Miloš Forman
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (Qualcuno volò sul nido del cuculo)

"Three geese in a flock, one flew East, one flew West, one flew over the cuckoo's nest".

It is to one of these three geese that the title of Milos Forman's psychological thriller film, dated 1975, refers. The cuckoo is a cunning yet bastard little bird that lays its eggs in the nests of others, offloading the care of its young onto an unlucky bird. And that's not all: once hatched, the chicks push out the true heirs of the unlucky bird and take their place as if nothing had happened. In my interpretation of the film, the nest is a psychiatric hospital, the chicks are the patients inside it, and the goose is none other than Jack Nicholson (in the role of R.P. McMurphy).

Five years before arriving at the Overlook Hotel, Colorado, in The Shining, Nicholson masterfully plays the role of a mentally ill person (real or presumed, but certainly deranged) removed from hard labor to be transferred to a psychiatric hospital, where the medical team will determine his mental state. Here he meets his fellow ward mates, the nurses...well, the names can be found on Wikipedia. The patients, largely voluntary, lead their placid existence in the hospital, accepting it as a less dangerous alternative to the real world outside, where everyone is so alert and so ready, so fast for them. Here comes Jack "McMurphy" Nicholson; once he settles into the cuckoo's nest, he doesn't push any chick out—he makes them take off. His presence is so grand compared to the nest that the chicks are compelled to fly out, first hesitantly, then full of admiration; McMurphy is a rebel, unleashed, untamable even with a pill at three in the afternoon, and it's precisely the most unsuspected figure on whom he exerts his greatest influence: the grand Native American "Chief" Bromden (Will Sampson). The relationship between the two is undoubtedly the most fascinating element of the film. In the evolution of the ever-hidden gaze of Chief, from lost to impassive to bewildered to full of hope to resolute, one recognizes McMurphy's accomplished work, amidst a collective escape and a clandestine alcoholic party.

Without spoilers, the ending is one of the most beautiful in the history of cinema: the breaking of a barrier, a sunset, a run, a new beginning.

Watch it