Louise Fletcher dies at 88

RIP
I even defender her Mamma Dracula!!!

Ah hell. I actually had the pleasure of meeting her a decade ago, and she was absolutely lovely and luminous in person.

Her Oscar win is top-tier, and her acceptance speech is among the very best ever.

RIP

Her role and casting and work in Cuckoo's Nest is so inspired - and so important to American film - not just in the 70s - in a lot of ways - especially relative to that source text.

In the book her character "reads" as symbolic (much of the novel does too) - there's a great line in the book about the Chief saying when they are having fun the nurses (or guards?) speed the clocks up and when they are miserable they slow the clocks down......now that isn't literal iirc just how it always seems to you........but those things in the book would lend themselves to cartoonish-ness when you film them. Her name is memorable but also cartoonish - her physical description in the book is waaaaaaaaaaay OTT - almost sexist actually - many times in the book there are great prose flourishes to describe her villain-y - like a genuine "Witch".

What's so inspired about her casting and performance though in the film - is she doesn't project a side of villain-y - she projects multiple sides of usually positive qualities soured by institutions and then turned inward until she herself is soured. Ratched may be a vilain but she doesn't see herself like that at all.

The crucial thing is she had been in the Army ........and that not just inspires her totalitarian aspects - which are always necessary (they are - ever had to fire someone?) but also how she sees things outside of that:

motherhood, sexuality, masculinity, "general" appearance(s). Motherhood especially is evoked startlingly by her - when she crushes Billy - she does so in ways that both gentle and pulverizing in ways that take on echoes that aren't in the piece itself - a child disappointing his / her self and someone else (parent) - and now a "third" person - the institution but typefied by a human element ie "someone you know" (like Nurse Ratched). It's not just written like that, but it's acted in a way that make that scene and scenes like that play on increasingly deeper levels.

One of the best things about Fetcher's performance is she never loses her presence even when you think she "should" - her posture is always forward looking - she never averts her eyes or blinks - exactly the way that a parent or a teacher doesn't.....

The way Fletcher plays the part never drifts into playing the surface of scenes or reacting "like us" (the audience) would - on the contrary you're constantly aware of not only the patients see her, but how she sees herself - we get it the distinction - how the other nurses see her, how the guards see her, and how her superiors must see her too.

So much of that performance is connected to that character's military backstory and how she evokes it - the Army is the Hospital is your School is your Church is your Prison........I think you'd be hard pressed to find any character - ever - who used sexuality without being overtly sexual herself - as a weapon - like Nurse Ratched does in the film....at various times Forman places her so close to males - particularly McMurphy - it's almost uncomfortable to watch - just to see that.....she invades their space and they hers.....

It is unbelievable that Fletcher even got that role actually - and it is unbelievable how human she makes such a famous literary character....and improves it ....she somehow makes it more human AND more monstrous....

I respect your opinions though I often disagree.
On this one, however, I agree with you completely.


RIP.