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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Byrnzie
Posts: 21,037
It's 50 years this year that 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' was published.
One of the greatest American novels.
Some quotes from the Movie:
McMurphy: In one week, I can put a bug so far up her ass, she don't know whether to shit or wind her wristwatch.
McMurphy: Well I don't wanna break up the meeting or nothin', but she's somethin' of a cunt, ain't she Doc?
McMurphy: But I tried, didn't I? Goddamnit, at least I did that.
And the end of the book:
Chief Broom: The moon straining through the screen of the tub-room windows showed the hunched, heavy shape of the control panel, glinted off the chrome fixtures and glass gauges so cold I could almost hear the click of it striking. I took a deep breath and bent over and took the levers. I heaved my legs under me and felt the grind of weight at my feet. I heaved again and heard the wires and connections tearing out of the floor. I lurched it up to my knees and was able, to get an arm around it and my other hand under it. The chrome was cold against my neck and the side of my head. I put my back toward the screen, then spun and let the momentum carry the panel through the Screen and window with a ripping crash. The glass splashed out in the moon, like a bright cold water baptizing the sleeping earth. Panting, I thought for a second about going back and getting Scanlon and some of the others, but then I heard the running squeak of the black boys’ shoes in the hall and I put my hand on the sill and vaulted after the panel, into the moonlight.
I ran across the grounds in the direction I remembered seeing the dog go, toward the highway. I remember I was taking huge strides as I ran, seeming to step and float a long ways before my next foot struck the earth. I felt like I was flying. Free. Nobody bothers coming after an AWOL, I knew, and Scanlon could handle any questions about the dead man-no need to be running like this. But I didn’t stop. I ran for miles before I stopped and walked up the embankment onto the highway.
I caught a ride with a guy, a Mexican guy, going north in a truck full of sheep, and gave him such a good story about me being a professional Indian wrestler the syndicate had tried to lock up in a nuthouse that he stopped real quick and gave me a leather jacket to cover my greens and loaned me ten bucks to eat on while I hitchhiked to Canada. I had him write his address down before he drove off and I told him I’d send him the money as soon as I got a little ahead.
I might go to Canada eventually, but I think I’ll stop along the Columbia on the way. I’d like to check around Portland and Hood River and The Dalles to see if there’s any of the guys I used to know back in the village who haven’t drunk themselves goofy. I’d like to see what they’ve been doing since the government tried to buy their right to be Indians. I’ve even heard that some of the tribe have took to building their old ramshackle wood scaffolding all over that big million-dollar hydroelectric dam, and are spearing salmon in the spillway. I’d give something to see that. Mostly, I’d just like to look over the country around the gorge again, just to bring some of it clear in my mind again.
I been away a long time.
One of the greatest American novels.
Some quotes from the Movie:
McMurphy: In one week, I can put a bug so far up her ass, she don't know whether to shit or wind her wristwatch.
McMurphy: Well I don't wanna break up the meeting or nothin', but she's somethin' of a cunt, ain't she Doc?
McMurphy: But I tried, didn't I? Goddamnit, at least I did that.
And the end of the book:
Chief Broom: The moon straining through the screen of the tub-room windows showed the hunched, heavy shape of the control panel, glinted off the chrome fixtures and glass gauges so cold I could almost hear the click of it striking. I took a deep breath and bent over and took the levers. I heaved my legs under me and felt the grind of weight at my feet. I heaved again and heard the wires and connections tearing out of the floor. I lurched it up to my knees and was able, to get an arm around it and my other hand under it. The chrome was cold against my neck and the side of my head. I put my back toward the screen, then spun and let the momentum carry the panel through the Screen and window with a ripping crash. The glass splashed out in the moon, like a bright cold water baptizing the sleeping earth. Panting, I thought for a second about going back and getting Scanlon and some of the others, but then I heard the running squeak of the black boys’ shoes in the hall and I put my hand on the sill and vaulted after the panel, into the moonlight.
I ran across the grounds in the direction I remembered seeing the dog go, toward the highway. I remember I was taking huge strides as I ran, seeming to step and float a long ways before my next foot struck the earth. I felt like I was flying. Free. Nobody bothers coming after an AWOL, I knew, and Scanlon could handle any questions about the dead man-no need to be running like this. But I didn’t stop. I ran for miles before I stopped and walked up the embankment onto the highway.
I caught a ride with a guy, a Mexican guy, going north in a truck full of sheep, and gave him such a good story about me being a professional Indian wrestler the syndicate had tried to lock up in a nuthouse that he stopped real quick and gave me a leather jacket to cover my greens and loaned me ten bucks to eat on while I hitchhiked to Canada. I had him write his address down before he drove off and I told him I’d send him the money as soon as I got a little ahead.
I might go to Canada eventually, but I think I’ll stop along the Columbia on the way. I’d like to check around Portland and Hood River and The Dalles to see if there’s any of the guys I used to know back in the village who haven’t drunk themselves goofy. I’d like to see what they’ve been doing since the government tried to buy their right to be Indians. I’ve even heard that some of the tribe have took to building their old ramshackle wood scaffolding all over that big million-dollar hydroelectric dam, and are spearing salmon in the spillway. I’d give something to see that. Mostly, I’d just like to look over the country around the gorge again, just to bring some of it clear in my mind again.
I been away a long time.
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Comments
My Gran was schizophrenic and my Pop an alcholic- the book seriously resonates with me - life changing.....
One of the best movies ever..
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
One of my 'rotating' books - those that I read over and over again.
His mind was wondrous, his personality was all-charm, his penchant for the psychedelic-avant-guarde in a PRE-psychedelic WORLD, and his pushing of this entire concept upon the mass consciousness was the mother of all revolutions for the Western mindset.
His books
His bus
His band of Merry Pranksters
His Acid Tests
His house band
The Warlocks
AKA
The Grateful Dead
and ultimately
his understanding of the need for, and the desire to,
transcend psychedelic consumerism, to end up in some permanently-altered,
positive, functional head-space,
was one of the greatest trips of all time.
If I opened it now would you not understand?
Ken Kesey Obituary
New York Times [2001]
'...To earn extra money and to work on a novel called ''Zoo,'' about the beatniks of the North Beach community in San Francisco, Mr. Kesey [...]took a job as a night attendant on the psychiatric ward of the hospital. Watching the patients there convinced him that they were locked into a system that was the very opposite of therapeutic, and it provided the raw material for ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.'' One night on the ward, high on peyote, he suddenly envisioned what Mr. Wolfe described as ''a full-blown Indian -- Chief Broom -- the solution, the whole mothering key, to the novel.''
As Mr. Kesey explained, his discovery of Chief Broom, despite not knowing anything about American Indians, gave him a character from whose point of view he could depict a schizophrenic state of mind and at the same time describe objectively the battle of wills between two other key characters, the new inmate Randle Patrick McMurphy, who undertook to fight the system, and the tyrannical Big Nurse, Miss Ratched, who ended up lobotomizing McMurphy. Chief Broom's unstable mental state and Mr. Kesey's imagining of it, presumably with the help of hallucinogenic drugs, also allowed the author to elevate the hospital into what he saw as a metaphor of repressive America, which Chief Broom called the Combine.
Mr. Kesey would ''write like mad under the drugs,'' as Mr. Wolfe put it, and then cut what he saw was ''junk'' after he came down.
''Cuckoo's Nest'' was published by Viking Press in early 1962 to enthusiastic reviews. Time magazine call it ''a roar of protest against middlebrow society's Rules and the invisible Rulers who enforce them.'' Stage and screen rights were acquired by the actor Kirk Douglas, who the following year returned to Broadway after a long absence to play McMurphy in an adaptation by Dale Wasserman that ran for 82 performances at the Cort Theater during the 1963-64 season. The play was revived professionally in slightly different form in 1970, with William Devane playing the part of McMurphy, and again in 2001, with Gary Sinise in the part.
Even more successful was the film version, which was released in 1975 and the following year won five Oscars, for best picture; best director, Milos Forman; best actor, Jack Nicholson as McMurphy; best actress, Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched; and best screen adaptation, Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman.
But Mr. Kesey was not happy with the production. He disapproved of the script, thought Mr. Nicholson wrong for the part of McMurphy and believed that the producers, Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz, had not lived up to the handshake deal he insisted he had made with them. He sued them for 5 percent of the movie's gross and $800,000 in punitive damages and eventually agreed on a settlement. But he still refused to watch the film.
Although Mr. Kesey wrote several more books during his life, ''Cuckoo's Nest'' remained the high point of his career. Reviewing the film version in The New Yorker, Pauline Kael wrote that ''the novel preceded the university turmoil, Vietnam, drugs, the counterculture.'' She continued, ''Yet it contained the prophetic essence of that whole period of revolutionary politics going psychedelic.''
''Much of what it said,'' she concluded, ''has entered the consciousness of many -- possibly most -- Americans.''
My favourite line ...
I also love the film,one of my all time favourites.
Me too, on both counts.
I read the book in English class in junior high and have seen the film I don't know how many times. Love it from start to finish. Final scene, probably one of the best. Seeing it written out again, rich.
Happens it was on tv last night and I caught the "but I tried" scene in its entirety. There was a little blurb at the bottom about how Nicholson felt he could've done a better job, but Forman felt it was good enough. Ha.
The baseball game on tv scene is also another of my favorites...and Chief in the basketball game...and...and...it goes on.
I know and agree ... the entire book and film is faultless in my opinion
Just noticed the film is on BBC1 tonight
Mine too. Those are words to live by
The book and the movie are different in many ways. Though I'm not sure if they could have produced a film that was too faithful to the book. The book is mostly too subjective and hallucinatory to be adapted to the screen. Though maybe it could have worked with a narration by Chief Bromden?
http://www.gradesaver.com/one-flew-over ... ide/about/
'Kesey originally was involved at the creative and production levels of the film, but he left two weeks into filming because he disagreed about dropping Chief Bromden's narration, because he objected to the casting of Jack Nicholson in the lead role (he wanted Gene Hackman), and because of a dispute over the $20,000 he was owed for the film rights. Kesey later would claim he never saw the film. Even so, his wife has said he generally supported the film and was pleased that it had been made.'
I wonder why Kesey preferred Gene Hackman to Jack Nicholson?
I don't know why he didn't think Nicholson was right for the role of McMurphy. Most people probably can't imagine the part any other way by now. I think Gene Hackman is a versatile actor and probably underrated since he's appeared in so many films. When I first saw the film I remember thinking Nicholson was a little too out there in his portrayal.
I didn't hate the movie. It just didn't make an impression on me the way the book did.
the problem i have with jack nicholson in general is that whatever role he plays hes always jack nicholson. he doesnt seem to be able to disappear into the role. hes the reason i havent seen the film.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
I'm not so sure about that. I.e, have you seen the movie 'The Passenger'? That character is nothing like Randall McMurphy. And neither is his character in Easy Rider - George Hanson - anything like his characters in 'Chinatown', or 'The Crossing Guard', e.t.c.
I can't imagine anyone else doing what he did in the Shining
Tom Crusie?
If I opened it now would you not understand?
I like the movie but the book made the bigger impression on me as well. For me, the book stands above all adaptations because it creates a movie in my mind that can't be reproduced on screen. I also saw the ACT performance in San Francisco a few time when it first came out in (if I remember correctly) 1970. Those early productions were amazing and the cast was outstanding. I'll never forget the one actor who stood for the entire performance night after night leaning against a wall quivering slightly with his arms spread out as though crucified with drool running from is mouth down the front of his shirt the whole time. Touches like that made these performances very real and very effective.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pZYU8OGO6Q