#234 | Is ’One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ a Better Novel or Movie? Ken Kesey vs. Milos Forman, Randle McMurphy vs. Nurse Ratched, and More!
Quick SUMMARY:
Douglas Vigliotti explores the differences between Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and its film adaptation by Milos Forman, as part of the "Novel vs Movie" series. Vigliotti discusses Kesey's influence on the counterculture of the 60s and the novel's themes of institutionalization, individualism, and social conformity. He highlights the unique narrative perspective of Chief Bromden in the book, adding a layer of thematic depth, and the film's uncanny performances of Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher, adding a layer of drama. Find out which he prefers and why!
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TOPICS COVERED IN the EPISODE:
Introduction to the Episode (00:09) - Overview of the podcast series and introduction to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
Background on Ken Kesey (01:17) - Discussion of Kesey's influence, his works, and connection to the counterculture movement.
Kesey's Acid Tests and CIA Involvement (02:24) - Insight into Kesey's infamous acid tests and his unwitting participation in MKUltra experiments.
Cinematic Success of the Film (03:43) - Highlighting the film's critical acclaim and awards compared to the novel's success.
Story Overview of the Novel (04:53) - Summary of the central conflict between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched in the mental institution.
Themes Explored in the Novel (06:20) - Discussion of major themes such as institutionalization, individualism, and social conformity.
Differences Between Book and Movie (07:33) - Exploration of narrative perspective differences, focusing on Chief Bromden's role in the novel.
Narrative Perspective and Its Impact (08:56) - The significance of Chief Bromden's narration and its metaphorical implications on societal issues.
Character Portrayal Differences (10:27) - Comparison of McMurphy's character in the book versus Jack Nicholson's portrayal in the film.
Machine Theme in the Book (12:50) - Discussion on how the novel better conveys the theme of the oppressive system compared to the movie.
Final Thoughts on Book vs. Movie (13:54) - Vigliotti's concluding preference for the novel over the film due to its depth and narrative layers.
Closing Remarks and Call to Action (15:01) - Encouragement for listeners to subscribe, connect on social media, and check out Vigliotti's new book.
READ THE TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to “Books for Men”, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So. This week we have another edition of “Novel vs Movie”, and we are going to be looking at the classic by Ken Kesey, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, and of course, the adaptation by the legendary Milos Forman. So they came out, I think it was over a decade apart. So the book was originally published in 1962, and the movie came out in 1975. But before I get into any more about the book and the movie and some of the key differences, and of course, which one I like better, let me just quickly remind you of my new book that is out “Aristotle for Novelists: 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story”. And if you want to find out more information about that, all you have to do is head to the website AristotleforNovelists.com. All right. So now let me turn to the work at hand. So of course I want to start with the author Ken Kesey, who is a novelist and essayist.
01:19 - He's written probably, I don't know, 10 or 12 books, something of that nature, aside from the book that I'm sharing with you today, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”. His second novel, “Sometimes a Great Notion”, is considered by some Kesey included, to be his “masterwork.” And I'm using air quotes. It's sort of interesting when you read something like this, because given the widespread influence and popularity of a book like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, it's sort of hard to argue with a real market response on both a critical level as well as a commercial level. But who am I to say anyway? In addition to those novels, he's probably most known for being a central figure in the counterculture movement out West during the 60s. His acid tests are sort of infamous. Basically, they were parties or happenings, as they were called during the time in upstate California where people would take LSD, and this would coincide with different physical performances that were happening at the time. Legendarily, of course, the Grateful Dead were the house band of those parties.
02:24 - Tom Wolfe wrote a book on these parties called “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”. Also around the same time, Kesey was utilized by the CIA without his knowledge. Or so it's written about the whole MKUltra thing, which was them basically illegally conducting a human experiment to find out what drugs can be used during interrogation to brainwash and psychologically torture people. This only came out much, much later. And the reason why I share all of this with you, even in just a general sense, is because I think it informs a lot about the author and the times more specifically, why “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” was such a big book at the time and continued to be much further into its existence. Of course, getting adapted by Milos Forman. As I alluded to at the top of this episode, it's a movie that has garnered just as much critical acclaim and commercial success as the book did. It literally swept the Academy Awards, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Lead Actor, and Best Actress, so all of the top categories during its award year, as well as time citing it as one of the top 100 movies of all time.
03:43 - And of course, Milos Forman has directed many great films like “The People vs. Larry Flynt”, which is a movie I love, “Man on the Moon”, “Amadeus”, just the name of you. But peeling it back to the story at hand. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”. It does deter from the actual book quite a bit, which of course is a very different approach than last month's episode on “No Country for Old Men”, where the movie adaptation follows very closely with the novel. Having said that, I think that, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” has to deviate a little bit based on the way the novel is set up, but I will get more into that momentarily. First, I should tell you a little bit about what this story is about for those who don't know. So it centers around a group of patients in a mental institution. But the central story is basically a battle of wills between Randle McMurphy and Nurse Ratched and probably more importantly, the effects of that battle on the patients themselves. Interestingly, the book was inspired by Kesey's time working the night shift at a veteran’s hospital.
04:53 - So he intended to not just expose current psychiatric treatment, but handle some rather big themes, many of which come through rather heavily in the book, like institutionalization and individualism and power and sanity. As I had mentioned, the psychiatric treatment and probably most important, social conformity. And this is why the book, even though it has been like the movie cited by time as one of the top 100 novels of all time, it's not without its controversy, as it's been one of America's most challenged and banned novels starting in the 70s. And don't even get me started on the ludicrous nature of banning books, but that's a whole other topic for another day. It's also worth noting that it probably handles the depiction of certain ethnic groups, if not the most politically correct way, although that doesn't offend me or my sensibilities. I see how some people might be offended by this, but to me, if you zoom out and look at everything metaphorically, it actually does the adverse of what people are saying it does and shines a light on the injustices of a system, which is core to what Kesey was trying to say with the work, or at least in my interpretation of it.
06:20 - Having said that, I want to jump into more about the differences between the book and the movie. So the central story in both the book and the movie centers around McMurphy and the tragic story. I would say I don't want to get into that arc specifically because then I will ruin the ending, even though it came out many years ago. And for those who haven't read it or watched it, you can dive into it and be surprised. But what I will say is that that central story is similar now. How the book handles it and how the movie handles it are completely different things. And in some respects, this is a great example of what a novel can do that a movie perhaps can't. And what a movie does well, that perhaps a novel can. And so the major difference between the book to the movie is that Chief Bromden, who is a janitor and is really faking this idea of him being deaf, is the narrator of the book. So you're getting the story through his eyes of what he sees transpiring inside of the psychiatric ward.
07:33 - And of course, this is really interesting for a few reasons. One, he sort of acts as the silent majority. So if you think about the big theme of social conformity and a system that is making people follow the rules and step in line. There is perhaps a silent majority who sees something wrong with this. He acts as that inside of the novel. It's like a larger metaphor, and throughout the story, McMurphy is trying to get him to speak to as chief. Bromden would talk about himself becoming bigger, which is an interesting play because Bromden is massive, and is silent by choice in order to survive. Or as he would say, he's been beaten down by the combine. And the combined is what he refers to as this system that is operating both inside of the ward and outside of the ward. He has this really interesting quote in the book that I just loved, that I pulled out, and it says: “I had to keep on acting deaf if I wanted to hear at all.” And when I extrapolate this out to some of the larger injustices that we see on a societal level, I think that there is a silent majority who has to keep on acting deaf.
08:56 - If you want to hear what's happening at all, it's this small line that conveys a huge metaphor for not only what Chief is going through, but also what we experience on a daily level in our lives. Or, another way to look at it is self-censoring. In order to survive in a world where you may not agree with a lot of the things that are happening around you. Ceci has famously said that he doesn't like the movie because they don't have the story narrated by the chief, and in those moments of narration, he is seeing things happening in this ward that other people aren't because he's privy to it because they think he's deaf. He's also hallucinating quite a bit, which is hard to tell if it's via the drugs that all of these patients are being fed on a daily basis, or his backstory, which you learn quite a bit about. And of course, he ends up being central to the plot line as a whole. He's sort of the fulcrum on which the story rests. His change represents the effect that McMurphy is having on everybody in the ward, and ultimately, this provides a layer of meaning that the movie just doesn't provide or can't provide.
10:27 - Now, that doesn't mean the movie isn't great, because it does what movies do really well, and that dramatizes things in a way that can't be done on the page, so they change quite a bit around when it comes to scenes like, I don't know, the fishing trip, which ultimately ends up being this iconic moment in film history where McMurphy steals the school bus and brings everybody on this fishing trip. And that's not even remotely how it happens in the story. But it's okay because on the screen it works great. And they also reduce the tragedy of it a little bit on the screen because they don't want to overwhelm the viewer. Right. So there are deaths that are removed from the storyline. And then you have something that of course the book doesn't have. And that's the performances by the actors. So Jack Nicholson, as I alluded to earlier, won the Academy Award. Deservingly so for this performance, but it's worth noting that McMurphy is quite different in the book and on the screen. And I just call that the Jack Nicholson effect.
11:39 - Right? You have a star who's putting his spin on this character and does so in a very entertaining way. But because of that, the interaction between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched is quite a bit different. And there's Ratched herself is actually a lot more vicious on the page. And in the book then she is in the movie where she tends to be more passive, and it's really effective as a play, off of the performance by Jack Nicholson as McMurphy. The other big thing that the movie to me, doesn't do as well as the book does is convey that bigger part of a machine theme. It's not that it doesn't tackle it, it's just so much more developed in the book. You get a lot of inside and outside comparisons, and you really get a sense that Nurse Ratched is just another cog in the wheel of this big system, and she's extremely efficient at being that cog in the wheel, and she's good at it. But in the movie, everything feels a little bit more contained as to what's happening just inside the ward itself.
12:50 - And again, I think this is a function of point of view, as Chief Bromden is the one who gives you all of this insight in the book. There are so many things that I want to continue to share with you, but for the sake of time, I'm going to start wrapping this up. There is one quote that I wanted to share with you that is particularly resonant for me, and that is: “There is generally one person in every situation you must never underestimate the power of.” And I love that as a nugget of wisdom to take with you into the world. And in this story you could view it as the power of Nurse Ratched, the power of McMurphy on the patients as he fights back against the system, so to speak. But I warn you that that fight and struggle is not without its complications, because of how the patients view him and ultimately change their opinion of him in certain ways because of the things that he does and doesn't do. All of those things, both good and bad, can be true at the same time.
13:54 - So I will leave you off with the final answer to the question of the episode. What is better, the movie or the novel? And I've gone back and forth on this quite a bit because I do enjoy both the film and the movie. I think that the film does a great job at being a film, and the performances are a testament to that, they really bring out the characters, but in their own way, I would say not in what is truly represented on the page. But for me, I have to agree with probably the general consensus here that the extra layer of Chief Bromden narrating in what that provides to the story in its totality, and also the ultimate ending of the story, which I'm not going to share with you here. It does land better for me, and if I had to pick one or the other, I'd rather reread the book, than rewatch the movie. I will leave you with one Randle McMurphy quote from the book because I think it's an important one to remember as we all go out into the world.
15:01 - And he says, “You know, that's the first thing that got me about this place, that there wasn't anybody laughing. I haven't heard a real laugh since I came through the door. Do you know that, man? When you lose your laugh, you lose your footing.” All right. That's all I've got. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to click subscribe on whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on. Or just take two seconds and rate the show. It is the best way to get it in front of more eyeballs and ears, and in return, inspire more men to read. Of course, if you want to connect with me, I'd love to know what you think about this episode or any of the episodes, and you can do so on Instagram @DouglasVigliotti or via my website: DouglasVigliotti.com. As I mentioned at the top of this episode, I do have a new book out called “Aristotle for Novelists” and you can find out more information about that at AristotleforNovelists.com.
16:01 - All of those links will be in the show notes. And lastly, as always, I want to thank you so much for listening. And if you want more information about this podcast, which includes signing up for the monthly newsletter, all you have to do is head over to the website BooksforMen.org.
