Milos Forman's monumental 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, based on Ken Kesey's book of the same name, is both a humorous and sobering look at life in the secluded, rigidly controlled environment of a psychiatric ward. As a tightly confined and admittedly eccentric community, the ward serves as an allegory for human society in general. In this sample of inmates, one can observe the tense dynamic between a strictly regimented system and an individual determined to undermine it. Viewed in its historical context, the film also serves a reflection of the factors that led to the establishment of the institution. It symbolizes the awkward transition between two system of mental health care, and how this transition led to the rise of the oppressive institutional force McMurphy and his fellow patients must reside under.