One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Themes of Laughter and Humor in Movies

After watching Goodfellas it got me thinking about other Scorsese movies, the most recent of which I saw is Shutter Island. And thinking about Shutter Island got me thinking about one of my favorite books/movies One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. At first I thought Shutter Island was going to be kind of a modernized OFOTCN in which a mental institution is shown as corrupt and the patients within it are victimized. But then obviously after the twist in Shutter Island, I realized it wasn't that at all, but leading up to the twist definitely reminded me of OFOTCN. I think that would be a great movie to add to the list of films we watch. I wrote a very in depth analysis of the book in highschool and discovered a ton of universal themes. The theme I focused on the most was the power of laughter. How just the addition of a bit of humor in the patients lives, brought to them by McMurphy, can completely change not just their attitudes, but also their actions. There's also part of the book that is so powerful I still remember it, when one of the characters is talking about why he felt he needed to come to the mental institution, and it was because he couldn't take people laughing at him over his disability. These two examples show that laughter can be very powerful in so many ways, it can either make or break up. And in turn thinking about this made me think back to Sullivan's Travels, which was my favorite movie we watch in class for the very reason that it emphasized that theme of humor and laughter. Like I said in my earlier blog, my favorite line from that movie is right at the end when Sully says "There's something to be said about making someone laugh." I think that this is so true, so I was really excited when I drew the connection between the two movies. It's definitely the reason I like both of those movies so much, becuase I really believe that humor is one of the most powerful things in life, and I appreciate when that is acknowledged in books and movies.

Goodfellas

I actually really liked this movie. I was apprehensive to watch it because I'm pretty squeamish when it comes to graphic violence, but it was actually much less violent than I thought it was going to be. I mean obviously it was violent in parts, but it wasn't just non-stop violence the entire time. There are so many other facets to the movie besides pure violence, and I think that's what makes it so good. When you watch a gangster movie, you expect to be inundated with violence, but in Goodfellas, Scorsese does an excellent job of mixing the violence with so many other sides of the gangster lifestyle that are usually ignored. Scorsese does this in other films as well. He makes films that appear as thought they will be extremely violent throughout, but then turn out to be so much more than just violence. Take for example The Departed, it is not terribly violent the whole time, but there is just a couple very shockingly violent scenes like the boot hand smashing scene. Or Shutter Island, almost devoid of violence until the end where the kids are killed by their own mother. I like that instead of making his movies constantly violent, he puts in just a couple shockingly violent scenes to get the point across. That way, the movies are more memorable and you're able to connect with other parts of the movies besides just the violence. I also really like that Henry's character is narrating in a voice-over a lot of the time. It gets you up in his head instead of just being an outside observer. It also shows his thought process the whole time as he goes through the classic gangster plot: working his way up and being on his highest high, feeling invincible, until everything falls apart and he gets frantic and desperate. You see this in almost every gangster film, but this has a twist to the ending that I like. Usually, he would die in the end, but he chooses the less heroic path of going into the witness protection program. I love the the scene at the end where he comes out of his cookie cutter house in a bath robe. It is ironic that his whole life all he wanted was to be a gangster, and he became one, but instead of that getting him where he wanted, in the end it got him to a life of boring normalcy, which is the last thing he wanted and the last thing you would expect. It also connects to a past subject we talked about which is suburban discontent. He never wanted that life, but was forced to choose that or death. Overall it was a great movie and makes me want to see more Scorsese films.

Sullivan's Travels

I really really enjoyed the movie "Sullivan's Travels". It was a great mix of comedy and drama mixed in with romance, but unconventional romance which made it interesting. I really liked that the girl in the movie was beautiful and charming but was perfectly content with roughing it with Sully, and actually found a lot of joy and humor in it. It shows a different kind of woman, especially compared to most women at the time. It also showed that you can be happy doing anything, as long as you're with someone you love, which is a concept that I really believe in. The part about this movie that I liked most was its message about humor. At the end of the movie, one of the last things Sully says is "There's something to say about making people laugh." I love this line because I think it is so true. Comedy has always been popular, but I don't think it really gets the true respect and recognition it deserves. Movie makers that want Oscar nominations always try to make the most deep, serious, depressing movies, just like the movie Sully wanted to make, and those are considered the best movies. But honestly, I think that comedies are much more powerful than the "oscar worthy" movies. When I am sad, upset, or depressed, watching a funny movie cheers me up and provides a bit of an escape for a while, and isn't that the most powerful thing of all? I love the scene in the movie when Sully is at his lowest low stuck in the chain gang, and he and everyone around him are depressed and hopeless. Never the less, when they watch a funny movie, they can't help but laugh and everyone's mood improves. This is when the lightbulb went off in Sully's head that in tough times, comedies can be much more powerful than dramas. This is definitely one of my favorite movies so far!

I Love Musicals!!!!!!

I can't even begin to explain how much I love musicals. I am a terrible singer and I've accepted that, but I used to dream that I would be a broadway star. My most recent musical was in freshman year of highschool I was in the chorus of 42nd Street. It was so amazing, but after that I realized that my lack of singing talent would most likely hold me back from my life dream. But I still love musicals so needless to say I loved "Golddiggers." I just love the way musicals make you feel. They just make you happy no matter what. I'm sure it was a reflection of the time. A lot of the best musicals were made during, and about, the Depression, including Goldiggers and 42nd Street. These musicals were designed to cheer up the people seeing them. They put a humerous spin on the troubles people were going through to try to make people see the silver lining in the situation. Through their comic relief and joyous singing, people could escape from the bad things that were happening at the time, and it still does that for people even today. The fact that everyone in the show is usually so positive even though they have to steal their food at one point and don't have enough clothes to go around makes you feel like you can be positive in whatever situation you're in. I also love all these plays within a play. This idea probably origionated because of the fact that what goes on behind the scenes of a show are actually really exciting. There's so much energy and excitement that goes on backstage, almost more than on-stage, and it's really fun to see both parts of it.

Baby Face

What I thought was funny about this movie is the theme of all men wanting what they can't get. Most of the men that Lily becomes involved with have wives or other women that love them truly and purely. You would hope that a man would be able to tell true love over sheer lust and exploitation; and you would really like to hope that they would choose true love over lust, but they don't. Just what women have been complaining about for years and years, men want what they can't have, and Lily represents everything a lot of men can't get in a women: beauty, boldness, lust, sexuality. It's sad and funny at the same time that men do not change. Take her boss who killed himself for example. He had a wonderful fiance who loved him very much, and who he was very much in love with. But he kicked her to the curb as soon as Lily turned her eyes on him. Even before that, her old boss she got fired had a wife and kids and he didn't even care, all he wanted was to have the young and beautiful woman who was so obviously using him. No wonder Lily became so hardened and skeptical of love, because not only did she not love any of these men, none of them truly loved her, and even though they said they did, she knew they didn't. Some of them went crazy over it, but it wasn't crazy with true love, it was crazy with lust and infatuation and wanting what they can't have. This comes back to the whole dating strategy of playing "hard to get". Personally I get mind games when it comes to dating and love, and I'd much rather be straightforward and honest with a man. But it has been proven to me so many times, as it is proved in this movie, that a lot of times men will not want a woman if he can so easily have her. Men like a challenge, they want women to appear unnatainable so that they'll feel like a hero once they actually do attain her. It's sad but it's reality.

Scarface

The thing that I found really interesting and ironic about Scarface and other movies made at this time is that despite all the violence restrictions, they were disturbingly violent. Because of these resrictions, they are violent in a different way movies are now. Movies now show gore and violence, but when it is shown it seems so much more real and terrible. In old movies like Scarface, killing is such a casual thing and that's what's so disturbing about it. I noticed that in the movie, Tony whistled a happy tune right before he was going to kill someone. I found this really disturbing because it just showed that to him, murder was just any other everyday task like laundry. A lot of times when he killed people I wasn't even sure what he was killing them for, especially the ten minute long scene of him doing a million drive by shootings and killing tons of guys. To me this casual view of murdering anyone for any reason is rediculously violent, no matter if the killer and the victim are in the same shot or one of the other silly violence guidelines they had.

Within Our Gates

One thing I really liked about this movie was the fact that the biggest heroes were women. Sylvia obviously was the star of the movie, and accomplishes so much. She's comes back from all the traumatic events of her younger life to be this strong amazing woman who goes out and gets money for the school. Any of the men in the school could have gone, but it was her who was the strongest, and wouldn't take no for an answer until she raised the money for the school. Then, the person who ends up donating all the money is a woman as well. This is great because at this time, women, especially African American women had almost no power. The women characters in this movie were great role models for women at this time, showing them that they could accomplish what they dreamed of and that they can change the world for the better. Obviously this is really important to me, being a woman, because movies and role models like this really helped women to become strong enough to demand and aquire women's rights.