Even if you hadn’t seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when you were younger, there’s a decent chance you’d seen it referenced in pop culture, whether that was in The Simpsons, early Edgar Wright comedy Spaced, or even Endeavour. However, nothing beats the original.
In the climactic scene of Milos Forman’s award-winning film, Chief Bromden, a mute character only revealed to be able to talk halfway through the film with his laconic phrases ‘Thank you’ and ‘Mmm, juicy fruit’, launches into his longest passage of speech in the film, telling the lobotomised Randle McMurphy that he feels ‘as big as a damn mountain’. Once he realises McMurphy’s condition however, Bromden returns to silence and kills his comrade out of mercy, only issuing a few grunts as he lifts the water fountain and triumphantly hurls it through the glass window to make his escape. Although the loud, joyous cheers of Taber are heard alongside the rising, mighty score, the final image is of a silent Bromden running into the wilderness accompanied only by the sound of a soulful theremin and shaker.
Sound is absolutely essential in cultivating meaning here. There is no soundtrack at all as Bromden realises his friend is no longer there. The first quiet hint of the theremin is heard as he lays McMurphy back on the bed and forces the pillow over his head, shortly after announcing that he’s taking McMurphy with him. After Bromden begins to lift the water fountain, the soundtrack rises into a much grander, louder, and heroic tone as the theremin disappears. It’s a testament to the subtle sound design that, when he finally hurls the object through the glass, there’s no great increase in volume as the material shatters, and the soundtrack retains dominance over diegetic sound as Bromden escapes out the window. We watch the bewildered reactions of the inmates as Taber shouts with delight, but it’s the final image of Bromden running into the distance that has the greatest impact, as the grand sounds disappear and we return to the quiet theremin. The film ends with the same instrument it began with when we saw a car’s headlights appear out of the darkness, with Bromden now returning to that unknown wilderness.
Bromden’s final words in Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel:
‘I remember I was taking huge strides as I ran, seeming to step and float a long ways before my next foot struck the earth. I felt like I was flying. Free.’