Faithful and seduced by your monthly date with cinema and coffee, today I invite you to delve into one of the most unique and profound films of its decade, whose perspective has left no one indifferent.
Filmed in 1975, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is about a mental health center where the mind isn't treated but rather alienated, thus leading to disciplinary and oppressive behavior. A mental health center where torture and murder are carried out in the living (by lobotomy) in the name of science. A mental health center designed to cure and treat mental illnesses they don't understand and which tend to exacerbate.
The film triumphs (Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Leading Actor, Leading Actress, and Screenplay) thanks to its approach that combines critical acclaim with comedy. The perfectly chosen characters elevate the entire film to the nth degree. Jack Nicholson plays McMurphy perfectly, and Nurse Ratched gives her character unparalleled depth.
McMurphy arrives at the hospital from a penitentiary trying to avoid the forced labor he's subjected to. He's categorized as a troublemaker—they say he's a brawler and fornicates too much—but they won't succeed in getting him into the established system. On the contrary, he gradually instills in each of his fellow inmates a therapy of a zest for life that no doctor has been able to instill, because in reality, they live comfortably within a system in which they feel comfortable.
The scenes where he plays basketball with his teammates against the paramedics, or where he narrates a baseball game that would have even the most uninitiated in the sport, show them all that he's alive and that life must be lived in CAPITAL LETTERS. McMurphy makes every moment unique and vibrant: robbing a school bus, taking the inmates on a day of fishing, or being able to cure Billy's stutter by showing him a good time with a woman. But if anyone represents "Boogie Man," it's the Chief. In reality, in Ken Kesy's novel, the story is told from the Indian Chief's point of view, and thus we can see him give true meaning to the story.
To highlight one scene, I'd point to the one where the Indian Chief, after hiding in a fictitious deafness to protect himself from a world he doesn't want to leave, decides to speak to McMurphy. The bewildered McMurphy says, "You fooled them, you fooled them, you fooled them, damn it."
We live in a society where deception is the measure of all things. Food is not food, politics corrupts everything, education is driven by interests…
Something similar happened in the coffee industry. When coffee was scarce in the post-war period, to keep people from dreaming about the flavor and aroma, they were given a mixture of coffee and chicory.
Torrefacto (roasting) may have originated when Cuban miners wrapped coffee beans in sugar to improve their preservation. From then on, some decided to roast coffee with sugar, blurring and adulterating the product, primarily to cover up and hide substandard coffees. Over time, this process gained popularity in certain places, and people grew accustomed to its color and flavor, even believing it to be good.
Decaffeinated coffee requires a chemical process to remove the caffeine, so the deception is even greater. As for the instant coffee that has been so widely marketed since Satori Kato paved the way for it, it doesn't seek good coffees but rather a series of different characteristics: reaching more users, speed in preparation, durability, lower weight or a less elaborate preparation, of course, without knowing what type of coffee is inside.
If you're on this page, it's because you love good movies and the best coffee. So skip the sugar and saccharin—a good roasted and brewed coffee bean has sweetness—leave the decaf, roasted coffee, and instant coffees behind and embrace the new wave of coffee. Get back to the real thing! Get back to life!
