upbeat "coda."

But it looks like "Ratched" is going the route of transforming Nurse Ratched into a more traditional horror movie-type villain. Alas(I think) and as with "Bates Motel" and "Psycho IV: The Beginning" we are "going to see the story of how Nurse Ratched BECAME Nurse Ratched."

I've looked at the trailer for "Ratched" on YouTube(you can too) and it is as stylized and color-saturated as "Cuckoo's Nest" was real and gritty and grim. Frankly, "Ratched" looks far more like "Psycho"(the color version, the sequels, and "Bates Motel") than "Cuckoo's Nest," and I kinda feel that this is intentional.

As for Young Nurse Ratched(here studied in the 1940's, decades ahead of "Cuckoo's Nest"), she is played by Sarah Paulsen, who has become the rather predictable "Meryl Streep of FX" and now Netflix. I believe she is a star of American Horror Story(to which at least one critic has compared "Ratched.") Special roles were found for Paulsen in the recent "Mrs. America"(the Phyillis Schafley story) and I think she was in "Feud" (the Bette Davis/Joan Crawford story.)

"Feud" is relevant because the showrunner of that one was one Ryan Murphy, who also does American Horror Story, I believe, and other shows. So I guess it is inevitable that if Ryan Murphy does a project, Sarah Paulsen will be in it somewhere(hey, it worked for Scorsese and DeNiro.) Murphy and Paulsen are both openly gay, which I will contend is relevant to the extent that gay characters and themes appear in their productions...including(I have read) "Ratched."

I'm debating whether or not to watch "Ratched," because based on the trailer and some REALLY bad reviews, the storyline seems to be so removed from the characters, look, and themes of "Cuckoo's Nest" to be rather a betrayal of it. Its the same deal as "Bates Motel," really, in which THAT showrunner said that the Bloch novel and Hitchcock movie were only "hooks" for selling the project...the showrunner wanted to tell his own tale with mostly new characters. In the case of both "Ratched" and "Bates Motel," the deal seems to be that somebody figured there was "cash value" in SELLING the projects on the name of a famous classic movie -- and then to pretty much ignore and/or trash the famous classic movie. Well...that's Hollywood.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

In a move of some daring, as Netflix has now released a first season(FIRST SEASON?) of Ratched to its service, they have put "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"(henceforth, Cuckoo's Nest) on their service as well. THAT, I watched.

Ah, the memories. I recall 1975 as "the summer of Jaws and the Xmas of Cuckoo's Nest." Each was a blockbuster, but in significantly different ways. Jaws had that Hitchcockian "fantastical" suspense gloss(and some Hawks men-in-groups comedy); Cuckoo's Nest was semi-documentary, real and gritty. But BOTH of them hooked full house audiences and gave them an experience they'd never forget.

I've noted elsewhere that when I was in LA in the 70's, and went to Westwood Village (Los Angeles, near UCLA) to see movies there, they were usually full-house, with crowds laughing, applauding, and cheering almost continually. This meant for a lot of great movie going memories -- until, some years later and after talks with someone -- I realized that the studios used Westwood Village as a "selling center" for their movies -- and PAID "shills" to go in there and laugh and applaud and cheer. Quite probably the rest of us were REALLY laughing and applauding and cheering -- but I'll always feel a twinge -- "gee, I was PLAYED."

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

No matter, really. Cuckoo's Nest was actually rather deceptive in how the "shill factor" worked. The story built slowly and quietly to sudden loud climaxes of conflict and THEN the shills(or us) would jump in.

SPOILERS FOR CUCKOO'S NEST:

Example: Nicholson fights with the mental asylum guards when they assault one of the weaker inmates. They are beating Nicholson badly. Cut to: the Big Silent Native American dropping his broom and coming to Nicholson's rescue, beating up the beaters(BIG APPLAUSE, BIG CHEERS -- but to be expected, yes?) Example: Late in the film, Nicholson gives a piece of gum to the "Silent Native American" and he replies "Juicy Fruit." BIG LAUGHS AND APPLAUSE -- the Native American has been faking it.

Example: Its Nicholson's chance to escape the asylum. He and the Native American have gotten a window open..to "freedom." But something tragic happens in another room..there are screams. And Nicholson doesn't go out the window. PEOPLE IN THE THEATER SCREAMED: 'Get out! Go out the window! NOW!" But Nicholson doesn't and the groan of the audience was palpable.

Example: Nicholson starts to strangle Nurse Ratched. SOME yelled "Kill her!" but some protested.

I'll skip the tragic ending that follows...but I will note that when the film shifts gears one more time as one other asylum inmate DOES escape...the theater went nuts with YELLING, CHEERING and APPLAUSE. Xmas, 1975,

I read a Roger Ebert review of Cuckoo's Nest(a retrospective) and he wrote that the audience reaction to Cuckoo's Nest at the end in a 3,000 seat Chicago theater was the most powerful cheering he'd ever heard at a screening(beating "ET.")

So maybe my crowd in LA WASN'T shills.

I report on this 1975 screening of Cuckoo's Nest - one of the most emotionally involving times I ever had "at the movies"(and without the screams of Psycho or Jaws audiences) because , well -- if "Ratched" screws around with THAT, I won't be happy.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

--

"Cuckoo's Nest" went from a Ken Kesey novel(different in many ways from the film) to a Kirk Douglas Broadway play to a Michael Douglas-produced movie(father Kirk, the owner of rights, was too old and lacked clout for the lead; he made more money off this Nicholson movie than any of his own)

And evidently, in all those forms, there is controversy to go along with the classicism: for its about a Rebel Man versus an Authoritarian Woman. A battle of the sexes that perhaps messes with the "established sympathies."

The movie touched on this a little. Nicholson's Randle McMurphy is a low-level crook, a brawler, a womanizer. He's not going to put up with this soft-voiced WOMAN messing with his scam(hiding out in a mental institution to avoid serious jail time.) SHE pushes his buttons; HE pushes hers. But he finds out that she holds all the cards.

I noted that some conservatives(and I suppose some liberals) have called Hillary Clinton "Nurse Ratched." This points out the extent to which a LEGITIMATE movie villainess could be superimposed on a real-life "powerful woman" who is evidently loved and hated in equal measure by the public. But the other bottom line is this: women in power can abuse that power just like men in power do -- if there is something wrong with them.

Truth be told, we get NOTHING in "Cuckoo's Nest" on the background of Nurse Ratched. She is probably not married. We don't know if she is in a relationship(straight or gay.) She functions as a symbol of Bureaucratic Power. Until near the end, where she is revealed as, truly, Evil. (The things she says to her mentally ill charges are manipulative and cruel -- and can lead to their suicides.)

Key to the inscrutable villainy of Nurse Ratched in Cuckoo's Nest is that we didn't know anything much about Louise Fletcher, either. If Anne Bancroft or Jane Fonda had played the role...we had history with THEM. But Louise Fletcher was just as much a mystery as Nurse Ratched herself.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Something else daring about "Cuckoo's Nest" in 1975 that would likely not repeat today: the guards (orderlies) at the mental hospital in the film are both African-Americans. They are generally fair enough fellows, but if necessary, they brutalize the weaker inmates and Nicholson alike. Nicholson taunts one of them for a fight; the Native American puts one in a bearhug to immobilze him. These men -- white, black, Native American -- are in a distressing, depressing place and they will clash accordingly. (One also senses these orderlie jobs are not in demand.)

I daresay that the "equal opportunity humanism" of Cuckoo's Nest...in which men and women of various races are pitted against each other in conflict ...might not get a green-light today.

But "Ratched" did. For "Ratched" seems to have its roots more in "Psycho"(bladed lobotomies are a shocker here) than in "Cuckoo's Nest."

--
A couple of more thoughts. The original "Psycho" and "Cuckoo's Nest" surely have their connections. Recall Norman talking of "an institution..a madhouse..the laughter and the tears...the cruel eyes studying you." That's a pretty good description of many scenes in the insititution in "Cuckoo's Nest." The only difference is that Norman may be talking of an insitution for "the criminally insane" -- killers. And the Cuckoo's Nest men are not killers. Still...

And: Hitchcock himself took note of "Cuckoo's Nest." He tried to cast Jack Nicholson in Family Plot, filmed around the same time, but noted to the press: "Mr. Nicholson was too busy flying over cuckoo's nests to take the part." Nicholson pal Bruce Dern got the role instead -- and Jack Nicholson got the Best Actor Oscar for Cuckoo's Nest.

[–] swanstep (2715) 4 years ago

I believe she is a star of American Horror Story(to which at least one critic has compared "Ratched.")

Just from its trailers, Ratched definitely feels like a continuation of the 'overdone' - five different horror movies at once - vibe of AHS (I watched half of one season, the one set in a downtown LA hotel). AHS-Hotel literally mashed up Baby Jane, Scream, The Shining, Suspiria, Barton Fink, Sunset Blvd, and maybe a few others, all set to an '80s MTV/Goth soundtrack. Ryan Murphy has some talent for visuals & for staging scary and demented scenes but I couldn't escape the sense that Murphy and his writers were just regurgitating their influences in a semi-mechanical, finally pointless way (and, e.g., I felt very pandered to by the soundtrack - I must be close to Murphy's age and the soundtrack was *exactly* like listening to one of my own playlists - almost everyone has a weakness for this kind of personal nostalgia but this was too much), so I had to stop watching. I may give Ratched a look but I'm keeping my expectations *very* low.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Ryan Murphy has some talent for visuals & for staging scary and demented scenes but I couldn't escape the sense that Murphy and his writers were just regurgitating their influences in a semi-mechanical, finally pointless way (and, e.g., I felt very pandered to by the soundtrack - I must be close to Murphy's age and the soundtrack was *exactly* like listening to one of my own playlists - almost everyone has a weakness for this kind of personal nostalgia but this was too much), so I had to stop watching. I may give Ratched a look but I'm keeping my expectations *very* low

---

Ha..."pandering to our own playlists." A generational problem, I suppose.

But leading to my big point here:

I watched the first episode of Ratched -- not all the way through, a lot of fast forwarding -- and I detected this:

The musical soundtrack is largely a re-hash of any NUMBER of Bernard Herrmann Hitchocck scores. Its like the composer was told "re-do the famous Hitchcock Herrmann musical motifs but change a note or two so you aren't plagiarizing." I heard, at minimum -- Psycho music(from the opening shot and Marion's trip to California Charlies'), NXNW music(the churing "locomotic music" that accompanies the Grand Central station and Chicago train station scenes, and some of the Rushmore cafeteria scenes" and Vertigo music(mainly "music to follow Madeleine by.") One Hitchcock motif after another "hands off" to the next and soon "Ratched" is like the Hitchcock Homage from Hell...aurally, at least.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Roger Ebert once wrote: "Its not simply what a movie is about...its HOW it is about it." Ratched makes that point explicitly in comparison to Cuckoo's Nest.

For whereas Cuckoo's Nest was tres-70's "realistic, semi-documentary and gritty" in its visuals, Ratched is gorgeously colorful and art directed and production designed within an inch of its life.

I remember reacting AGAINST how gritty Cuckoo's Nest looked in 1975 (I liked Hitchcockian gloss and fanastic imagery the most back ) but it turned out to be right for the movie -- right for the bureaucratic-industrial mental institution setting, right for Jack Nicholson's "real guy" performance(Burt Reynolds wanted the role, too), right for the gripping drama at the end.

"Ratched" has no interest in keeping THAT look and style. Gorgeous Goth is the name of the game this time, and Hitchcock is there in spirit(the TV trailer opens with Ratched driving past a MOTEL sign at night; its almost subliminal.)

I didn't pay quite enough attention to the plot, but evidently they have lifted Nicholson's "thing"(he's a sane crook faking insanity for "observation" and to stay off the work farm and given it to a stone cold killer(faking insanity?) Thus 'Ratched" -- rather, and for me, sadly, like "Bate Motel" -- borrows elements from the original, uses them in a rather parasitic way and in no way disturbs the greatness of the original.

Put another way: the originals were made by true, brilliant artists. These knockoffs are made by hacks. Though I guess Ryan Murphy is a hack with a $300 million production deal somewhere.

I saw enough of "Ratched" to see that, along with the Grande Miss Paulson, there are roles for Judy Davis(she of the hilarious ability to twist her face into nastiness) and Sharon Stone(playing who or what, I don't know, but she's aged past Basic Instinct into a kind of camp glamour -- Joan Crawford time?)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

(Ratched CONT)

I saw a couple of funny scenes with Vincent D'Onofrio -- once the slow-witted young Gomer Pyle in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, today a sublime middle-aged character guy. He's playing the Governor of California here, evidently somehow entwined in putting that killer into Ratched's institution "for observation".

As for Ratched herself, it looks like she's being developed quickly into a psycho killer or maimer("Have lobotomy, will travel")...not really what Louise Fletcher gave us, but ...."it'll do."

Just not for me.

[–] swanstep (2715) 4 years ago

For whereas Cuckoo's Nest was tres-70's "realistic, semi-documentary and gritty" in its visuals, Ratched is gorgeously colorful and art directed and production designed within an inch of its life.

Yep, that's evident even from the trailers.... Murphy doesn't seem to be at all worried by the thought that One Flew might have serious fans of its own and that those fans might feel a little betrayed by having the prequel series look like The Shining meets Suspiria, etc..

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

For whereas Cuckoo's Nest was tres-70's "realistic, semi-documentary and gritty" in its visuals, Ratched is gorgeously colorful and art directed and production designed within an inch of its life.

Yep, that's evident even from the trailers.... Murphy doesn't seem to be at all worried by the thought that One Flew might have serious fans of its own and

---

No, I don't think so. I don't think the showrunners that did "Bates Motel" much cared about the legacy of Psycho, either. Hollywood is ruthless now, and it was ruthless when Hitchcock made Psycho, or when Milos Forman made Cuckoo's Nest(Kirk Douglas held the rights for years but was too old and not starry enough for the lead when the movie was finally made.)

--

that those fans might feel a little betrayed by having the prequel series look like The Shining meets Suspiria, etc..

--

Well I kinda do(on a first watching of the pilot.) Its funny -- BECAUSE of how gritty it looked, I didn't much "love" Cuckoo's Nest back in 1975. I liked "smooth expensive movies" like Jaws and Three Days of the Condor...even The Towering Inferno. Cuckoo's Nest was definitely an "indie type film," with Nicholson surrounded by all those strange-looking , REAL-looking inmates(a "cavalcade of future stars, from Danny deVtio to Chirstopher Lloyd to a bunch of supporting guys.)

And "Ratched" aint that way at all. So NOW I favor the look of "Cuckoo's Nest."

I suppose I should not have called Ryan Murphy a hack. I think he did "Feud," and that played well. But still , he seems an example of a current Hollywood denizen who is getting zillions of dollars to produce...mediocrity. Hitchcock got a zillion dollars and gave us movies we'd remember forever.

Meanwhile, from what I've seen of the Sarah Paulson performance in Ratched...its HER same old schtick. The inscrutability of Louise Fletcher is gone in favor of psychotic menace. Paulson does have that trademark sweet lisp going for her, though.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

There's been a request in my household to watch "Ratched." Not sure how long it will take, but we gave the first episode a shot.

I had fast forwarded through the opening scene on my first "skim," and I noticed how the overall score took famous Bernard Herrmann Hitchcock scores and "reworked them"(a note or two different) to get a new effect.

WELL:

In the opening "mass murder" sequence of "Ratched"(that I skipped the first time around), Murphy and company don't SUGGEST Herrmann scores...they REPLAY them.

My guess is this: by using(and paying for) actual Bernard Herrmann Hitchcock music in the gory opening sequence...the show could then "shift" to suggested Herrmann/Hitchcock music for the duration.

But....its early on, maybe some more "bona fide" Hitchcock/Herrmann music will turn up.

And there is a twist:

In the opening sequence, we get several famous Hitchcock/Herrmann motifs...plus one NON-Hitchcock Hermman motif(but "very close") plus one UN-USED Hitchcock/Herrmann motif, and its quite a brew.

For the record:

The opening sequence, set in 1947(a movie theater's screening of Miracle on 44th street figures in the plot) has a group of priests gathered for dinner in their large house(what are those called? Seminary?) Its reminiscent of some of the scenes in "I Confess."

All the priests but one elect to "go to the movie." One remains behind -- amusingly enough, to pleasure himself from a woman's brassiere catalog in his room.

The lone remaining priest is roused from his studies to answer a knock at the door in the lobby below. Emergency from the heavy rain is a weird young man asking to use the phone(his car broke down, natch.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The other priests emerge from the movie theater and come home -- and one of them finds the bloodied body of the "house priest"...in the shower(natch.) But that priest is soon killed...and another...and another. Lots of blood, lots of gore.

And selections from:

Psycho(Marion looking to hide the money in Cabin One.)
North by Northwest(that sort of "locomotive" music that accompanies Thornhill scurrying around the Chicago train station)
Vertigo(I couldn't tell)

AND

Torn Curtain(Herrmann's famously unused music for "The Murder of Gromek," which has now been used by Scorsese in his "Cape Fear" and QT in "Once Upon a Time In Hollywood"(for all flame thrower scenes, linked to the East Germany set Torn Curtain by Nazis in a movie in OUATIH. ) This "Murder of Gromek" music now becomes such a famous bit of Herrmann music that it SEEMS like Hitchcock.

AND

Cape Fear. Herrmann's 1962 credit music(especially) and score for the original Cape Fear is like "the Hitchcock/Herrmann score that got away." The opening credit music for Cape Fear is more inyaface SCARY than the jittery Psycho credit music, and much of the rest of the score has a "watery, liquid" feeling to it that matches the film's Southern Bayou and lakes locations. Scorsese re-used the score(and borrowed The Murder of Gromek) for HIS 1991 Cape Fear, and the music fits just fine here in "Ratched." Indeed, during the "kill the priests" sequence, the more "languid" parts of the Cape Fear score are used...the big scary overture is saved for the final, most bloody murder. (One priest survives by hiding under a bed -- a reference to how one nurse in an apartment full of them escaped getting killed by psycho Richard Speck in 1966.)

So "Ratched" begins with a heapin' helpin' of Hitchcock and Herrmann(together and apart), and sets course for a series that looks to be more Hitchcock than Forman....