Well now, there's a leap. Yesterday I viewed One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Heard lots about it and now finally have seen it, mainly because of seeing Jack Nicholson in other more recent movies such as As Good As It Gets and Something's Gotta Give.
They say that good comedic actors also make excellent psychopathic characters. The true comedic minds are connected deeply to all parts of being human, I guess.
Anyway, Nicholson explores the vast amount of grey area (grey matter?) between being normal and being crazy in all three of these movies.
What strikes me is that very often, the person who is most repulsive, most poorly behaved and rough around the edges is the one who holds the key to meaning. As quick as we are to avoid such people, they will not let themselves be easily avoided! We lose out by shunning or trying to "protect" ourselves from them. The best we can do is accept them for who they are; the worst we can do is dehumanize them, as illustrated by the mental institution in Cuckoo's nest.
The institutional damage done to people shown in the Cuckoo's Nest is disturbing, especially when you consider that thousands of lobotomies were performed back in those days. The story of actress Frances Farmer comes to mind. There's a movie called Frances starring Jessica Lange which I'm told is extremely powerful. Rain Man with Dustin Hoffman is another. Any others? There was an oldie with Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman if anyone can help me with the name of it.
What are other "mental institution movies" that we should add to this list?
As teachers, what can we learn from them?
