Jack Nicholson, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Illustration



So this week there's Jack Nicholson as RP McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It's one of my favourite films and it's based on one of my favourite books. It's one of those rare cases where the adaptation and the source are both fantastic with neither diminishing the other.

Ken Kesey wrote the book as a critique of the insidiousness of conformity and an anti-authoritarian howl of rage at the methods of treating patients he'd witnessed while working the night shift in psychiatric wards. He hated Milos Forman's film version by all accounts, which could be seen as an allegorical critique of the director's native Czechoslovakia, and ditched the first person narrative of Chief Bromden. But whether or not both men were trying to say something different - at least they both needed to say something. Which is pretty important when you want to make a thing that's good.

Anyway, I had something else planned this week but it didn't pan out. And I have some bigger projects coming up, and I felt like doing something scratchy and quick, plus I decided it was high past time I drew RP McMurphy. So there he is above. In the book Ken Kesey describes him as a giant irishman with red hair and scars on his face. Somehow, Jack Nicholson is perfect casting. Which is weird, but I suspect you could cast Jack Nicholson as Hermione Granger and he'd make a pretty decent fist of it.


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