Daily Dialogue — October 17, 2012
Billy: I can explain everything.
Nurse Ratched: Please do. Explain everything.
Billy: Ev-ev-everything?
Nurse Ratched: Aren’t you ashamed?
Billy: No, I’m not.
[Applause from friends]
Nurse Ratched: You know Billy, what worries me is how your mother is going to take this.
Billy: Um, um, well, y-y-y-you d-d-d-don’t have to t-t-t-tell her, Miss Ratched.
Nurse Ratched: I don’t have to tell her? Your mother and I are old friends. You know that.
Billy: P-p-p-please d-d-don’t tell my m-m-m-mother.
Nurse Ratched: Don’t you think you should have thought of that before you took that woman in that room?
Billy: Nah, nah. I-I-I-I didn’t.
Nurse Ratched: You mean she dragged you in there by force?
Billy: Sh-sh-sh-sh-she did. Ev-ev-everybody did.
Nurse Ratched: Everybody? Who did? You tell me who did.
Billy: M-M-M-M-McMurphy. M-M-Miss Ratched, please don’t tell my m-m-m-mother. Please.
— Billy (Brad Dourif), Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), screenplay by Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman, novely by Ken Kesey
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is tongue-tied, suggested by Annika Wood who also recommended One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Trivia: Ken Kesey wrote a screenplay for the production, but Forman rejected it because Kesey insisted on keeping Chief Bromden’s first-person narration.
Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Annika: “Billy — at the cusp of freedom — overcomes his stammer for one powerful line where he looks Nurse Ratched square in the eye and says: “No, I’m not.” But all he gets is that taste of what it’s like to thrive, because Nurse Ratched immediately busts him back to what he’s come to know as his ordinary world. She takes his taste of freedom, confidence, and deep power and nips it in the bud. One of the most effective things is how crisp and clear her words are, the delivery in such sharp contrast to his. It’s two actors at the top of their game and you forget you’re watching actors, not real people locking horns.”
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