Cookuk's Nest

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I think, that the title of the movie "One Flew Over the Cookuk's Nest" has some hidden meaning. Can sambody give a good explanation?
 

rewboss

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It's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".

The meaning of the title is actually explained by the book. It's a chant the narrator's grandmother used to say:

One flew east, one flew west,
One flew over the cuckoo's nest.
O U T spells "out",
Goose swoops down
And plucks you out.

Chants like this are often used by children to select one player for a specific role in a game. One player would chant, while pointing at each player in turn in time to the chant. Whoever was being pointed to on the final syllable was "out" -- i.e., eliminated, and the process continued until only one player was left.
 

beascarpetta

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there are probably many different takes on this
The movie is based on K.Kesey's famour novel "One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest"
The title is part of a nursery rhyme which Chief Bromden remembers from his Native American grandmother.

Actually, there is no such thing as a cuckoo's nest. As critics tend to agree, Kesey may have suggested that the lunatic asylum is only a fake because it's supposed to help the people inside, which it does not.
The people that have been committed do not really need medical treatment.They are perfectly normal but the world makes them think they are not, as is the case with Billy.
One also has to keep in mind that since the cuckoo bird borrows other birds' nests, it does not raise any chicks of its own.
The cuckoo's offspring is taken care of by other birds at the expense of the other's birds' offspring, because the cuckoo bird kills them when it hatches.
For further information go there

hope this helps
 

Ouisch

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An unfortunate slang term to describe a mentally ill person is "cuckoo." The mental hospital in the book/movie was colloquially referred to as a "cuckoo's nest."
 

David L.

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"He is cuckoo" is a slang expression for being mentally ill.
Therefore, a mental hospital is full of "cuckoo" patients.
They are (supposedly) nursed and well-tended, as they are unable to do so for themselves - similar to young chicks in a nest who must be looked after by the mother bird (Nurse Ratchet)
In comes Jack Nicholson, who refuses to be institutionalized (=made to fit in like a good, uncomplaining, compliant patient.) and rebels. Rather than settling into the routine - and in effect, becoming more "cuckoo" being there, just like had happened to the other patients - he defies Nurse Ratchet and breaks out of the place...or in the words of the nursery rhythm, "flew over the cuckoo nest" (the hospital ward) instead of nestling even deeper and deeper into it (institutionalization).
It's so long since I've seen this movie...but didn't all the patients get rounded up after their day of freedom...and wasn't Jack Nicholson 'dealt with' by means of a chemical straightjacket (= using very heavy sedation (calming drugs) so that he becomes as docile as a vegetable)?
 
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