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[Homicidal Pacifist]

In the film, there is deliberation over whether Jack truly suffers from a mental disorder or is just lazy and defiant.

Whether insane or not, he is definately a caring and revolutionary inspirer. So it may be of little consequence.

Jumping to the end of the film, he attacks the bitch nurse in an attempt to strangle the life from her. He does so because of her cold insensitivity towards the nervous young lover and his reaction of suicide.

Is this action of violence against the bitch nurse the tell-tale of his mental state?

Is he a crazed man to jump on her like that?

Or is everyone else crazy to NOT jump on her?

Is he reacting purely from emotive response (and is THAT insane) or is it logical to kill her?

Though she deserves to die, should she be killed?

I think the question is this... Did he have the ability to refrain from killing her by forcing himself to deal with the negative emotions associated with the circumstance (difficult a task as that is) or did he really have no control over himself?

My feeling is that he did have the ability to control his actions but chose to indulge in the rage and put forth a misconstrued version of justice.

He may have felt that no one else in this world would ever stop the bitch nurse and that it was HIS task. To right this wrong by ending her.

Conclusion -

Eccentric? Yes.

Brilliant? In some respects.

Foolish? In some respects.

Insane? Yes and no. A bit jittery, but in control IF he chooses to be. To lack dicipline (or to choose not to nurture and develop dicipline) is not to be insane; only unwise. To choose to go mad with rage still implies responsibility. A sane man is not defeated by the pressures of a world gone mad, but responds with a mix of logic and emotions; not simply one or the other.

But oh how I sympathize with him.

Unbeatable film.

[Homicidal Pacifist]

Or it could be said that Jack was usually a sane (or sane enough) man and that he was thrust into a fit of temporary insanity at the sight of the bitch nurse's coldheartedness and the consequent suicide of the nervous loverboy.

I'm not a professional psychologist but I really saw Jack's reaction as a chosen lack of control.

I've been where he's been (in more ways than one). That is not to say that we are the same person or capable (necessarily) of the same things, but I too have been seemingly overwhelmed with emotion and have yearned so badly to kill, yet forced myself into a different action. I do not claim to be overly sane, just sane at some times. I too indulge in destructive behavior.

Bottom line... it feels good to get drunk on the rage and the power of it all. It is a bitch to hold back. But self-indulgence is not insanity.

[Belinda]

Notso much that everyone is crazy not to strangle her, but that too many people are apathetic about proper care for emotionally traumatised people.

[Homicidal Pacifist]

Indeed.

[Neverthink]

It is one of my favorite books. And the movie...just loved it. I'm a huge Jack Nicholson fan.

"She was fifteen years old, going on thirty-five, Doc, and she told me she was eighteen, she was very willing, I practically had to take to sewing my pants shut. Between you and me, uh, she might have been fifteen, but when you get that little red beaver right up there in front of you, I don't think it's crazy at all and I don't think you do either. No man alive could resist that, and that's why I got into jail to begin with. And now they're telling me I'm crazy over here because I don't sit there like a goddamn vegetable. Don't make a bit of sense to me. If that's what being crazy is, then I'm senseless, out of it, gone-down-the-road, wacko. But no more, no less, that's it." ~ McMurphy

[Vulcanised]

what a crap film and crap acting