Browsing by Author "Benyoussefe, Lydia"

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    Madness and Panopticism in Milos Forman Movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975).
    (Mouloud Mammeri University OF Tizi-Ouzou, 2021) Bentchakal, Lydia; Benyoussefe, Lydia
    The present dissertation deals with the themes of madness and panopticism in Milos Forman’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) using Michel Foucault’s ideas about madness as explained in Madness and Civilization: the History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (1961) and panopticism as illustrated in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975). Regarding at this movie as a countercultural cinematic work that embodies a very remarkable period in the American history which is known basically for its socio-political unrests, this study analyzes the relationship between the ‘patients’ and the unjust dominant discourse inside the Oregan mental institution. It illustrates how this tyrannical relation equals to the relationship between Americans and their government during that period. The aim of this work is to demonstrate how conformity was considered as a principle to distinguish ‘reason’ from ‘unreason’ in the selected movie. It also reveals how strategies like power/knowledge, observation, surveillance and discipline are applied in the psychiatric hospital to create a panopticon atmosphere in order to control the ‘patients’ which transform them into docile bodies. In short, leaning on Foucault’s perspectives about madness and panopticism, this study, in its three chapters, has critically scrutinized Forman’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.