Courage

The book version and the movie version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are both great stories. However, reading one and then watching the other, or vice versa, will cause great dissatisfaction. The points that they put across are just too different. In the book version, McMuphy is fighting against the Combine, aka society, by trying to get the patients to have the courage to see that they are perfectly capable of living a normal life no matter how society judges them. There is also Chief's narration. This gives us details on many of the patients and the Combine itself and a close up look on how McMuphy is affecting the patients by showing us how Chief is changed. All this is lost in the movie, changing the point from a man fighting against society to a man trying to teach others how to have fun. When McMurphy first arrives at the Combine, he sees that it is all strictly run by Big Nurse. The scheduled is followed to the minute and is never changed. In the movie the patients aren't scared of Big Nurse, but they all obediently follow her orders, even if it goes against what they want of believe. McMurphy changes this by giving those patients the courage to stand up for what they want. It first starts with McMurphy pretending to see the baseball game and then escalates from there to the party at two. McMuphy showed them that they were allowed to have fun. One of the few similarities shared between the book and them movie is that McMuphy is trying to give the patients the courage to do something important.

Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest

The novel One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey does a great job portraying how individual people must stand up to society, Although the movie version is a terrible remake of the novel and does not focus on the main points of the book, for example the film version does not focus on the importance of the break from the combine, and the significance of Big Nurses role in the book. When Books are turned into movies producers usually try to relate to the book as much as possible, unfortunately the maker of the film version did a horrible job at this, forgetting to incorporate the importance of the main points in the book.

This one's actually from Kaelie

The movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was an intriguing film with good acting, but if failed to portray the main points of the book written by Ken Kesey. When they produced the movie, they didn't do a good job emphasizing the importance in the break from the Combine and Big Nurse's rule. The book really showed us how big of a deal it was when the men in the hospital began to rebel against Big nurse. In the movie, there wasn't much emphasis on the importance of the control panel being lifted. We weren't even told that it was called the control panel. While in the book, it was a big symbol of breaking free from the rule of the power driven leaders. The book focused more on the individual vs. society and how the individual usually can't win. In the movie it was just the story of the book rather than an inspiration with a big theme. The movie didn't include the morals and ideas that the book did. The biggest downfall of the film was the lack of Chief’s narration. Without his perspective and point of view telling us the story, it loses its personal touch with the other characters. Another thing that was different in the movie was the level of craziness of the patients. They’re didn’t depend on their guts as it did in the book but more on if they could even survive in the real world. It was a mistake for them to have the other patients leave the ward because with Chief being the only who actually leaves, it doesn’t show the freedom from the rule as well. In the book, when they had the majority of the patients leave, it showed how McMurphy had impacted them and made them want to change their lives because they were unhappy in the ward. It showed how they actually could go against Big Nurse and leave instead of just having one person be able to do that like in the movie.

One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest

I think the book One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, wrote by Ken Kesey, is a really good book, and the movie is a good movie, but i think if you dont read the book is better, because the movie go really fast and change a lot of things, when you read the book,you think that Mc Murphy is a big guy , but in the movie the actor make a really good work but is not how you imagine he'll be when you read the book, also in the movie they have really different things, like when they go to the fis trip, in the book Chief go and in the movie he stay in the Combine. The big nurse make a really good job but when you read the book you think ta she is bigger and that she is very mean and she is always mad, and in the movie she looks nice even if sometimes she is not, because she wont let them do what they want to do like watch the World Series...Also at the end of the movie there is not lobotomy in McMurphy, Chief kill him with a pillow, and then he break the window and he run away,the mens in the Combine see that the window is broken and they can leave but they just get really excited but they dont run away they stay looking the broken window,but the most of the guys inthe Combine are there because they want to stay because they are not insane they dont have to stay in a Combine...

didnt really read much of the book,

from what i could tell the characters seemed more normal in the book than the movie, and while the fishing trip etc. was different, it still made a good movie

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

After reading Ken Kesey's novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, and watching the film directed by Milos Forman, there are some concepts in the film that are lost that are from the book. For example, the book is narrated by Chief Bromden where as the film the narration is lost. You don't get to know Chief very well until the end. He is projected as an unimportant character in the film. When R.P. McMurphy shows up to the Combine in the film, he isn't as carefree and laughing as he was in the novel.The actor, Jack Nicholson, plays the McMurphy character more as serious and not as carefree. He doesn't seem as joking; taking in the scene where McMurphy saunter down the halls with his white whale boxers with a towel around him asking Big Nurse where his clothes are. (Another physical trait is that Nicholson doesn't have red hair, he isn't tall and burly with big hands as McMurphy is described in the novel.) Not only are McMurphy and Chief different, the film portrays the patients as insane, rather in the novel they are, according to McMurphy, "not the average man on the street, but not nuts". In the film, you get a better view on how mental patients are, but you can't picture these people on the street as of "normal". In fact, you wouldn't want these crazy people, just as Taber or Martini on the street causing chaos or disrupt among other people. Another scene that isn't true is that Chief doesn't go on the fishing trip with the boys, as well as the doctor. They aren't "drunk" and having a good time with Chief, it's just a bit backwards in the film. Big Nurse herself isn't as "big with big breasts". She seems nicer in the book whereas in the movie she's a bit more stern with the patients. Although the film plays multiple scenes in one, (where in some cases are hard to grasp what is going on in the duration of the movie), it doesn't have a "great"job of capturing the book itself, but towards the end of the film it stays somewhat true to the book. The only question that is left in the end though, do the other patients sign out, jump out the window and start anew with their lives in the real world, or do they stay in the Combine as insane as they, assuming, were? The film has it's ups and downs, but personally I don't believe it stuck true to Ken Kesey's novel. Ken Kesey himself declares that the film portrays melodrama and defeats the book's purpose. I can agree with Kesey; I don't think the film did a good job on capturing a great novel that deserved better in the film.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Comparison

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest written by Ken Kesey is a great book. In this novel the narrator

Chief is a unique and complex character. Everything is showed through his perspective. He suffers from P.T.S.D, he fought in world war 2 as a pilot. He sees everything as mechanical, making this book much more interesting than the film. In the film version we loose this uniqueness, witch is a vital importance to the impact this makes you feel. We also loose in the film the symbolism of hands that is written about in the book. The symbolism of hands in this book gives a sense of a character McMurphys are big and strong and he is a strong character. Harding's are dainty and soft, and he is gay. So that is another big piece we are missing from the film. In the book there is a lot of talk about Hardings "sexuality" In the book he seems much more homosexual than in the film, he just seems cowardly in the film. this is also important because he is there because he cant handle his own sexuality and what comes with it from society. The whole purpose of the combine is to produce products that can function in society. In the film this piece is missing as well. The fishing trip in the film was much different than it was in book. In the book the purpose of the fishing trip was to get the men some "guts" that they did not posses and it was meant for them to get away from what was holding them back,(the combine) in the book Chief goes on the fishing trip with them. But in the film he does not which is ironic because out of everyone in the story Chief developed the most guts out of anyone else. The characters in the book check themselves out at the end of the book, in the movie they don't so, you don't get a real idea of what McMurphy has accomplished with these men. He did what he wanted he gave them "Guts" In the film this is gone. The novel has much more of an impact than the film