One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

[FOREVER LEFT]

Those who are apologists for Hollywood filth and even "independent films" should look twice at the great harm film makers have inflicted on the left.


http://www.filmsite.org/onef.html

[luxemburg89]

thats a shame cos i liked that film - besides if its a protest against the 'stalinist' soviet union rather than a more reformed one im not too bothered. Jack nicholson always makes me laugh.

I get what you're saying though comrade.

[Spartacist]

Look, you have to take Hollywood in toto, one film does not ruin the whole bunch.

I have to say that, even with its indulgence and one million other bullshit features, by-in-large, Hollywood has helped incalcate leftist ideas into the mainstream better than any party propaganda campaign.

[ANARCHINTERN]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 05:05 am
Look, you have to take Hollywood in toto, one film does not ruin the whole bunch.

I have to say that, even with its indulgence and one million other bullshit features, by-in-large, Hollywood has helped incalcate leftist ideas into the mainstream better than any party propaganda campaign.
What about On The Waterfront with Marlon Brando? That film (apart from Brando's acting) is one of the most disastrous films ever imposed on the American worker! It says that unions are not to be trusted.

[1984]

I don't think the story was *aimed* to be an allegory of the USSR - Forman was always ironic on institutions in general, but this kind of approach is ridiculous. Film critics in America often portrait ANY type of "individual vs. authority" tale as a critic to their old Cold War enemy.

It&#39;s a bunch of crap. <_<

(...)

Great movie, by the way.

[anarchista feminista]

I think you can analyse any film to be... just about anything. I understand that everything is in a film for a reason. But I don&#39;t really like to over-analyse anything unless it has specific meanings or it&#39;s just one of those movies you have to think about. I do enough of that sort of thing in English. It ruins my favourite texts. I love film and looking at what techniques makes it effective in portraying different themes. However, I don&#39;t think that looking at every commercialised film and saying "They are against the left because they did this" is the best idea. You&#39;re only ruining brilliant works of art for yourself. I doubt film makers would purposely do this. Any anti-leftist images they may portray would be in most cases unintentional due to the fact that mainstream society actually doesn&#39;t think about the left that much. Alot of people don&#39;t think twice about politics in general. I understand where you are coming from. But I love this film. And I won&#39;t change that just because there may be anti-leftist connotations.

[ANARCHINTERN]

Need I remind everyone that the director was from the former Czechoslavia. Look at the bonus dvd that comes with the film and observe what he says&#33;

[Pirate Utopian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 11:27 pm
I don&#39;t think the story was *aimed* to be an allegory of the USSR - Forman was always ironic on institutions in general, but this kind of approach is ridiculous. Film critics in America often portrait ANY type of "individual vs. authority" tale as a critic to their old Cold War enemy.

It&#39;s a bunch of crap. <_<

(...)

Great movie, by the way.
Agreed.
It&#39;s a good movie too.

[coda]

<<What about On The Waterfront with Marlon Brando? That film (apart from Brando&#39;s acting) is one of the most disastrous films ever imposed on the American worker&#33; It says that unions are not to be trusted>>

Elia Kazan, directer of On The Waterfront narked on all his fellow commie friends to the HUAC during the Hollywood blacklisting and Red Scare.

[Red Flag Rising]

Although Hollywood makes films for money and it has put out 10 tons of crap, I have to agree that, overall, we on the left have benefitted from the kinds of films it has made more than we have suffered from them.

Hollywood has made films celebrating gay people, black people, Native Americans, feminists, it casts bigots as fools and idiots. Capitalists generally come off as the greedy bastards that they are. Fascists always lose. Patriotism is often denigrated (though not nearly enough). Christians are largely portrayed as stupid backwood bigots. Thes are good things&#33;

When was the last time you saw an anti-communist or anti-socialist movie come out of Hollywood? I can&#39;t think of many outside the dumb Rambo genre. You cannot make a movie in Hollywood that denegrates Nelson Mandela or MLK or Malcom X. Castro has never been the subject of a hostile film from Hollywood, has he?

When you consider what we could be seeing come out of Hollywood, that&#39;s a good record.

[FOREVER LEFT]

Originally posted by Red Flag [email protected] 08, 2007 05:47 am
Although Hollywood makes films for money and it has put out 10 tons of crap, I have to agree that, overall, we on the left have benefitted from the kinds of films it has made more than we have suffered from them.

Hollywood has made films celebrating gay people, black people, Native Americans, feminists, it casts bigots as fools and idiots. Capitalists generally come off as the greedy bastards that they are. Fascists always lose. Patriotism is often denigrated (though not nearly enough). Christians are largely portrayed as stupid backwood bigots. Thes are good things&#33;

When was the last time you saw an anti-communist or anti-socialist movie come out of Hollywood? I can&#39;t think of many outside the dumb Rambo genre. You cannot make a movie in Hollywood that denegrates Nelson Mandela or MLK or Malcom X. Castro has never been the subject of a hostile film from Hollywood, has he?

When you consider what we could be seeing come out of Hollywood, that&#39;s a good record.
You obviously haven&#39;t seen those supreme masterpieces (sarcasm intended) Before Night Falls and Doctor Zhivago, Heartbreak Ridge, Red Dawn, Green Berets etc. Check it out sometime. Check out also Parenti&#39;s book Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment.

[Red Flag Rising]

You obviously haven&#39;t seen those supreme masterpieces (sarcasm intended) Before Night Falls and Doctor Zhivago, Heartbreak Ridge, Red Dawn, Green Berets etc. Check it out sometime. Check out also Parenti&#39;s book Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment.

Of course I know about those films, they go into the pile of crap I talked about, but you tell me, how many anti-communist films has Hollywood made overall? Compare them to the number of anti-fascist films made? Will Hollywood make an outright racist film? Will it make an outright fascist film or an anti-gay film or even a pro-Republican Party film? NO.

Am I saying that Hollywood is a bastion of Marxism? No. It is a for profit industry and it is full of terrible things. But, look at the thing objectivly. Hollywood has advanced leftist thoughts and sentiments, that cannot be denied.

Having grown up in the film community and having parents who worked most of their lives there, I can tell you that there are many, many, many Marxists and socialists and progressives there doing good work. It may not be PERFECT work, but it is good.

[FOREVER LEFT]

Originally posted by Red Flag [email protected] 08, 2007 11:31 pm

You obviously haven&#39;t seen those supreme masterpieces (sarcasm intended) Before Night Falls and Doctor Zhivago, Heartbreak Ridge, Red Dawn, Green Berets etc. Check it out sometime. Check out also Parenti&#39;s book Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment.

Of course I know about those films, they go into the pile of crap I talked about, but you tell me, how many anti-communist films has Hollywood made overall? Compare them to the number of anti-fascist films made? Will Hollywood make an outright racist film? Will it make an outright fascist film or an anti-gay film or even a pro-Republican Party film? NO.

Am I saying that Hollywood is a bastion of Marxism? No. It is a for profit industry and it is full of terrible things. But, look at the thing objectivly. Hollywood has advanced leftist thoughts and sentiments, that cannot be denied.

Having grown up in the film community and having parents who worked most of their lives there, I can tell you that there are many, many, many Marxists and socialists and progressives there doing good work. It may not be PERFECT work, but it is good.
Hollywood has done plenty of racist films from Birth of a Nation (during the silent era) to the postmodern Black Hawk Down and Apocalypto

And of course the other dishonorable mentions:

Gone with the Wind


Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom


Out of Africa

Rules of Engagement

etc. etc. too many to count

As for Homophobic films:


Tea & Sympathy

Midnight Cowboy

Ode to Billy Joe

Murder by Death

The Warriors

Braveheart

etc. etc. too many too count

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_and_Sympathy

[Pirate Utopian]

The Warriors is awesome&#33;, is that homophobic because 1 dude who ends up arrested anyway says faggot twice?, lame reason.

But discriminative movies could come from Hollywood yeah but you can also overanalyse movies.
I dont see anyone applying Marxism to Scary Movie 3.

[FOREVER LEFT]

Originally posted by Big [email protected] 09, 2007 07:56 pm
The Warriors is awesome&#33;, is that homophobic because 1 dude who ends up arrested anyway says faggot twice?, lame reason.

But discriminative movies could come from Hollywood yeah but you can also overanalyse movies.
I dont see anyone applying Marxism to Scary Movie 3.
Oh yeah???? Why don&#39;t you read How To Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic by Ariel Dorfman, Ph.D.
That book was banned in Chile September 11, 1973 and in AmeriKKKa. It was published in Cuba because they have balls.


http://www.alexandriaslibrary.com/shop_ima...duct/015528.jpg (http://www.alexandriaslibrary.com/shop_image/product/015528.jpg)


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/t...tintheandes.jpg (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/30/Lostintheandes.jpg/250px-Lostintheandes.jpg)

http://www.newint.org/issue188/Images/duckpic.gif


http://www.bbcf.ca/_assets/dorfman1.jpg

http://www.adorfman.duke.edu/

[Raúl Duke]

Well...since we are in the topic about hollywood....

One thing I dislike is the idea shown in many movies; that capitalism would still exist in the future (I mean in a "universal" sense, that is that the movie doesn&#39;t mention "an alternative" such as "oh, in x country they have a technocratic economy" or "Y country has actually made communism work&#33;", etc, etc)

I was playing this game and it was based on 21XX (or some post 21 century time) and corporations still exist, even though the game mentions something like a "collapse" in electronics which, although not mentioned, would of course affect the economy negatively enough to incite a revolution somewhere...

In my opinion, Hollywood movies sometimes have the effect of "liberalizing" the people; yet rarely do they ever push a socialist/marxist/communist/anarchist affect on people. I doubt that movies have actually "contributed to the left". Also, as FOREVER LEFT points out, there has been many times that hollywood has made downright reactionary crap.

Now...about the movie "One Flew Over The Cukoo&#39;s Nest"; well, the critic in the link says that the whole struggle thing is "reminicent to rebellion against Stalinism" but when I watched that movie stalinism was farthest away from my mind. Nothing in the movie made me think about what this critic was thinking. However, I did notice overtones of "the individual rebelling against authority". However, its not that individualistic either. Overtime Jack Nicholson&#39;s character tries to get the other patients to join in his struggle and enjoy themselves while doing that (since the authority above them don&#39;t let them enjoy themselves). However, notice, where is this struggle occuring? IN AN AMERICAN (not russian) mental hospital. When I saw this movie I saw it as a critique of mental hospitals, psychiatry, etc. during the time (however, similar movies are still made...like K-Pax). It even seems to demonstrate that what Jack Nicholson character is doing (both the rebelling and the joy-riding) seems to be more "theurapetic" than what the mental hospital is doing.

[bezdomni]

My friend&#39;s uncle wrote that One Flew Over the Cuckoo&#39;s Nest&#33; :D


It was published in Cuba because they have balls.
That is discriminatory language, my friend.

[Pirate Utopian]

Originally posted by FOREVER LEFT+May 09, 2007 09:10 pm--> (FOREVER LEFT @ May 09, 2007 09:10 pm)
Big [email protected] 09, 2007 07:56 pm
The Warriors is awesome&#33;, is that homophobic because 1 dude who ends up arrested anyway says faggot twice?, lame reason.

But discriminative movies could come from Hollywood yeah but you can also overanalyse movies.
I dont see anyone applying Marxism to Scary Movie 3.
Oh yeah???? Why don&#39;t you read How To Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic by Ariel Dorfman, Ph.D.
That book was banned in Chile September 11, 1973 and in AmeriKKKa. It was published in Cuba because they have balls.


http://www.alexandriaslibrary.com/shop_ima...duct/015528.jpg (http://www.alexandriaslibrary.com/shop_image/product/015528.jpg)


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/t...tintheandes.jpg (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/30/Lostintheandes.jpg/250px-Lostintheandes.jpg)

http://www.newint.org/issue188/Images/duckpic.gif


http://www.bbcf.ca/_assets/dorfman1.jpg

http://www.adorfman.duke.edu/ [/b]
What the fuck does Donald Duck have to with my post?&#33; :blink:

[coda]

The author ken kesey was an icon of the 1960&#39;s counter-culture, notorious for the Merry Pranksters & Electric kool-aid acid tests. he wrote the book as a literal interpretation of the struggle between authority and psychiatric patient. also could be viewed as the common person against the Establishment with anti-American elements rather than anti-Soviet. The film is wrong decade for anti-Soviet propaganda-- everything in the 1970&#39;s was centered around East Asia -- Vietnam & Cambodia. for anti-soviet propaganda look to the 1980&#39;s & anything done during the Reagan administration.

http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/kesey.html

you&#39;re asking a lot expecting Hollywood to make pro-leftist films.. why on earth would they want to do that? They are all about Capitalism.