How does "Ratched" break free from "Flight over a cuckoo's nest"?

Sarah Paulson plays the title role in Ryan Murphy's new series, “Ratched”.

-

• Netflix unveils this Friday

  Ratched

  , the new series produced by Ryan Murphy inspired by the character of the cold and bossy nurse played by Louise Fletcher in

  Flight over a cuckoo's nest

  .

• Under these fake airs of joyously messy black soap,

  Ratched

  offers a feminist counterpoint to Ken Kesey's novel and Miloš Forman's 5 Oscar film.

• How did this prequel brilliantly break free from the works that preceded it?

“Smiling and calm and cold”.

This is how Ken Kesey describes in his

1962

novel

, Head Nurse Ratched.

This character has become one of the most iconic "villains" of cinema in the cult film by Miloš Forman released in 1975. Mildred Ratched is finally entitled to her own story in

, a new series produced by Ryan Murphy, available this Friday on Netflix.

A prequel largely freed from the works that preceded it.

It takes place in 1947 (a year before

Ryan Murphy's previous work for the Los Gatos platform) when ex-war nurse Mildred Ratched, played by Ryan Murphy's favorite actress, Sarah Paulson, seeks to be hired in the psychiatric establishment managed by Doctor Hanover (Jon Jon Briones) with the assistance of the head nurse Bucket (Judy Davis).

This, just as the killer of four priests, Edmund Tolleson (Finn Wittrock, seen in

), has just been admitted for a mental assessment.

"Reverse engineering"

Sarah Paulson, who co-produces the series in addition to playing the title role, succeeds Louise Fletcher, who won an Oscar for her performance, as the terrifying nurse.

“I saw the film again before shooting.

I hesitated because I thought “why should I have this probably perfect interpretation in mind?”.

Such a famous performance, crowned with an Oscar… The task seemed difficult.

And then I said to myself that it would be disrespectful not to see him again, ”she explained to 

during a virtual roundtable.

And to add: "It's very rare as an actor to have the opportunity to have a performance that exists and to reverse engineer, to find himself at the beginning and to have the end in his. mind.

"

A "victim of a kind of patriarchal infrastructure"

In Miloš Forman's film, nurse Ratched rules over the mental hospital where McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a man convicted of rape of a minor, who feigns insanity in order to avoid prison, has just arrived.

A rebellious and impetuous male antihero whose dissenting spirit will be crushed by the authoritarian and castrating (“ball-cutter”) nurse Ratched.

“When I watched the film again, I had a very different vision than I had when I was young.

At the time, I saw her as a heartless and evil person.

And when I got ready to play her, I thought she was the victim of some kind of patriarchal infrastructure, ”says Sarah Paulson.

Recall that exchange between McMurphy and another patient, Harding, where rape, in barely covered terms, is referred to as the only "weapon" men have to show women "who's boss."

"We are victims of matriarchy here, my friend, and the doctors are as helpless as we are," concludes Harding.

In this typical New Hollywood anti-system fable looms the fear of the simultaneous rise of the second wave of feminism.

"Ryan was very inspired by Hitchcock"

And that is the whole point of Ryan Murphy's series.

It is not a question here of exposing the youth of the nurse Ratched of the film of the 1970s (as proof, Sarah Paulson is moreover approximately the same age as Emily Fletcher when she shoots with Miloš Forman), but to rehabilitate Mildred Ratched.

Couldn't the 1970s antagonist be the tragic heroine of an earlier Hollywood era?

In

the nurse becomes a fascinating anti-heroine with Hitchcockian overtones.

A complex woman capable of committing the worst monstrosities as well as of showing sincere compassion.

“Ryan was very inspired by Hitchcock,” confirms Sarah Paulson, who emphasizes the visual and musical influence of

and the use of red / green chromatic contrast.

“When I was doing some of my scenes in the car, I would ask for scores from Alfred Hitchcock films.

It was very evocative, ”recalls the actress.

The action of the series takes place not far from San Francisco, the scene of Hitchcock's masterpiece, and the motel run by Amanda Plummer in which the nurse resides evokes

The macabre atmosphere of

is thus much more

than

.

To the essentially male cast of the feature film, Ryan Murphy opposes a cast of female stars.

Alongside her muse Sarah Paulson, Cynthia Nixon plays a lesbian press secretary, Sharon Stone, an eccentric millionaire thirsty for revenge who wears dresses to match the monkey outfits she is decked out in or Judy Davis, a grumpy nurse.

“It was very exciting for me to be invited into Ryan Murphy's universe.

And one of the things he's known for is casting dazzling actresses, especially those over 40, ”congratulates Cynthia Nixon.

As the film unfolds in realistic, near-immaculate settings, Ryan Murphy's series unfolds in its characteristic polychromatic world reminiscent of the Technicolor aesthetic of Douglas Sirk's melodramas.

"Inappropriate leadership dominated by men"

Here, everything is reversed, the caregivers seem more neurotic than the internees.

And the male, straight, and white characters are a serial killer, a corrupt sexist politician, a macho detective, a sadistic teenager, or even a disfigured veteran.

“A lot of things happened because the institutions of power were run entirely by men, and we reached a breaking point.

Ryan is always way ahead of his time and tells the crazy stories that happen because of it, ”comments Sharon Stone.

As in

which imagined an uchronia around a more inclusive Hollywood golden age, like

which turns its notorious racism against the eponymous author,

offers a feminist counterpoint to

.

As usual, the producer tackles the themes that are dear to him: homosexuality, exclusion and the right to be different.

Under these false airs of joyously messy black soap,

is probably the most successful work of Ryan Murphy.

Series

Who is Ryan Murphy, the man who was worth 300 million dollars?

Series

"Hollywood": Ryan Murphy corrects the story with a fantasized and inclusive version of the dream factory

• Series

• Netflix

• Sharon stone