Ten Most Well Acted Psychotic Characters in Movie History

You probably don't want to be making social/political soap boxing rhetoric type post, the boss man don't like it. You could just say Nurse Ratched is sure evil but damn is she sexy!

Oh, shut the hell up. Please. Your post is not only offensive to people who have died of COVID (including my own grandfather), but not even relevant to the subject at hand. You're pretty much just looking for a fight with this one.

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No one really argues he isn’t above such criticisms, as anyone will and has already, pointed out. The difference is Nurse Ratched is in charge and abuses her position. There isn’t really any interpretation in her actions, a they are fairly straightforward and whose motives are quite clear. She is used to the patients doing things her way, and McMurphy’s appearance, and actions, threaten it. I wouldn’t call him a hero per se, but no one here has.

I the end, the forced lobotomy speaks for itself. An evil and heinous act that has been banned as a medical practice.

And that’s the real terror behind her character. The fact that the film doesn’t have to exaggerate her actions or menace. People like this, as you’ve pointed out, exist in this world and can be just as insidious. Even more so, considering Their position of authority.

And I never said Nurse Ratched is a saint, I said I liked her up until the end of the film as noted in my excerpt of my review....I don't like McMurphy he rubs me the wrong way, then again I never really like Nicholson's characters at least the one's I've seen.

It seemed like you were when you mentioned in the previous post about previously seeing McMurphy as a “savior” and then then reversing their roles upon a rewatch. Maybe that’s not how you meant it, however?

Alec Guinness as Col Nicholson in*The Bridge on the River Kwai.*

That's not quite how I meant that. I was referring to my first impressions of the movie & characters when I was a kid, some 45 years ago...so I can only vaguely recall how my former self seen the movie.The only sure thing I can say now is what I wrote right after watching OFOTCN (which I already posted).

Murphys War. Peter O’Tool goes fatally mad.

I figured it wasn’t what you meant, but I wasn’t sure. I was taking the post at face value (as written) as opposed to as intended

That's cool and thanks... Hey, did you ever see Star Trek Deep Space Nine? Louise Fletcher had a recurring role very much like Nurse Ratched. She's a spiritual leader of her planet and uses her calm, cool, in-control demeanor to great advantage. What an actress she was so good in ST DSN.

I saw a few episodes here and there but never got into the series. Wasn’t aware she was in it haha.
Next Generation was what I preferred, having grown up with the series despite the stats of the original series were still starring in the films, and even then I never finished watching The Next Generation either.

Is there a way to "mute" or "block" certain members who behave like pricks?

She is an example of the dehumanizing aspects of systemic medical power. This is the sort of thing that Michel Foucault warned about. Then again, Foucault probably died much earlier than he needed to because he refused to let the medical establishment (and its power relations) to treat him for AIDS.



Characters like these are like cultural maxims that point in two different directions. "Look before you leap" is at odds with "He who hesitates is lost." "Don't judge a book by its cover" is at odds with "Clothes make the man."



Whether or not a trope character is a Angel or Demon, Saint or Sinner, depends a lot on the context and one's politics. We have so many films that depict teachers as (for the most part) terrible failures of human beings who crush the dreams of little children (Hey, teacher. Leave those kids alone!). This sets up the "hero" teacher who contrasts with their peers. The result, however, is a reinforcement of the polarizing whore-Madonna vision of educators as either horrible tyrants or (the few) suffering saints. In the real world teachers get beat up in out of control schools, enjoy the privilege of getting screamed at by parents, have to fund their classrooms out of their own pocket, and are ridiculously under-paid. Are teachers burning out so fast because they lack virtues? Are students all innocent angels? Undoubtedly there are inconvenient truths to consider from both sides of the question.



A film, however, demands a villain. And if we take the view of patient wanting freedom, Ratched is "wretched" (as her thinly veiled name implies).



The most challenging project is the one which would champion not only members of a profession, but also their professional bureaucracy. Think of those old cop shows in black and white that hero-worshipped cops. I don't know that you could do that today. Be on the lookout for the glamorized bureaucrat. When s/he does arrive, you'll know what direction society is taking.

The irony is that Leftists used to be against State & bureaucratic tyranny. For some reason yet to be explained, they flipped in the last 3 or so years and now seem to embrace it.



Speaking of villain teachers (not psychotic but sort of the bad guy), there was the Housman professor in Paper Chase.

Must be some kind of joy to keep trying to bait political discussions in a space where it's been made clear there isn't supposed to be any politics.


I guess it's all about those victories when no one is allowed to respond to you. How else could such a bunch of nonsense ever fester long enough to actually become someones opinion.

I'm gonna catch hell for this, but Fender in Cyborg. That's right. I said it. LOL.

It seems there is a distinction between



1) parenthetically mentioning something that could broadly speaking be construed as referring to something "political"


and


2) formally and prominently proposing a political position/argument as the main thrust (if not the sole content) of a reply.


The hypersensitivity that would anxiously conflate 1 and 2 reminds me of a political chat room on Paltalk where the admins have a room rule, "no religion talk", which is obviously a rule to prevent proselytizing and theological bickering. But because the admins are so anxious to avoid that, they draw the line at an irrational place where you can't even mention religion even on a historical or political or anthropological cultural level -- not to mention it's silly to think religion has no impact on society (and society cannot be intellectually discussed without factoring in politics).

What does any of that have to do with the topic of the thread?

BTW twice I've tried to let you know that we do have rules here regarding political proselytizing. I even once posted the MoFo new rules link for you. Why did I do that? Because I know you're new here and probably were unaware of the rules and I like to see all new people stick around because boards like this one need to have a community of people to thrive. The administrator here is cool but remember it's his house so it's not up to us to tell him how he should run his board. Would you want him to tell you how to run your household? He does listen to suggestions so you could PM him if you have any.

Uh, he's very British in that movie, but not really psychotic. He does get a little confused at the end of the movie, but he's a proper gentleman who is a stickler for the Geneva convention and who insists on proper engineering of bridges. He wanted to leave something behind of use for the people of the area to use after the war, something of use. Not a psycho, just a hard-case.