One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest- Book And Movie Comparison

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"The Power of Words"

In recent years, it has become popular for many of America's great literary masterpieces to be adapted into film versions. As easy a task as it may sound, there are many problems that can arise from trying to adapt a book into a movie, being that the written word is what makes the novel a literary work of art. Many times, it is hard to express the written word on camera because the words that express so much action and feeling can not always be expressed the same way through pictures and acting. One example of this can be found in the comparison of Ken Kesey's novel, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and the film version directed in 1975 by Milos Forman.

The novel details the time that R.P. McMurphy, a criminal, spends in an Oregon mental institution, after deciding that he would rather plead insanity than spend more time in jail. However, when he enters the facility, his life and the lives around him are changed forever. He is constantly trying to push the limits of Nurse Ratched, who runs the institution in an irrationally controlled manner. This is a novel that seems as though it would make an easy transition onto film, being that it consists mostly of action that is described in every detail by the narrator, a former Indian Chief's son, named Chief Bromden. Chief pretends that he is mute and deaf, because he is used to being ignored by most people. This "impairment" allows him to find out all of the information that is present in the novel by eavesdropping and listening to other people's conversations. He also notices and is very aware of everyone's actions around him. He becomes the key character in the novel because of his wealth of information, and he is the central figure in supplying the reader with the changes that occur in the facility after McMurphy's arrival.

One of the weakest parts of the film is the fact that Chief does not narrate the story. The story is given in third-person format, as the audience watches all of the events pan out without narration. It feels as though there is a severed connection between Chief and the story, and one does not get the feeling that he is as important in the film as he is in the novel.

Throughout the novel, the reader is given the Chief's thoughts of McMurphy first-hand.

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