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Notes from Underground

  And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?---Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have many evil memories now, but ... hadn’t I better end my “Notes” here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I’ve been writing this story; so it’s hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment.  Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are...
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Hope

To be human is to be a miracle of evolution conscious of its own miraculousness — a consciousness beautiful and bittersweet, for we have paid for it with a parallel awareness not only of our fundamental improbability but of our staggering fragility, of how physiologically precarious our survival is and how psychologically vulnerable our sanity. To make that awareness bearable, we have evolved a singular faculty that might just be the crowning miracle of our consciousness: hope.-- Erich Fromm


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ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975)






Nicholson performance in this film has been voted as the best performance by an actor of all time

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest  is one of the greatest American films of all time; directed by Milos Forman, film is based on Ken Kesey's 1962 best-selling novel.
 Set up in the world of an authentic mental hospital (Oregon State Hospital in Salem, Oregon), the story is about defiance against the Establishment and institutional authority  by an energetic, rebellious,  anti-hero character, played by Jack Nicholson.

 It was the first film since "It Happened One Night" (1934) to win all five of the top Academy Awards, for best picture, actor (Nicholson), actress (Louise Fletcher), director (Milos Forman) and screenplay (Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman). 



Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson)  has served two months of his six-month sentence and has managed to get himself transferred to the state mental hospital for psychiatric observation, figuring that life in the loony bin would be easier than on the prison farm. 
But the martinet Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) runs the psychiatric ward with an iron fist, keeping her patients intimidated through manipulation, abuse, medication and sessions of electroconvulsive therapy.
"Nicholson slips into the role of Randle with such easy grace that it's difficult to remember him in any other film"
"Is "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" not a great film because it is manipulative, or is it great because it is so superbly manipulative? I can see it through either filter. It remains enduringly popular as an anti-establishment parable, but achieves its success by deliberately choosing to use the mental patients as comic caricatures. This decision leads to the fishing trip, which is at once the most popular, and the most false, scene in the movie. It is McMurphy's great joyous thumb in the eye to Ratched and her kind, but the energy of the sequence cannot disguise the unease and confusion of men who, in many cases, have no idea where they are, or why."



E FLEW OVR THE CUCKOO'S NST 
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    1. 8.7/10IMDb94%Rotten Tomatoes83%Metacritic

    1. Release date: November 19, 1975 (USA)
      Director: Miloš Forman
      Featured song: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Opening Theme)
      Awards: Academy Award for Best Actor, MORE
      Screenplay: Lawrence Hauben, Bo Goldman













"You have to really decide where you want to live: if you want to live in the jungle or in the zoo."






Screenplay Structure and the "Gittes POV"

Robert Towne's screenplay is widely taught in film schools as the gold standard of three-act structure. Its brilliance lies in its strict adherence to subjective point of view.Information Parity: The audience knows only what Jake Gittes knows. Every clue he uncovers, we discover simultaneously. There are no cutaways to the villains plotting, and no scenes featuring other characters without Jake present.

The Nose Bandage: After a thuggish security guard (played in a cameo by Roman Polanski himself) slashes Jake's nose, Jake spends a significant portion of the film wearing a large, ridiculous white bandage. This visual choice serves two purposes: it strips him of his vanity, and it acts as a constant physical reminder of the dangers of sticking one's nose into the affairs of the powerful.




Polanski’s Direction and Alonzo’s Cinematography

Roman Polanski brought an outsider’s cynical European eye to this deeply American story, clashing famously with screenwriter Robert Towne over the film's ending. (Towne originally wanted a happier, or at least more redemptive, ending where Evelyn escapes, but Polanski insisted on the tragic climax to reflect the harsh, unjust realities of the world).

The Golden Hour Aesthetic: Director of Photography John A. Alonzo shot the film using a warm, golden, pastel palette. Instead of the high-contrast shadows (chiaroscuro) of traditional 1940s black-and-white noir, Chinatown utilizes a hazy, blinding daylight that makes the corruption feel exposed yet untouchable.


The Unobtrusive Camera: Polanski’s camera often sits over Jack Nicholson’s shoulder, pulling us into his investigative gaze. The framing is tight, claustrophobic, and deliberate, building a sense of paranoia even in wide-open spaces like the orange groves or the saltwater reservoirs.

Legacy and Impact

Chinatown was nominated for 11 Academy Awards in 1975, winning Best Original Screenplay for Robert Towne. It lost many of its other major sweeps to The Godfather Part II, but its reputation has only grown over the decades.

It revitalized the noir genre, ushering in the era of "Neo-Noir" (which paved the way for films like Blade Runner, L.A. Confidential, and Brick). Its exploration of municipal corruption and environmental politics remains startlingly relevant today, especially as debates over water rights, climate change, and corporate greed continue to dominate the American West.




























































































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