Butler, Tina (2005), 'The Methods of Madness: Representations of Inmates, Authorities and the Asylum in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Awakenings'.

This paper focuses on the concepts and representations of the institution and the inmate, and how films, even when presenting in a seemingly sympathetic tone, have often served only to further stigmatize both entities.

Perception of the mentally ill, the environments in which they are housed and those who care for them has been largely determined and influenced by filmic representation. In American cinema, representation of the asylum in film has been a recurrent theme. There were 34 feature length US productions featuring scenes of psychiatric hospitalization between 1935 and 1990 alone (Levers). The institution has traditionally been vilified in these representations, both in the space itself, as well as the inhabitants-the inmates and employees. The asylum, by its detachment from mainstream society is a place that has been otherized. Two films that offer distinct manifestations of this realm are One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Awakenings.

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