One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Book vs. Movie
Miloš Forman's 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest adapts Ken Kesey's book. Jack Nicholson plays McMurphy, whose arrival on a psychiatric ward challenges Nurse Ratched's control.
From Books Adapted
What changed from the book
Chief Bromden narrates the book, but not the movie
The movie follows the novel's main story through its conclusion, but changes who tells it. In the book, Chief Bromden describes the hospital from inside his own disturbed perceptions. His hallucinations are part of the telling.
The movie drops that narration and gives McMurphy the central role. Bromden remains a patient in the story, but the audience no longer has to see everyone through his eyes. The filmmakers chose a more realistic approach than Kesey's early screenplay, which had kept Bromden's perspective.
That also changes Nurse Ratched. The book's exaggerated descriptions of Big Nurse belong to Bromden's account. On screen, her control of the ward comes through her conduct and the rules she enforces, without his descriptions of her.
Kesey wanted the movie told from Bromden's point of view. Forman declined, and the disagreement was one reason Kesey withdrew from the adaptation.
About the book and the movie
- Author
- Ken Kesey
- Year
- 1962
- Pages
- 288Buy book
- Audiobook length
- 10 hr 32 minGet audiobook
- Narrator
- John C. Reilly
Chief Bromden keeps silent on a psychiatric ward where Nurse Ratched controls the patients through routines, meetings, and the threat of punishment. The arrival of Randle McMurphy, a gambler who refuses to submit, unsettles the order Bromden has learned to endure. As other patients join McMurphy's small rebellions, Bromden begins to reconsider both his own helplessness and the power of the institution around him.
- Director
- Miloš Forman
- Writer
- Lawrence Hauben, Bo Goldman
- Year
- 1975
- Runtime
- 2 hr 13 minWatch on Amazon
- Cast
- Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, William Redfield, Will Sampson
- Genre
- Comedy, medical drama, prison
- IMDb
- View on IMDb
Randle McMurphy arrives at a psychiatric hospital expecting an easier sentence than prison labor. His gambling, jokes and refusal to obey Nurse Ratched unsettle a ward where even small decisions belong to the staff. As the other patients begin joining his rebellions, McMurphy discovers that getting admitted is much simpler than getting permission to leave.
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