Cuckoo's Nest hospital to be demolished
The Oregon State Hospital, the filming location for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, will be torn down in a few months. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons.) From the Associated Press:
Although Cuckoo's Nest was filmed here, neither the movie nor the 1962 Ken Kesey novel on which it was based makes any specific references to Oregon State Hospital. Kesey drew on his experiences working at a veterans hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., and set his satirical story at an unnamed institution in Oregon.Cuckoo's Nest Hospital to be Torn Down (Time)
Actor Michael Douglas, co-producer of the movie, scouted various West Coast locations and chose the Oregon institution because then-Superintendent Dean Brooks agreed to give the moviemakers unfettered access.
"They wanted to make it on location with real patients," said Brooks, now 91, who was given a speaking part as a weak-willed doctor who acquiesces to Nurse Ratched. Brooks said 89 patients were hired as extras.
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Someone needs to mount an expedition before it's gone...
I just finished reading this book; it was easily one of the best books I've ever read and gives so much more context to the story than the movie (although I liked the movie too).
"Kesey drew on his experiences working at a veterans hospital in Palo Alto, Calif."
#1: "Someone needs to mount an expedition before it's gone..."
IT Zen connected with this hospital: I was contracting at Oregon's DHR in the mid-'90's, and requested some old hardware to build a proof-of-concept linux server. One of the SA's said he was going to the warehouse, and I was welcome to come along. The warehouse turned out to be the retired Oregon State Hospital. I found 100's of old terminals in the hydrology room. It was eerie. Beautiful old building, but it was in poor shape a decade ago.
I used to work in this very building. When I went for the initial job interview, I drove past it and it reminded me of a scene from Poe's The Fall of The House of Usher:
"Its principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the individual stones. In this there was much that reminded me of the specious totality of old wood-work which has rotted for long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinising observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn."
By outward appearances, I thought the building had already been vacated and condemned (there are much newer buildings on the campus as well) so I was a little surprised once I found out that the interview would in fact be taking place in the dilapidated building.
I will say that the patients were very well treated. By and large it was one of the best jobs I'd ever had. When I end up in a mental institution this is certainly where I want to go.
Something went wrong with my #3 comment. Not that it's timeless stuff, but...
"Kesey drew on his experiences working at a veterans hospital in Palo Alto, Calif."
#1: "Someone needs to mount an expedition before it's gone..."
contains my favorite line from any film..."mmm, Juicy Fruit." damn, now I gotta' change my password!
Does anyone else have mixed feelings about the movie? (I never read the novel.) I've certainly enjoyed watching it over the years; it's got some great performances by an eclectic cast. And it certainly did raise awareness about abuses in public mental institutions. I had a relative who was experimented on for two decades in a state mental hospital (1940s-1960s), causing her to grow heavy facial hair (hormone "treatments") and suffer who knows what other indignities.
But now we're dumping mentally ill people on the street instead of fixing the state-run nut huts or paying for decent private solutions. Also, the sometimes-useful Electro-Convulsive Therapy has a common reputation as barbaric or even sadistic (Slate Magazine has done some interesting articles about ECT and the much more sophisticated Deep Brain Stimulation which also uses electrical currents to treat neurological issues). Did the movie play into this trend of chaotic deinstitutionalization, and did it impede progress in treatments like DBS? I don't know--just asking.
Also, Nurse Ratched is about the only famous fictional (or real-life) mental-health nurse, and she's such a two-dimensional tyrant.
I guess because Cuckoo's Nest almost stands alone as a depiction of the state psychiatric hospital, it has cast a very long shadow. But hey--what's done is done. The movie is getting to be ancient history now, as is the (often valid) backlash against state mental hospitals.
Follow up:
There's an essay online by Tina Butler called "The Methods of Madness: Representations of Inmates, Authorities and the Asylum in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Awakenings" that contrasts the treatment of asylums in these two movies and touches on images of asylums elsewhere in Hollywood.
I would say, however, that "Cuckoo's Nest" 'owns' this territory just as surely as "Jaws" owns the concept of mankind/shark relations. "Girl Interrupted", "Awakenings" and the handful of others don't seem to have imprinted on the culture in the same way.
The movie certainly struck a chord with me, mostly because of the performances.
I had some experience with a private mental health facility and it was absolutely nothing like the movie. That makes perfect sense, as there are plenty of variables, and not just private vs state.
That movie was like the classic example of virgin/whore complex. You were either a frigid b*tch like Ratched, or you were one of the easy sorts of girls like the ones they snuck in.
The first time I watched that film all I could think of to say was, "Boy, Kesey really had some issues with his mom or something, no?"
That said, that is a very lovely old building. I always hate to see one like that go. I'd love to see some pictures of the interior.
i've always wondered where this mythical VA hospital is- is it in Menlo Park or Palo Alto? does it still exist? (i'm working in palo alto right now)
@#8 & #11,
The main hospital is in Palo Alto, adjacent to the Stanford campus. An older facility, a couple miles north, was at Menlo Park, where Kesey worked, and was mostly locked wards. It was in the process of closing down during his tenure. The two large red brick buildings at PA were rather nice, for a hospital, and the staff wore civvies. . .except for Nurse Ratched.
Her real name was Lois (I forget her last name), and the only thing she had in common with her fictional counterpart was that she was an extremely handsome woman. By the time I met her in 1965 she was the head nurse at the PAVA, sort of like a regimental sergeant major, so that gives some idea of her professional abilities. You can see why Ken was impressed. She knew by then she was forever Nurse Ratched—behind her back—but was easy with it, and even amused. She knew who SHE was.
#12- i'm at page mill & el camino real (think really, really big law firm) right now. so where exactly was the menlo VA?
incidentally, i met kesey when i was in high school a year before he died... he signed my copy of OFOTCN.
I don't remember exactly. I was a patient at the PA facility, but the old place was mostly wooden, that's all I remember. I'm sure it's gone now. I used to see Ken in Oregon now and then. Hang on to that book.
The Menlo Park veteran's hospital is at 795 Willow Road, I b'lieve.
Just so people know, there is no safety net for those who are unfortunate to be stricken with mental severe mental illness, at least in Oregon. Virtually all of the "residents" at the Oregon State Hospital are actually inmates of a sort and go there because they were alleged to have committed a crime and were deemed to be incompetent to stand trial by reason of insanity.
All inmates are put on massive amounts of heavy, heavy psychotropic medications (that I used to administer just like nurse Ratchet). Often, when it is determined that the medications restore a certain level of sanity, the wheels of justice, such as it is in the U.S. begin to turn again. After their stint at OSH, many end up and jail and or back on the street.
I was always very conversation with the residents, and I remember casually talking to one kid there about what brought him to the place. He began to relate a story about how he stole a car. Other workers nearby jotted down what he was saying so that it could be used against him later should he go to court. Needless to say I felt pretty terrible about that.
That said, the people who worked there were, by and large, compassionate. They understood mental illness much better than the general population (unlike their depiction in the movie). Never did I witness patient abuse or maltreatment of any kind. I'd say they did a remarkable job.
The weight of human tragedy in that place was immense and oppressive. Ever wonder what happens to, say, kids who injure their heads doing some foolish behavior? Brain injury often causes problems with impulse control which can in turn lead to "criminal" behavior. Some end up at the OSH.
To give you another example of how awful mental illness is, there was a guy there who plucked out his own eyes. That was, at the time, beyond even the limits of my imagination. Once you were able to get past his erstwhile predilection he proved to be a fairly interesting guy.
There have been a number of articles in Oregon newspapers about the checkered past of this hospital. The best is this series from the Oregonian called "Oregon's Forgotten Hospital."
http://www.oregonlive.com/special/oregonian/hospital/
If you read nothing else, read the "All the Lonely People" piece from the Oregonian.
Other articles are more personal and reveal just how awful a place it used to be. The original version of the following Salem Statesmen Journal article is archived and not free, so I give you a version posted on another site.
http://www.intenex.net/pipermail/mindfreedom-oregon-news/2007-October/000054.html
So it's probably best not to wax nostalgic about this creepy, decrepit, rotting wreck of a building.
-Largemarge
I worked at Oregon State Hospital on the maximum security wards in the early 70's, at the same time the movie was made and I worked with some of the staff who were in the movie. It was living hell for the "residents" who were really inmates. There were good staff members and monster staff members, and little in between.
We had to administer weekly shock treatments which did horrible things to the residents. I saw people being forced into "treatment" just because some staff member got mad and wrote them up, or because they talked back or refused to work. I finally refused to participate in the barbaric practice, and fortunately laws were later passed to protect the residents from that abuse.
It was common practice to strip females when they were put in full restraint, and male workers were called on the ward to help strip and restrain the women. It was unbearable to listen to those women scream and beg for mercy. Other places may have been more humane, but I found that job the most barbaric of my entire life. I could tell you stories. Many stories. The movie was very close.