What is the theme of Flying Over the Madhouse and what social problems are reflected?

First of all, about the background of this film.

(1) Original background

Flying over the madhouse was originally written by American writer Ken? In the novel published by Cauchy 1962, the author compares the American social system with the madhouse, and the whole text is full of strong anti-system and individual freedom. In the 1960s, when the novel was published, American society was in chaos. After World War II, the Cold War between the East and the West, McCarthyism, the black civil rights movement advocated by Martin Luther King, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War, more and more writers, poets and singers gathered in the corresponding art fields to express their disappointment and dissatisfaction with the American system in the 1960s with words and music. The absurd era has made a number of masterpieces in the history of American literature: Catch-22 (Joseph. Heller), Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt. Vonnegut) ..

(2) Film background

Director Milos? Foreman made a movie based on this novel after 12 years (1974), because Milos? Foreman's personal complex ideological background makes this movie of the same name seem to have a more profound and unique significance. Perhaps only by understanding the director's personal background can Milos be better interpreted? What was Foreman's motivation for making such an anti-establishment film in the 1970s? There was Allen in the United States in the 1950s. The "beat generation" represented by Ginsburg, Kruja and Salinger's Good Girl, the hippies who called for "love, freedom and peace" in 1960s and the "lost generation" headed by the flower girl, the American youth in 1970s were called "hedonistic generation" by historians.

Milos? Foreman is from the Czech Republic. His Jewish father and Puritan mother died in Nazi concentration camps in World War II. His relatives in Prague grew up and graduated from Prague Theatre and Music Institute. (Excellent Czech director Schwarzra and his son "Jingjing School Tree" were born here.) His early film works in the Czech Republic showed their sharpness, such as Black Peter (1964), Blonde Love (1965) and Fair Man's Ball (/kloc-0 The growing freedom of artistic creation in the Czech Republic in the 1960 s made Milos? Foreman planned to develop his film career in Prague all the time, but in 1968, as Soviet tanks roared into Prague, Milos? Foreman was forced to flee to France. This is the famous Prague Spring in modern history.

Maybe Milos can be found in Prague Spring? Furman gave the film another profound meaning-not only the individual's rebellion against the system (the confrontation between the individual and the society), but also the Czech rebellion against the socialist alliance controlled by the Soviet Union! (the confrontation between weak countries and powerful countries)

(3) Prague Spring

1968 is the year of Czechoslovakia in modern history. This small central European country is famous for its Prague Spring and has become a star on the world political stage.

1 On the evening of August 20th, 968, at 1 1 point, there were 24 divisions (16 Soviet Union Division, 3 Polish Divisions, 2 East German Divisions, 2 Hungarian Divisions and1Bulgarian Divisions) under the command of General pavlovsky, Deputy Minister of Defense of the Soviet Union. ) Instantly occupied Prague, the capital of Czech Republic, in the form of blitzkrieg. The occupying forces rushed into the building of the Czech Party Central Committee and detained the country's top leader, the first secretary of Czech Republic? Dubcek Smrkovsky, President of the National Assembly; Cernik, the prime minister of the government, was also arrested at the seat of the government. It was precisely because of the Prague Spring incident in the Czech Republic that Soviet leader Brezhnev was furious and attacked Prague.

1953 Stalin's death marked the end of the political terror and power control of the socialist alliance in Stalin's era. 1On February 25th, 956, Khrushchev, the first secretary of the Soviet Union, accused Stalin of dictatorship and bloody atrocities at the 20th Congress of the Soviet Union held in the Kremlin. Khrushchev accused Stalin of his crimes, while sending troops to suppress the little brothers in the socialist alliance of East Germany, Poland and Hungary. They tried to resist and get rid of the mercy of the Soviet Union.

Some new voices began to appear in the Czech Republic, and some writers acted as pioneers in calling for freedom. 1967 On June 27th, at the Fourth Writers' Congress in Czechoslovakia, party member writers (also famous writers who later wrote The Unbearable Lightness of Life and Living Elsewhere) met in Milan? The topics of "freedom and autocracy, humanity and inhumanity" put forward by Kundera and "political terror and autocracy" put forward by Vachurica pushed the meeting to a climax. Anti-autocracy, democracy; Anti-Stalinism and Humanism; Anti-censorship and calling for freedom of culture and the press have become the theme of this meeting.

Novotny, then the first secretary of the Czech Republic, was a true admirer of Stalin. He imitated Stalin everywhere: he designed himself a Stalin-style marshal uniform; Also, with the same dignity, I closed my mouth and held a Stalinist pipe. He flew into a rage at the writers' conference and launched a full-scale counterattack against "spreading opinions and ideas that are harmful to socialism and out of step with the * * * production party". Subsequently, several writers were expelled from the Party, and the Writers' Association Literature Newspaper was placed under the direct leadership of the Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Culture. The editors of 19 were all dismissed and restricted to talk about reform in newspapers. Some so-called "reformers" were forbidden to speak publicly.

At this time, dubcek, a member of the Czech Presidium, began to oppose the wave of cultural autocracy and repression in novotny. Advocate reform, including separation of party and government and economic reform. After several fierce political confrontations, dubcek, a politician who did not hold the power of the party, government and army, finally became the new national leader in April 1968, because he won the support of most people in China. He put forward a program of action for democracy and freedom.

At the same time, the writer Wa Ciulica also wrote the most dazzling 2000-word declaration in Prague Spring-"The main sin and biggest scam of rulers is that they describe their arrogance as the will of the working class." "It is not the people's criticism and opposition that weakens the authority of the * * * production party, but the system itself." ...

The declaration aroused great anger in the Soviet Union. Under the auspices of the Soviet Union, the leaders of the five Warsaw Pact countries jointly wrote a letter to dubcek, saying that "the reactionary forces used the weakness of the Czech leadership to confuse the people by abusing the slogan of' democratization' and launched a movement against the Czechoslovak * * * production party and its loyal and reliable cadres, with the obvious purpose of canceling the leadership of the party. Subverting the socialist system ... Anti-socialist and revisionist forces have extended their black hands to newspapers, radio and television, turning them into platforms for attacking the * * * production party ... This is precisely why reactionaries can use the "two-word manifesto" to issue a call to the whole country and make their political programs public. This statement bluntly calls for opposing the * * * production party and the legitimate government and inciting strikes and riots. Therefore, we believe that it is not only your task to resolutely repel the attack of anti-forces and defend the socialist system in Czechoslovakia. This is also our task. "

Dubcek categorically denied these allegations in his reply. Then the two sides began a long negotiation and dispute. After several rounds of meetings, no agreement was reached. In August, the above scene appeared. In Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Life, we can also see that the writer talked about the Prague Spring and the Soviet invasion many times.

Shortly after the Soviet invasion, writers, filmmakers, intellectuals and other cultural figures in Prague fled Prague where Soviet troops were stationed and went to France. Including film director Milos? Male foreman

Second, the fable theory of the madhouse

The most enjoyable and important thing to understand movies is to decipher the rich metaphors and microscopic symbols in movies. This part is called fable theory because it quotes some authoritative people's interpretation of the symbolic meaning of movies. Foucault, a post-structuralist theorist, put forward in his book "Madness and Civilization-A History of Mental Illness in the Rational Age" that "the modern mental hospital is an important authority of civilized society." Foucault's madhouse foreshadows a classic fable about modern civilized society. We know that no matter what kind of institutions, from big countries to small mental hospitals, have their own set of structural characteristics. The architecture of the madhouse shown in the film is a symbolic epitome of bourgeois society and its values. The relationship between family and children is centered on the majesty of the father, the relationship between illegality and punishment is centered on direct justice, and the relationship between madness and insanity is centered on social and moral order. "It is not difficult to see that madness and madhouse lie in Foucault, which has undoubtedly become a fable about modern capitalist society. In Foucault's view, madhouses and prisons are not only models of civilized society, but also models of western culture. Because of its unique material selection and sensational effect in the American film industry, this film has aroused people's continuous concern and interest in allegorical interpretation. In an insightful article, some domestic theorists discussed in detail the significance of film as a language to the existing American system. The critic believes that this film contains the "deepening order" alleged by head nurse Rachel and the "rebellion myth" alleged by Indian chiefs and McMurphy. The commentator pointed out that it was Mike Murphy who occupied the entry between order and rebellion. " He is locked in the existing system like a madhouse, and the core of his desire is to escape and rebel from this alienated cage. As the product of this system itself, the result of escape and resistance can only be regarded as the power of self-declaration, in order to punish and be deprived of the ability of will and behavior. "It is the lunatics in the madhouse who occupy the disorderly/non-rebellious project. They "constitute a strange and universal semantic-social relationship" and "they don't obey and trust the rationality and reliability of the existing system, but they are unable to completely break and escape from one of the alienated orders. "As an order/non-rebellion item, it is the head nurse Lachard." As the patron saint and manager of the existing system, its duty and function are non-rebellious, that is, to curb all those who have rebellious intentions to blaspheme, destroy and escape the order itself. "She is synonymous with conventional order. On the surface, she manages and treats the madman as a healer. In essence, she is a kind of repression and extinction of patients' pursuit of freedom. "She is a rebel who suppresses and rewrites crazy people." As a rebel/disorderly person, that is, an uncompromising rebel, it is the Indian chief who is the "only escapee" in the film. "His escape shows that he is not a product of this existing system: in essence, in the plot system of the film, he represents a greeting that is not American culture and full of primitive vitality. He always pretends to be deaf and dumb, and keeps silent, only at the semantic level, which symbolizes that he is out of tune with the cultural order in which he is deeply involved, so in fact, he does not accept Lachal's management and rewriting of the right to speak. Because he was not an individual created by this system at all, he became the only escapee among all beings.

The novel of the same name refers to the American-style social system with a madhouse, which has a strong anti-institutional meaning. Because the director of this film is Milos, an immigrant director who fled from Czechoslovakia to the United States in the late 1960s? Adapted by Foreman, its complex ideological background casts a special luster on the film, which seems to have more spatial scales to guess. Hollywood made a big fuss about his situation, as if flying over the madhouse was an allusion to the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. However, the statement that the madhouse in this film is a microcosm of the morbid and depressed industrialized society in the United States has been highly praised by mainstream film critics. In fact, this film exposes America's own "dirty laundry". The mental hospital depicted in the film is a microcosm of the morbid and depressed society in America. As some critics have pointed out: "The film reveals the ills of capitalist civilized society-suppressing human nature and binding freedom with shocking pictures. The modern management society is terrible and has a great influence on European and American audiences. "

However, since this film is defined as a wise and inspiring anti-institutional film, why is it "appreciated by the system"? Since he is an anti-myth film that runs counter to the traditional Hollywood film language, why did he win five Oscars in one fell swoop? Next, we will make an in-depth and systematic analysis from the structure of this film.

Third, the film structure of Flying Over the Madhouse

(A), character analysis and character structure

1, Mike Murphy

Murphy is a warm-blooded young man who was not mentally ill but accidentally broke into a mental hospital. His nature of loving freedom and not liking restraint led to his various rebellious behaviors, which led him to turn a seemingly peaceful mental hospital upside down. In the madhouse in the movie, what is reflected is a kind of concealed depression. It seems that the atmosphere is harmonious and the light is soft, but in fact, the space is heavily bound, which has evolved into a spiritual shackle and bound the rules and regulations of individual freedom. McMurphy easily hit the fragility of the seemingly perfect madhouse in the quiet world. As soon as he entered the madhouse, when the guards untied his handcuffs, he began to cheer and kiss the guard company excitedly. Obviously, this is suspected of playing dumb, but it is a heartfelt cheer for freedom. He asked the music to be silent from the beginning, instead of swallowing nameless pills under the music like others. Murphy was the first person who asked to watch the baseball broadcast of the World Cup alone. He was the first to try to raise the seemingly indestructible groundwater level and say, "But I tried, didn't I?" "; It was he who led everyone to play cards and basketball, injecting new vitality into the lifeless madhouse; He was the first person to climb out and steal a car and take all the crazy people to the seaside to play. Fishing at sea is undoubtedly the most beautiful part of this film. Instantly shook many inherent paranoid thoughts, fell apart, and won the laughter in the depths of human hearts. Freedom and happiness have subtly cured the tired mind, and the life breath and movement rhythm shown by the lunatics almost blur the audience's prejudice and definition of them.

What McMurphy broke was a ritual. After he arrived, the procedures of taking medicine and meeting psychotherapy were questioned. Although he looks a little uneducated and has all the evils of a rogue proletarian, two things are indisputable: advocating freedom and sympathizing with the weak. Although McMurphy's request was rejected by Rashid every time, McMurphy's actions undoubtedly touched those crazy people who kept repeating these programs mechanically. So that they can have a new reaction in the face of this non-violent repression. Murphy seems to be full of vitality and impulse of life. He tried his best to make patients feel that freedom can be obtained and desire should be released. Based on this belief, frank murphy even lent his girlfriend to Billy temporarily. "Honey, just once, just think of him as me." His two escapes were delayed for Billy's sake. Finally, he was brutally protein-cut and became a complete idiot.

2. Head nurse Lachard

Lachard, the head nurse, is a symbol of absolute authority. She manages and maintains order in the hospital. Judging from the expression she showed in the film, most of the time she was a quiet and dignified expression. She has a good grasp of the whole situation. She dispatches patients in this standardized world. She is familiar with their weaknesses. Although she never understands them from the perspective of human nature, she never shows heartfelt concern and consideration for patients. Once patients have doubts about their rules and regulations, they will always cunningly find various reasons to prevaricate. When Murphy asks to turn down the music so as not to affect people's normal conversation, Lachard will smile kindly and put off the fact that the rules and regulations can't be casual. When Murphy and others asked to watch the World Cup live on TV, she asked to vote under the guise of democracy. All the patients were afraid to raise their hands under her arrogance until the director raised his hand to collect enough tickets under Murphy's lobbying. She refused to turn on the TV on the pretext that time was up.

She always holds the decision-making power and holds weekly group therapy seminars to discuss meaningless problems.

She showed her true colors twice, once when Murphy pretended to explain a game that didn't actually exist, and once when she saw Billy and Edie lying naked in bed. In dealing with Billy, she also represents the image of a vicious mother. She cursed Billy fiercely and threatened him with her mother. Even after Billy committed suicide under her threat, she quietly closed the door and said, "Quiet, what we can do now is to go back to our daily life."

3. Indian chiefs

As a minority who walked out of the virgin forest, the chief rebelled against the mainstream discourse right of the United States. As a mental patient without mental illness, he also resisted the management composed of normal people. So he pretended to be deaf and dumb, refused to communicate with anyone, and was in a state of "material desire". In fact, the chief's heart is very lonely, and his heart is full of longing. We can pay attention to several details in the film. When Murphy first came to talk to him, his cold face was indifferent. Murphy cast a curious glance when he was preparing to move the water table (perhaps he had never seen such a dynamic and rebellious person before); Murphy raised his hand hesitantly when he encouraged everyone to raise their hands to vote for the baseball game. When Murphy stood on him, he turned out a happy smile on the courtyard wall; When Murphy was subdued by the guards, he bravely saved him; Playing basketball is stiff at first and becomes active and happy; When he first said "thank you" to Murphy, that simple sentence seemed to contain a lot, including trust, gratitude and admiration for Murphy.

Finally, when the chief said, "I can't just leave you, let's go," he suffocated Murphy, who had become an idiot, with tears in his eyes. By releasing the shackles of his body, he let McMurphy's soul return to the jungle with him, and lifted the hydraulic platform that McMurphy threatened to lift before he died, but he didn't have the strength to lift it, and used it to break the shackles and break the glass, flying over McMurphy with the inexplicable cheers of the patients.

What has to be mentioned here is that the extinction of Indians is the starting point of the history of American glory and dreams, and it is also an indelible stroke. In Fly, the chieftain, as the natural enemy of American society, is undoubtedly a successful misleading of the film image cognitive system and a lie effect realized by mainstream discourse.

Step 3 stick

Patient Billy is a meaningful footnote figure. This image aroused the audience's infinite sympathy and recognition with his weak and thin figure like a child, a pair of big clear eyes full of fear and unbearable stuttering. From many dialogues in the film, we can see that Billy's incomplete language ability is his psychological index as a minor and the creation of his possessive demon mother. He has a girl he likes, but he is afraid to confess because he is afraid of his mother. He is a figure who escapes from reality, refuses the truth and treats life negatively. His mother's absence brought him great pressure. In fact, the cure for Billy is very simple. Giving him a woman who doesn't need to embellish and love too much can make him bid farewell to his timid childhood and become a real man. After the carnival night, when the head nurse found Belgium sleeping with a beautiful woman in her arms, when she stopped hiding her fierce face, Billy in the foreground showed a bright smile. He said fluently and bravely, "I can explain everything." However, the insidious Rachel pulled Billy's mother out again and threatened him: "I'm worried about what your mother will think." Billy, who has become a man and recovered his language ability, became tongue-tied again and finally knelt down in front of Rachel and begged. In despair and fear, he committed suicide. In fact, the role of Billy had a great influence on Murphy-Mike Murphy's escape, a seemingly easy action, was postponed twice because of Billy, and it was postponed forever because of Billy. In a sense, McMurphy sacrificed himself for the disadvantage. Billy, as a weak person, embodies the non-freedom of human nature under the compulsory regime system.

4. Other patients

It is the epitome of a numb group of people in a typical capitalist society. Take medicine and sleep at a fixed time all day, until Murphy's arrival makes them realize that life doesn't have to be the same, and they can also enjoy sunshine, exercise and passion. With a strong sense of alienation and Murphy's enlightenment, they began to be dissatisfied with the hospital and sprouted their conscious pursuit of freedom. The dramatic scene is that when Murphy introduces the ship's managers one by one: these are doctors from the National Institute of Psychiatry, and they behave more like doctors than doctors. This is really a great irony. I can't help thinking of a joke. The police searched the airport for mental patients everywhere. After a busy day, they finally found three people. I have investigated, and the results are unexpected: they are all psychiatrists. When Murphy bluffed at a closed TV, the patients cheered wildly; When they came back full of fishing boats, they cheered wildly; When Murphy brought two women and wine to the farewell party, they cheered wildly; However, when Murphy's white matter was removed and he became an idiot, they were calm again. There were only a few speculations that Murphy had escaped. When the chief broke the glass and escaped from the madhouse, they cheered wildly again. ...

About the theme of this film

(A), satirizing the theme of the social system

The real society or American capitalist society is like a madhouse. Managers are like head nurses in movies, squeezing patients' self-esteem and passion with absolute authority and dominance. If you are not a "madman" as defined by them-for example, uneducated Mike Murphy, then they will eventually turn you into a "madman" with no sense of resistance-by removing white matter to remove your resistance and resistance, so as to conform to their order and laws.

(2) the theme of freedom and rebellion

Murphy seems to be full of vitality and impulse of life. He tried his best to make patients feel that freedom can be obtained and desire should be released. But patients who have been numb for too long realize again that some rights should be defended by themselves and some needs should be fought for by themselves.

(3) The theme of escaping from modern society and returning to primitive nature.

From the end of the film, the chief who helped Murphy to be free smashed the window and ran to the horizon with endless morning light. We can appreciate a theme of escaping from modern society and returning to primitive nature.

(3) Analogy related film "The Shawshank Redemption".

There are many similarities between the two films.

First, the men in both films lost their freedom and were imprisoned. One went to prison, and the other went to an insane asylum. There are not many essential differences between the two places, especially in the performance of the film. In prison, he is actually innocent, but in the madhouse, he is actually a normal person. The protagonists of the two films have a bosom friend in this place where freedom is restricted. Andy's good friend is Rhett, and Murphy's good friend is a burly Indian chief. These two good friends are very important to the protagonist in the play. ...

Secondly, both films reveal the American-style dogmatic social system at that time, which is also the most important spiritual similarity between the two films.

Prisons and madhouses are surrounded by several high walls, and people lose their freedom inside. In fact, outside these high walls, there are higher and bigger invisible walls. The expression of the film compares prisons and madhouses to the epitome of society at that time. The social system at that time restricted people's thoughts and freedom, and the purpose was undoubtedly to make everyone obey the ruling class at that time. Although some ideas are correct and vivid, they violate the rules and regulations formulated by the ruling class, but they just can't. Both places seem to be transforming people, but what kind of people have really succeeded in "transforming"? People who don't have their own thoughts and opinions, such as idiots and walking dead, may be what they need.

There is such a representative of the ruling class in both films. Xiao, the well-dressed warden, and the head nurse's fee, which is always dignified and respected on the surface, indirectly led to the suicide of the last patient who had just completed the "adult ceremony". When Murphy rushed at her like a madman and grabbed her by the neck with his big blue hand, the audience felt more or less indescribable joy.

Third, the endings of movies are perfect or close to perfect. Andy and Rhett in Shaw are both free. Andy spent 19 years digging tunnels and then climbed sewers as long as five football fields. Unexpectedly, Rhett, who was freed again, was finally paroled and they started a new life on the beautiful Mexican coast.

Murphy in the movie Flying ended up being an idiot. The chief covered him with a pillow in tears, and then with his will, he lifted the water table that he could not lift before his death with his strong body, smashed the prison window symbolizing dogmatism and ran to the place where the sun first rose.

Such a happy ending is hard-won, and it is the freedom that the protagonist finally got back through hardships. This is also the hope symbolized by the film.

-From Douban Film Review