There is a scene in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest where Jack Nicholson sits next to a window for a full minute and has his eyes slowly pace the room and the people in it. He lets his gaze meet your own and then diverts it elsewhere.
More than once, he turns towards the window, but neither stands up nor says a word. The rhombi of moonlight pearl his face. His proud, lively grin suddenly falters in exhaustion. For the first time in the movie, McMurphy appears to be at peace with himself and the place he’s trapped in.
There is a similar moment in Last of the Mohicans, where Eric Schweig puts his hand on Russell Means’s shoulder. He runs away, clawing at the boulders and the tree trunks, with a primal, silent impatience that he previously never displayed. When we see him again, his face is contorted in panic and ferocity. The eyes shine on his face. And for the first time in the movie, Uncas walks ahead of his family, leading rather than following.
Two men make two decisions in two different stories. No spoken word offers any sort of explanation to the audience. We don’t get to know why McMurphy stays seated next to the window, the rhombi of moonlight pearling his face. Nor do we get the chance to look into Uncas’s thoughts and discover what urged him to behave so recklessly.
They make dangerous decisions. Choices that will bring them pain. They travel down a single path, uninterrupted and narrow, and break into a run, let the wind caress their clothes and throats. But there never comes an instance where regret floods their faces and drowns their eyes in tears. They don’t throw back their heads and look longingly at a point in time gone by, in which their current position was escapable.
The last time we see them, they’re looking at the sky. They let their eyes roll up to observe whatever lies on top of them, isolated. And their mouths open slightly to let out a sigh of surrender.
I long to die that way, when I do die. I dislike stalling for long. I’m quick to decide. And I’m not ashamed.
THANK YOU FOR READING!
I did a weird experiment with my images this time, combining pictures and sketches. I don’t know if I like the way it looks very much… Oh, well.
Copyright © Blanca Parga 2020
Eleven of Spades 