Vertigo & One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest: A Comparison

Vertigo & One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest: A Comparison

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest & Vertigo: film comparison
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest	Vertigo
Traditional gender roles reversed -> women hold all the power, Nurse Ratched is in charge	Traditional gender roles reversed -> Madeleine/Judy holds power over Scottie
Colour palette: saturation, white. Inside = bleak + outside = colour (McMurphy’s entry, the ending) to emphasise the bleak nature of the mental asylum	Colour palette: blonde hair, uses many colours to stand out
McMurphy = Optimistic initially	Scottie = Pessimistic initially
Women are in control & the men fall under the spell of the women (Candy, Nurse Ratched etc)	Men believe they are in control (e.g. Scottie). The male point of view is the driving force.
Camera influenced by movement -> Ratched is at the centre of the shot to signify she is the centre of attention & power	The camera movements create a claustrophobic atmosphere

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest & Vertigo: context comparison
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: 1970’s	Vertigo: 1950’s
Studio system nearly died out Independent filmmakers (e.g. Scorsese, De Palma, Lucas, Spielberg, Coppola) Explosion in creativity	Studio system held all the power (MGM, Paramount, Disney, Universal, Warner Bros, Columbia Pictures) -> owned all property/rights to majority of films, films shown in studio owned cinemas, stars have contracts to studios
OFOTCN: Milos Forman -> director, 1st film made in Hollywood by him -> Czech independent director Jack Nicholson -> nobody at the time, advised by agent not to act 6 months before OFOTCN production	Vertigal integration: Studio own film (production, distribution, screening it) -> all money kept in-house Problem: stops creativity, smaller films don’t get made/shown
More risks taken in 1970’s Hollywood	1950’s film are of a similar pace as they know it works

Summary:
What was the task?
The task was to analyse  Vertigo and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by comparing their context (e.g. the film industry when the film was released) and aspects of their plots and characters.


What did you learn?
This task allowed me to learn more about the contextual background to each films as this gave me a deeper insight to how the studio system worked when Vertigo was released and I was unaware that more risks were taken in 1970's Hollywood and that the main crew behind OFOTCN were newcomers. This task also allowed me to analyse the similarities between the films plots and how the films both subvert traditional gender roles.


How will this help you in the future preparing for your exam?
This will help me in the future as I can use their contextual backgrounds to help me prepare for the exam question & I can create links between their auteur signatures and their production contexts by using these tables to revise from.