One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975 Milos Forman)

Bill Butler says that Forman's English wasn't good and he'd sometimes upset the actors through frustration at his own language. He helped Nicholson and Forman understand each other over a fight scene. 'Understanding the level of that kind of humour and what the humour was about was important. If you don't understand a film, you can go a long ways wrong. And that film was going wrong.. I came in, let's say, there was a misunderstanding on the creative level between Haskell Wexler and the director.. Haskell didn't have the same picture in mind as the director did." Wexler falling out with a director? Sounds familiar. Interestingly it's the latter who gets the main credit. Bill Fraker came in to finish it when Butler had an overlapping commitment. But what Butler says he brought to the film, other than acting as a go-between, was to film tight shots so that you could see the nuances of expression on actors' faces. There are close shots aplenty.

As well as the to-do over cameramen, there are four editors credited: Richard Chew supervising, plus Lynzee Klingman, Sheldon Kahn and Art Coburn: Oscar nominees, BAFTA winners.

This is an amazing film in its use of reactions, as if you never see the person you hear, but you see everyone else.
Kahn: That was a style of editing Milos wanted to use on this film, and in my opinion, it was totally brilliant. I don't know of a film prior to Cuckoo's Nest that was cut as much on the reactions of other people as opposed to the person who was talking.
'First Cut', Gabriella Oldham. I didn't even notice.

Ken Kesey's story was very familiar to us (Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman screenwrote it), but what we'd forgotten is in fact how helpful McMurtry's presence is to the other inmates. He pushes them all to be better and acts as a champion for them, evident in the scene where he charters a fishing boat, describing all the inmates (except Hardiman, amusingly) as 'Doctor'. Also great is the emergence of the Chief's character - how to turn a tragic ending into an uplifting one.

Nicholson is amazing, but so's Louise Fletcher's iron-willed nurse. Will Sampson (Chief), Brad Dourif (Billy, also excellent - won BAFTA), Danny de Vito (Martini), William Redfield (Harding), Sydney Lassick (Cheswick), Christoper Lloyd (Taber). Plus Scatman Crothers, Mews Small, Dean R Brooks (head of institution).

It's still a powerful, contentious film, about individualism and institutionalism, but it's also very funny.

First saw it on April Fool's Day, 1980. I have a memory of seeing a braless Louise Fletcher on TV collecting her BAFTA from Prince Charles, and feeling embarrassed! I guess I was twelve.