One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Book to Film)

         For this week's book-to-film theme I was deciding between Goodfellas and this film. To me, this plot sounded slightly more interesting, so I decided to watch this. This is one of my favorite movies I have watched for this class this year. It is charming, sad, and hopeful all at the same time. It examines some interesting themes involving criminal rehabilitation and the question "what is truly crazy?" It was interesting to see things like how many of the patients at the mental hospital were actually there voluntarily. After doing a bit of research online, I found that the original text of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was told from the point of view of the Chief. The author was apparently so angry that the movie didn't follow this that he refused to ever watch the film. I found this interesting, and it made me think about how people always argue over whether the movie or book version of a story is better. I also wonder how much author-director discrepancy delays the making of movies. As far as the story goes, this movie kept me intrigued the entire time. It is a fairly long film, but I was actually disappointed when I got near the end of the film and saw that I only had a few more minutes of watching this gang of misfits. The acting in this film is superb. It won five large Academy Awards, all of which were very deserving. Nicholson delivered a classic role that anyone could feel connected to. Danny Devito played a perfect Martini, and I could not imagine the role being played better. The actors/actresses of Billy, Nurse Ratched, and Turkle's roles also stood out to me. The cinematography in this film was interesting, as many of the most important camera angles showed the idea of a "crazy mental hospital" perfectly. Some of these involved showing patients doing crazy things in the background, or watching blank televisions in the World Series scene. Also, there were many shots of Jack Nicholson's facial expressions that revealed more than any dialogue could have. In all, I would absolutely recommend that all see this movie. It is a classic, and with good reason. I give it 9 cigarettes out of 10.