1975: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Screenplay by Bo Goldman and Lawrence Hauben
Adapted from the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Cold, calculating Nurse Ratched runs her mental ward with an iron fist. When rebellious, belligerent convict Randle McMurphy is committed, he effectively becomes a wrench in her perfectly-run machine, questioning rules and orders, and worst of all, stirring up the other patients. The power struggle between these two opposites grows and intensifies until it essentially becomes a full-blown war.

I had obviously seen this movie before, since I blogged about it for both Best Picture and Best Actress. However, I had never read the book. I think having seen the movie helped me follow the book better than I would have otherwise, but somehow reading the book also made me appreciate the movie way more than I had in previous viewings. I find it a little surprising that I feel this way because the novel and the film are actually quite different. The premise, most of the characters, and almost all of the major plot points are fairly consistent, but many of the details were significantly altered in the adaptation. For example, both versions feature a fishing trip organized by McMurphy, but in the book he plans it out in advance and even takes one of the institution's doctors with them, whereas in the movie he steals a bus to sneak out to the boat without the knowledge or approval of any of the staff.

Far and away the biggest difference is the perspective from which the story is told. The novel is written in first person from the point of view of Chief Bromden. The film mostly presents the story from McMurphy's perspective, until towards the end. This means that readers of the book know from the very beginning that Chief can in fact hear and speak and is merely pretending otherwise, while the movie's audience spends nearly an hour and a half assuming, along with McMurphy and the other characters, that he cannot. It also means that the readers of the book experience the ward through the eyes of a longtime patient, whereas viewers of the film see it through the eyes of a newcomer who really has no business being there in the first place. Bromden sees the ward and everyone in it as machines literally controlled by "the Big Nurse" (as he refers to Nurse Ratched), and it was fascinating, especially for someone already familiar with the story, to see it unfold through his sometimes hallucinating but always incredibly perceptive eyes. After having read the book, I sympathized with the other patients a lot more, which helped me more fully comprehend their motives in the movie than I had when I'd watched it before. However, I must say that I feel like the movie missed a tremendous opportunity to be even more disturbing and intriguing by not showing Chief Bromden's perspective as the book did. Of course, the movie's great as it is, but now I kind of want to see a remake that includes voice-over narration of some of Chief's more profound observations from the book and shows the machines and fog that he describes. Granted, no one will be able to play McMurphy and Ratched like Nicholson and Fletcher, but we can't have everything.

Up next: All the President's Men, based on the book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward