I watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest yesterday for the first time. For years, my mother has been telling me I would love it, and I certainly did. Jack Nicholson was spot on as R.P. McMurphy. He did a fantastic job flirting with that line between sanity and not, just as Ken Kesey intended with his novel. I read the book last summer, and (just because this is such a classic cliche) the book was way better.
Obviously this is one of the most common and annoying phrases, and everybody says it. However, there are two primary reasons everybody says this after they see a movie that is based on one of their favorite books. The first of these is that books allow your imagination to do what it is designed for. The way I imagined Chief as I was reading Kesey's classic was not quite the way that Milos Forman imagined him in his film adaptation. Not that there is anything wrong with Chief's portrayal, but I like to let my brain create images and sceneries that are specific to me. This is a truly beautiful quality of books that movies simply cannot replicate.
The second big reason, for me at least, that books are usually better is because books do a much better job at really explaining some of the finer details of a plot. I like to use A Song of Ice and Fire as an example for this one. I started watching the HBO series A Game of Thrones prior to reading the books. Because of this, my imagination was not free to create the characters the way I saw fit, I imagined Ned Stark as Sean Bean in my head, Robert Baratheon as Mark Addy, etc. However, one aspect of the book that was far more useful than the show was the explanation behind the history of the 7 kingdoms. Martin goes into great detail about Robert and his rebellion, while the show does not do a great job fully explaining this. The same is true in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The relationship between Chief and McMurphy was a close, intimate bond in the book. Chief connected with McMurphy for a number of reasons, and this was why he killed him at the end, instead of letting R.P. live out his days as a vegetable. I didn't think the movie emphasized this relationship enough, which was a bit of a shame.
Obviously there are exceptions to this rule. For example, I love the Fight Club book. Chuck Palahniuk is a phenomenal author. However, the movie Fight Club spoke to the adolescent teenage boy I was like no movie ever had. It remains my favorite movie ever, and although the book is great, it does not quite compete.
But there is a reason literature is a timeless art. Although the nature of books is evolving, I don't think it will ever be replaced as Ray Bradbury predicts. I believe that inherently, humans yearn to be creative. Books allow us to do that. While a story is being told to us, it is up to the reader to create the imagery and visualize the action. That is something that a movie will never be able to recreate.
