Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn;
Wire, briar, limber lock,
Three geese in a flock.
One flew east,
And one flew west,
And one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.
Not sure what the question is here. The novel was published in 1962, the film released in 1975. (In between, a 1963 Broadway play, with Kirk Douglas in the role of McMurphy.)
Kesey, who had also written a screenplay for Cuckoo’s Nest, famously sued the producers over theirs. The departures from the novel were many and profound, too many to list here. But perhaps most interesting was the way Forman used the repressed Nurse Ratched in a brilliant performance by Louise Fletcher (interesting, and lucky for us, that Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn, Colleen Dewhurst, Geraldine Page and Angela Lansbury all turned down the part).
Anyway, if you like your orange and your apple, you can both enjoy the book and admire the film. I think Kesey’s far better novel was Sometimes A Great Notion, also made into a film, a lesser one, directed by Paul Newman.
My background on the novel is largely what was said about it in The Electrik Kool-Aid Acid Test. The book was conceived when Kesey took a janitorial job at a an asylum and would take acid during his shift. The book allows the socio-political aspects of it to flourish, especially by being told through the eyes of the Chief.
I think Milos Forman was smart to evaluate the fact that there was a decade between the novel and the film, allowing the inmates to represent the counterculture who needed someone like Kesey to shepard them into a better existence after the momentum of the “hippie” movement started to wither and it’s followers were all feeling lost. McMurphy is basically just Kesey’s image of himself, and when the book came out Kesey was going cross country helping people break free from the “asylums” of their lives, but his ultimate goal was to pass the knowledge along in a way so that eventually any common man could lead the people, which I think is why the story shed alot of the political aspects for a more personal story about McMurphy.
I dont think being faithful to a novel is always the best way to adapt it, and I pat Milo on the back for taking some artistic license in his interpretation.I think the original post is in reference to another film that came out shortly after Kesey’s novel appeared, a film with enough similarities to raise the question of coincidence. It’s not clear from the thread what that film is – Sam Fuller’s Shock Corridor, maybe? – but I don’t believe he/she is talking about Forman’s eventual adaptation.
Mr. Wilson, I believe you’ve solved the riddle. The subject here must be Shock Corridor.
Fuller may well have read Kesey’s novel or watched the play, but whatever inspiration he may have found there, he certainly took off in his own original direction. Over-acted, overwritten, over-imagined, over-staged, under-produced, but finally, for all of that, one hell of a movie.
I was reading David Thomson on Fuller the other day and liked this observation, one that clearly applies to Shock Corridor : “Is he a good director? becomes a meaningless question. His films are staggering visual achievements. But there is no assurance of the director’s being aware of what he is doing. It is a good thing he is not, for there is a vulgarity in Fuller that would move swiftly from the impulsive to the ponderous if he once listened to his best critics … One thing is clear: from the Civil War to the Vietnam War, Fuller has dealt with every major phase of American experience and returned with the conclusion that the world is a madhouse where ferocity alone survives.”
Tom Wilson and MMoore, I was just looking for the thumbs up button for those two posts! Great comment from David Thompson. If I may be so bold, can I ask where you read this?
Soybean, the David Thomson quote is from his huge tome (963 pages!) THE NEW BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF FILM. (The “new” a reference to the 2002 revision, which I own. Don’t know if there has been another since.)
It is a book I would highly recommend to any lover of film … a wonderful writer, erudite, never pedantic. You’re likely to find yourself in sharp disagreement with him about half the time, but he always puts up the good fight.
Many thanks, MM. Happy Holidays!
mmmm, juicy fruit.
smaglio81
Shock Therapy, McCarthyism, Racism, and Sex are all held together by the Abuse of the Infirmed (not a real word). A back story is given to keep the central character within the institution. A story that would never hold water in modern cinema or courts.
While watching the film my mind wandered towards One Flew Over a Cookoo’s Nest[Wiki: Novel] as a basis for this screenplay. After a little research it became troubling to think that these two works weren’t related. The novel was written in 1959, but not released until 1962. While the novel is a critically acclaimed novel today (2008), there isn’t much of it’s critical reception online (of course the internet wasn’t around back then).
This film was released late in 1963, over a year after the novels release. Which would be enough time for a writer to read the novel, produce a screenplay, and have a production company create the film. But, that is all conjecture. Is it conjecture without warrant?
Are there enough similarities between this film and Kesey’s novel to find a thread between them? The setting, usage of “attendants/nurses” as implements of destruction, racism and shock therapy are all common themes between the novel and this film. Are all of these similarities coincidences? They might be. Then again, they might be one writer finding their muse in another; or giving homage to their mentors.