The character of Randle McMurphy is similar to some other film figures and you may like to explore this idea in your oral presentation or research. Representations of rebellion could be an interesting research topic.
In the film Cool Hand Luke there are also clear similarities between the title character Paul Newman portrays and Jesus Christ. Sentenced to a chain gang for cutting the tops off a town’s parking meters, Luke galvanises his fellow prisoners by challenging them to join him in the thwarting of the abusive authority of the warden.
Much like the fishing excursion in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest served to build the patients’ allegiance to McMurphy; the characters in Cool Hand Luke come to revere Luke when he attempts to eat fifty eggs to win a bet. This results in the prisoners bonding together to assert their own humanity.
In the film, Luke endures prolonged solitary confinements in a box where he roasts in the hot sun, resembling Christ’s forty days of fasting and prayer in the desert. A consistent visual motif displays Luke against images of a crucifix, especially the crossed roads on which the chain gang labours.
The Shawshank Redemption is also set in a prison. The prisoners learn to reject fear and ‘that hope can set you free’ through the examples set by the inmate Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins). Among other things, Dufresne lobbies for a prison library that enables the prisoners to enrich themselves with literature, classical music and opera. Dufresne wins the hearts of his fellow inmates and serves up cunning comeuppances to his tormentors in a great cinematic coup.
David Fincher’s Fight Club also has many similarities to One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In the film, the characters Jack (Edward Norton) and Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) rail against a society of rampant self-centredness and consumerism.” Self improvement is masturbation,” Durden tells Jack, a character formerly obsessed with the accumulation of designer brand furniture to fill the void of his otherwise meaningless existence. In an effort to find sincerity and human connection, the healthy and unaddicted Jack attends various support groups. He agrees with another “faker”, a woman named Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) that people actually listen to other people only when they think the speaker is terminally ill.
Durden’s perception that contemporary American males have become more feminised because they are “a generation of men raised by women,” is similar to McMurphy’s attacks on “ball-cutters.”
Fight Club is a mesmerising ride through contemporary culture fuelled by fantastic performances from its cast.
These films are all easy to find and I am sure that you will find them interesting viewing.
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