ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975)

Director: Milos Forman

Music: Jack Nitzsche

An imprisoned man simulates to be a crazy person to get recluded in a mental hospital where he thinks he will able to escape. There he'll face the head nurse and become an hero for the patients.

By Conrado Xalabarder

1.- Dramatic levels of the music

There is a clear double dramatic level in this Jack Nitzsche's work, quite delimited, established based on its incidental or diegetical application. All the incidental score is linked to the concept of freedom -the one that the protagonist is looking for-, while the diegetical one (the music the characters listen) is the expression of the concept of oppression: it is the music that nurse Ratched imposes to her patients and against which Jack Nicholson faces, demanding at some moments to remove it. Jack Nicholson, the protagonist, does not have music for himself and, therefore, he lacks from any kind of melodic wrapping, which leaves him lonelier in front the hostile surrounding in which he must survive.

The music from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is structured on the basis of the following thematic hierarchy:

• Principal Theme : in the soundtrack, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

A beautiful and evocative amerindian melody that opens and closes the film. Of all the soundtrack themes, it is the only one repeated and, therefore, it is quantitatively more important that the others. In this case also it is dramatically, because it is applied as the maximum representation of the freedom concept (amerindian music from the amerindian character that liberates the protagonist by killing him). But not for being repeated more times it is more important, but for having a greater dramatic weight and for being the one that solves the plot emotionally as much as argumentally.

• Central Theme: in the soundtrack, Medication Valse

A quiet waltz that presents the cold context, even cruel, in which the routine at the hospital is developed. It is a diegetical theme that the internals listen because the nurse wants them to listen it. It is a very calmed waltz and symbolizes, in a certain way, the control and dominion that the woman exerts on her patients. It helps a lot to understand which is the situation of the place and the power of the feminine character that the protagonist will face. The rest of diegetical themes applied at the hospital follows the path marked by this waltz.

• Secondary Themes

Other themes are used in the movie, with diegetical or incidental application. The diegetical ones (in the soundtrack, Charmaine or Play the Game, among others) maintain the repressive or oppresive spirit of the Central Theme, while the incidental ones (Bus Ride to Paradise, Cruising or Trolling) reinforce the liberating aspect of the music. Nevertheless, non of these ones are listened at the interior of the hospital: that space will be only reserved for the Principal Theme, the one that will sound in contrast to all diegeticals.

3.- Application of the Principal Theme

The Principal Theme is only heard at the beginning of the film, in the credits (and, therefore, is an Initial Theme) and in the last sequence of the picture, from the moment that the amerindian Bromden realizes that his friend has been lobotomized and decides to kill him to liberate him, and it is extended until Bromden escapes through a window and gets lost in the horizon, just before the final credits which, as we'll see, do not have any music.

At first sight it does not have any sense that this music is listened at the beginning of the film, because it is not linked with the place where the plot is developed (it is not, for example, an indian reserve) nor with the main character (who, we insisted, do not have any music for himself). But applied at the final sequence the theme gets all its sense and logical: he is the amerindian man who, finally, liberates the protagonist by killing him. Why, then, to display the Principal Theme at the beginning of the film when its argumental and dramatic logical takes place at the end?.

We'll understand the answer if we consider that one of the advantages in the using of music in the cinema is that music may not necessarily follow the syncronism with the image or the plot: in other words, that it is not necessarily that the music accompase the visual or argumental guidelines of one picture, but instead it can perfectly go ahead from both and take a previous position, as advance. In this case, what it is obtained with the insertion of that music at the beginning is to give it the greater relevance as opposed to the other musics, in such a way that is presented one short version of a melody which, when it gets developed in its complete way (at the end), it already will be well-known and listened by the spectator. At the beginning, that music does not mean really anything; at the end, it means everything. And if there were not have been that beginning, its sudden apparition at the moment where it was necessary had become too much abrupt and unexpected, and it would lack the force that it indeed has thanks to be displayed from the very begining, like an advance or a warning. In a certain way, the composer is marking from the very beginning which is going to be the melody that solves the drama, and he does it on advance to the plot, following the standards that Bernard Herrmann applied in so many of his movies.

The final sequence is, thanks to the music, powerfully strong and touching. But, when the sequence is ended, the final credits -on black- are in silence, without any music (*). Why?. There are two reasons to explain it: first, because to extend the Principal Theme at the final credits wouldn't be logical as the action it accompained (the death of the protagonist and the runaway of his liberador) has already finished; and, secondly, because after the sweeping force of the Nitzsche's music any other music inserted would be, at least, banal and anodyne. For that reason leaving empty of music the final credits served the purposes of emphasizing, even more, that last sequence.

(*) By inexplicable reasons, in one "collector" edition of the movie in DVD at the final credits a musical collage has been inserted, which does not appear in other editions nor, of course, in the original movie.

© Conrado Xalabarder, 2005

Themes from the Soundtrack

1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (01:28) (opening theme) 2. Medication Valse (05:23) 3. Bus Ride to Paradise (04:22) 4. Cruising (02:20) 5. Trolling (03:49) 6. Aloha los pescadores (03:04) 7. Charmaine (06:23) 8. Play the Game (03:52) 9. Last Dance (05:27) 10. Act of Love (01:15) 11. Jingle Bells (02:25) 12. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (03:35)