By: Poop
A writer named Ken Kesey who worked as a security guard at a mental institution, was inspired to write a book about it. In 1961 Kurk Douglas received the book in galley form. The title read “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” He fell in love with the book and soon he bought the rights to it. He had no idea that this book would one day become one of the best films ever made. “Douglas was naïve enough to think that you could make a picture of any book you wanted to, you just got permission and you made it, you made the picture.”- Saul Zaentz (Producer) [Interview] There was a tremendous process in tranforming “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” into a film.
Douglas first had the book created into a theatrical play. The play was not a big success. People had violent reactions after observing the play and some even hated it. Many audience members felt the play made fun of the mentally insane. The play only ran for about six months. One day when Douglas took a trip to Czechoslovakia, he met a young director named Milos Forman. He asked Forman if he could send him a book, and if he would be interested in making a film out of the book. Just like that the film had a director. Micheal Douglas (Kurk Douglas’ son) soon jumped on board and contacted Saul Zaentz. Zaentz became the producer of the film. The time was 1971 and no major studio would finance the film, but Micheal and Zaentz would not give up on the film. They decided to make it as a very low budget picture. Bo Goldman was brought in through Forman’s agent to write a screenplay for the film. Goldman became the screenwriter. After a year of Forman and Goldman working together, the film finally had a script. [That Theatre Site Show One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest]
The Essay on Susan Orlean Charlie Film Book
Spike Jonze's film Adaptation dealt with the difficulty of putting a written work to film. In this film, Nicolas Cage plays the character of Charlie Kaufman who is faced with the difficulty of writing a screenplay for Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief. One of the issues that Charlie Kaufman finds himself up against is the wordiness in the book. He reads parts of the book that, on the page, are very ...
Next, was the casting of the characters. McMurphy was proposed to many actors who passed on the opportunity. The role landed on Jack Nicholson, but at the time Nicholson was working on another movie and if they wanted to cast him as McMurphy they would have to wait about seven months, so they waited. Soon one by one all the characters were casted; Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched, Danny DeVito as Martini, and Christopher Lloyd as Taber. Chief was the hardest role to cast. Scouts were sent everywhere in search for an enormous Indian Native American actor to play Chief. One of these scouts was Mel Lambert. One day he called Micheal Douglas and said he had found him, the biggest son of a gun he had ever seen. His name was Will Sams from Washington State, and he was perfect for the role. [Lupack, Barbara, Take Two: Adapting the Contemporary American Novel to Film]
After all the roles were casted, location scouting began. Four mental institutions were visited before the filmmakers arrived at Oregon State Hospital, which was the only mental institution that had read the book. Filming in an actual mental institution rather than an in easy Hollywood studio turned out to be one of the best decisions the filmmakers made. It created an environment and an isolation that a Hollywood studio could not match. There was a week of rehearsal before the cameras started rolling. The actors spent half of the day rehearsing big scenes and the other half in their ward just staying in character. The actors actually lived in the ward while the filming was taken place. They had their own cell and bed in the ward that they fixed up how they wanted. “Someone who came in there might have had a hard time distinguishing between who where the actors and who were the actual mental patients.” (Christopher Lloyd) The actors even went to group therapy sessions with real patients. [Telegraph News Article]
The Essay on American Beauty Film Make Scene
Mise-en-Scene: American Beauty Just to refresh everybody's memory, mise-en-scene literally means "setting up a scene." There are six elements that make up mise-en-scene: acting, costume and make-up, setting, lighting, composition or space and last but not least time. The film that I chose for this particular topic was American Beauty. In my opinion, American Beauty is like mise-en-scene candy. In ...
When the filming began, the actors never knew when the camera was actually rolling, that created the natural real characters that Forman (director) wanted. The scenes were filmed in order of the script (which is very rear in most films) except for the boat trip which was filmed last. Forman at first did not want the boat trip to be in the movie, but after a while he convinced himself to film it. Many of the actors were sea sick for the week that it took to film the scene on the boat. The scene when Chief assassinates McMurphy and the scene where Chief picks up the shower control panel and throws it through the window was only filmed once. Just like that the film was done. “I think any great story, there is no deviation from it, there are no choices, it has to come out that way. Like if a man lives a good and honest life, he is going to come out okay. If his career gets destroyed, he loses his children, he loses his wife, he will come out okay, because he has written the right script for himself.” – Bo Goldman (Screenwriter) [Interview]
Works Cited
Swaine, Jon. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Changed Psychology.” Telegraph.com, Feb. 2011. Web. Mar. 2012. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8296954/How-One-Flew-Over-the-Cuckoos-Nest-changed-psychiatry.html>.
Lupack, Barbara Tepa. Take Two: Adapting the Contemporary American Novel to Film. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular, 1994. Print.
“That Theatre Site Show One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” That Theatre Site. Web. 30 Mar. 2012. <http://thattheatresite.com/library/showpages/show_1174.html>.
