Saul Zaentz, Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher and Michael Douglas
Academy Awards, 1976
(Source: meryl-fever, via smiling-having-fun)
hotelbizarro:
Jack Nicholson & Sean Penn
100 Favourite Film Characters | A-Z
Melvin Udall - As Good As It Gets Played by Jack Nicholson
“I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you’re the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and how you are with Spencer, “Spence,” and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that’s all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you, and I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food, and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me.”
And I dedicate my 3000th to five of my favourite people ♥
100 Favourite Film Characters | A-Z
Mark Forman - Heartburn Played by Jack Nicholson
Rachel: Let’s be sensible. We’re happy now; if we get married we’ll ruin everything. The minute you get married you start to drive each other crazy.
Mark: That’ll never happen with us.
Rachel: Why not?
Mark: Because you already drive me crazy.
(Source: bellecs, via jackassnicholson)
Jack Nicholson: Well, a younger woman is a type, but not necessarily a type for me. And what is a younger woman? I mean, I’m pretty old. Almost everyone is younger.
Award Notes
Nicholson won an Oscar for his performance. When he accepted, he said, “This proves there are as many nuts in the Academy as anywhere else.”
Fletcher won the Best Actress Oscar and a Golden Globe for her performance.
Cuckoo’s Nest won Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, and Actress. It was the first movie to win all five of the major awards since It Happened One Night in 1934.
Biography Notes
Cuckoo’s Nest’s score was composed by Jack Nitzsche. He was recommended by Michael Douglas’s good friend, Art Garfunkel.
Jack Nicholson is a huge basketball fan in real life. He usually sits courtside at L.A. Lakers games.
Will Sampson (Chief) was 6’5”.
Casting Notes
Louise Fletcher was cast as Nurse Ratched after filmmakers saw her in Thieves Like Us (1974).
Jack Nicholson had wanted to be in Cuckoo’s Nest ever since Ken Kesey’s book came out. He even tried to get the rights to the book when Kirk Douglas already had them.
Dean Brooks (Dr. Spivey) was the actual superintendent of Oregon State Hospital.
Sydney Lassick got the role of Cheswick in part because he wore a rope as a belt to the audition.
Will Sampson (Chief) had never acted before Cuckoo’s Nest. Director Milos Forman said it was a “nightmare” trying to find a Native American tall enough to play Chief.
Nurse Pilbow is played by Mimi Sarkisian. This is her only movie, but she was also in the play.
Mel Lambert (Harbor Master) is not an actor. He’s a car salesman. He got the part when he happened to sit next to producer Michael Douglas on a plane.
Louise Fletcher only got the role of Nurse Ratched a week before shooting began. Anne Bancroft, Colleen Dewhurst, Geraldine Page and Angela Lansbury all turned down the role.
Finance Notes
Earning almost $300 million, Cuckoo’s Nest was the 7th highest grossing film of all time when it came out.
Location Note
Almost all of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was shot at Oregon State Hospital in Salem, Oregon.
Plot Notes
The scars on McMurphy’s forehead mean that he’s had a lobotomy. Director Milos Forman wishes he had made that more clear.
McMurphy couldn’t beat the system. The Chief realized his only real escape was death.
Pop Culture Notes
AFI lists Nurse Ratched as their No. 5 movie villain of all time.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) is ranked No. 20 on AFI’s Top 100 Movies of the 20th Century.
President Barack Obama says One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is his favorite movie.
Quote Notes
Vincent Schiavelli said, “You had to be in this movie who you would be if you were insane.”
When Nicholson first arrived on set, he was disturbed by how realistic the rest of the cast was. He ran outside and asked, “Do they ever break character?”
Jack Nicholson says his character’s tragic flaw is that he thinks he’s “…irresistible to women. He expects Nurse Ratched to be seduced by him.”
Nicholson says he normally doesn’t “have much trouble slipping out of a film role. But here I don’t go home from a movie studio, I go home from a mental institution.”
Screenwriter Bo Goldman says Nurse Ratched has a “doctorate in the institute of passive aggression.”
Set Notes
Dean Brooks read the report on McMurphy for the first time as the cameras were rolling.
Nicholson really tried to lift the water fountain. He had scrapes on his arms.
Louise Fletcher got so into her role, she started commanding the patients off screen too. When they would all go out to dinner, Fletcher told everyone where to sit.
Sydney Lassick (Cheswick) got so into his role that producers became concerned. Doctors said, “If things get out of control, we have the proper medication.”
Source Notes
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was also made into a Broadway play. Kirk Douglas played the lead role of R.P. McMurphy.
Nurse Ratched didn’t have a first name in the book. Louise Fletcher chose “Mildred” herself.
Symbolism Notes
McMurphy represents change and the counter-culture movement of the 1960s. He symbolizes freedom, and the institution symbolizes oppression.
The initials for R.P McMurphy spell out RPM, or “revolutions per minute.” As a rebel inside the institution, McMurphy is trying to create a “revolution” every minute.
Louise Fletcher says Nurse Ratched’s old-fashioned hair style shows how uptight she is. It’s also no coincidence that it resembles the horns of the devil.
Trivia Notes
The movie title comes from a Mother Goose nursery rhyme called “Vintery, Mintery, Cutery, Corn.”
The author of the book, Ken Kesey, wrote Cuckoo’s Nest while working at a mental institution.
I think most of these facts are from the Behind the Scenes documentary, but there’s more all nicely summarised here.
When the jumbotron at the Los Angeles Lakers game announced to the crowd that it was Jack Nicholson’s 75th birthday yesterday, there were unprecedented cheers from both sets of fans.
Then, the entire crowd stood to honour the longterm season-ticket holder, who though clearly touched… responded with typical, insouciant charm.
Nicholson has been sitting courtside for the legendary Californian basketball team since the 1970s, so he deserved the applause.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2134069/Jack-Nicholson-celebrates-75th-birthday-LA-Lakers-game—gets-standing-ovation.html#ixzz1t50EydI5