One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest novel (1962) and movie (1975)

Use of silence:

Scene: - In the beginning of the movie, when all the all the patients are sleeping and nurse Ratched enter.

Characters: - Nurse Ratched, ward fellows

Conclusion: - Silence is used to make audience aware about the location by revolving the camera around the mental institution, followed by the entrance of nurse Ratched which infer that she controls the institution.

Scene: - Entrance of Mr McMurphy in the mental institution.

Characters:-Mr McMurphy, two police men, two black guards, nurse, several other patients.

Conclusion: The entrance of Mr McMurphy in the institution, where face expression of some people in the hospital are shown to represent the situation and which gives audience an insight about what McMurphy would be thinking about the place.

Scene:- McMurphy hijacks the bus and whole troop goes for the fishing.

Characters:-Mr McMurphy accompanied by all the ward mates and candy

Conclusion: - In the hijacking and fishing scene silence is used and characters reactions are used to represent their feelings on this trip that they are excited about the trip, relishing the new experience. The background music also help us to infer a lot about the character emotions.

Scene:- After First electric therapy was given to McMurphy and he enters the ward.

Characters:-Nurse Ratched , McMurphy ,and other ward members having discussion.

Conclusion:- After having a electric shock McMurphy arrive in the ward, here silence is used to portray the impact that electric shock can have on a person and nurse Ratched reaction towards it. Nurse Ratched reaction towards this incident gives a sense of her harsh attitude and power.

Scene:- At the end when the McMurphy returns  after being having electric therapy for a month, Chief comes to McMurphy and tries to talk to him.

Characters:-

Conclusion:- 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest novel (1962) and movie (1975)

Director:-Miloš Forman

Writer:-Ken kesey

Main Characters:

Jack Nicholson as Randle McMurphy

Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched

William Redfield as Dale Harding

Will Sampson as "Chief" Bromden

Brad Dourif as Billy Bibbit

Sydney Lassick as Charlie Cheswick

Danny DeVito as Martini

Christopher Lloyd as Max Taber

The title is derived from an American children's folk rhyme. In a detail not included in the film, the novel shows it to be a rhyme that Chief Bromden remembers from his childhood.

Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,

Apple seed and apple thorn,

Wire, briar, limber lock

Three geese in a flock

One flew East

One flew West

And one flew over the cuckoo's nest.

ADAPTATIONS:

Adaptations in the characters:

In Kesey’s novel the Chief is the narrator, the filter through which we view McMurphy and the others. Thus, the novel is also a plea from the Native American subculture, from the most oppressed of U.S. minorities. The film carries no such plea. In the novel the Chief ultimately inherits the legacy of his father, one who died flying over the cuckoo’s nest. The father is alluded to momentarily in the film, but it is clear that here the Chief inherits from McMurphy, not from his father. The elevation of McMurphy from catalyst to prime mover creates a fundamental ideology in the film.

      The characterization of chief Bromden is a good example of the changes made from book to movie.  His past is a vital piece of information contributing to the mood and understanding of the story.  In the movie, Bromden is nothing more than a crazy Indian who doesn't want to talk so pretends to be deaf and dumb.  In the book, Bromden has flashbacks to his childhood, lighting on significant points in his childhood.  His background is never even brushed upon in the movie. 

      McMurphy is a very crafty, cunning man. In the movie, McMurphy is not only wild but rude.  He tried to never be outright rude in the book (more aggravating for the nurse) yet in the movie he was.  He never stopped being wild in the movie, leading you to believe that maybe in fact he is crazy. Mcmurphy's true character was lost in the writing of the screen play, his intelligence and cunning is lowered greatly by changes made by the screen writers.

 

      Ms. Ratched is a powerful woman in both the book and the movie. She knows how to play with people’s minds and manipulate groups.  She keeps a tight grip on the ward using refined methods which cannot be ignored to get what she wants.  In the book Ms. Ratched is the most powerful woman in the hospital, what she says goes.  In the movie however, she not only doesn't have complete control but it seems as though the doctor thinks himself as having authority over her. The movie was probably changed just so they wouldn't have to go into detail about why and how powerful nurse is.

Adaptations in story line:

In the novel, Chief Bromden is the narrator who reveals the story of the battle of wills between Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy and undergoes the most notable changes in the novel. While detailing the events in the mental institution, Chief reveals biographical information of his own life before his institutionalization. In film Chief as the story's narrator, discards the background story of Chief, and relegates his character to secondary to McMurphy. In the film, McMurphy is clearly the hero.

Chief's episodes of witnessing the inner workings of the Combine and its fog machines are eliminated in favor of scenes that expand on McMurphy's character and his background.

Chief eventually becomes fully communicative in the novel while muttering only one phrase — "Juicy Fruit" — in the film. This explains how McMurphy is able to bring Chief along on the fishing trip in the novel, a detail not explained in the film. Also missing from the film are several key symbolic elements, including McMurphy's poker-hand tattoo, known as the dead-man's hand that foreshadows his death.

In the film, McMurphy boasts that he was conned into rape by a teenaged girl who lied about her age. In the novel, McMurphy's boasts of being seduced by a nine-year-old girl are related with a sense of false bravado and world-weariness. His initial imprisonment isn't for statutory rape, it's for being "a guy who fights too much and fucks too much."

In the novel, McMurphy freely admits to conning his fellow patients for his own financial gain. The film only shows McMurphy winning cigarettes from his mates.

Certain critical scenes from the novel are eliminated in the cinematic version. Of these, the suicide of Cheswick, is most notable. Cheswick's character was the first individual in the novel to receive invigoration from McMurphy's tricks.

One scene not in the film is McMurphy's final con against the Acutes. In the novel, McMurphy manipulates Chief Bromden to lift the control panel after McMurphy takes bets from the Acutes that it can't be done. McMurphy, of course, had already hedged his bet by having Chief display his ability to lift the panel previously. When Chief performs the trick for the Acutes, he feels used and betrayed by McMurphy. The film balances a scene of McMurphy unsuccessfully trying to lift a basin with the scene of Chief lifting it successfully and flinging it through the window while avoiding the scene of Chief lifting it to win a bet for McMurphy.

Another scene in the film differs greatly from the novel. The fishing episode in the novel is a planned event that Nurse Ratched repeatedly attempts to sabotage. Despite this, McMurphy convinces Doctor Spivey to join the group when the prostitute Candy arrives with only one car. In the filmed version, McMurphy hijacks a waiting institutional bus and instructs the film's principal male cast to participate in an act of rebellion.

The film also differs from the novel in its depiction of the events leading to McMurphy's introduction to electroshock therapy. The novel carefully establishes a character not in the film, Big George. The film employs the initial altercation between McMurphy and Washington as the impetus for Nurse Ratched to send McMurphy, Chief, and Charlie Cheswick (who doesn't commit suicide in the film) to the Disturbed Ward.