Clockwork Orange

[Pielorinho]

Glad you saw it, ASH. If i may recommend one Kubrick movie, you simply must see Dr. Strangelove, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb[/b]. It is one of the keenest satires ever put on film, in my opinion--possibly the keenest.

"You can't fight in here! This is the WAR ROOM!"

Daniel

 

[Tom Cashel]

(Interestingly, the original British edition of the book does have a happy ending of sorts. The 21st and final chapter has the protagonist grow out of his juvenile deliquency.)

Hoodlum/murderer/rapist grows up to be a police officer = happy ending?

Ironic, satirical, yes...but I wouldn't call it "happy" of any sort.

Great film, but the book by Anthony Burgess is simply amazing. Creates its very own language, some of which is used in the film.

As to whether you "should" see the film, I'd go with the advice about whether you're in the mood to be confronted by your entertainment. Are you ready to feel absolute disgust and revulsion for a character, and then feel sympathy for the same person when circumstances change?

EDIT: Oops! You saw it already!

I'll concur that Dr. Strangelove and 2001 are also great films. Strangelove is one of my favorites ever. "I'll get those bomb-bay doors open if it hare-lips everybody in Bear Creek!"

Hey, for those of you who've seen 2001,

Spoiler

any theories on what Kubrick was on about when he kept "The Blue Danube" waltz playing for about 10 min. after "THE END," with a black screen? My personal theory is that it dovetails with the film's themes: just as there is more than we know outside the boundaries of what we call "universe," there is more outside the boundaries of what we call "film." Unseeable perhaps, but there nonetheless. Whaddya think?

 

[devilish]

Rumor has it .... (I think I saw it on IMDB but you can Google it as well)
that Anthony Burgess wrote A Clockwork Orange in response to his
wife getting beaten by 4 American GI's and losing their baby.

Burgess in a sense rewrote the incident from the hoodlum's perspective.

Burgess also hated Kubrick's movie version of his story.

 

[nothing to see here]

I look at Clockwork Orange as just showing you Alex. "Here he is. What are you going to do about him?" I don't think Kubrick has a position or a solution to the problem.



Kubrick seemed pretty cynical about incarceration. He seemed pretty cynical about everything that Alex tried out frankly. (One of my favorite sequences is seeing what Alex learns from his brush with religion.)

I doubt any of us could deign speak for Kubrick's true intention...that's what pretentious film school instructors are for. However, an oft-cited, if underdiscussed point of the film is that it's most powerful emotional release is also it's subtlest. Alex, whom the entire first third of the film sets you up to hate...becomes an object of abject pity...actually a 'victim' when put into the hands of a purportedly well-intentioned state. You spend the last third of the film feeling for the guy...only to be jarred in the last scene when it hits home...just who you've been sympathizing with.

A subtle yet strong anti-absolutist, and libertarian message, to be sure.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Hey, for those of you who've seen 2001,

Spoiler

any theories on what Kubrick was on about when he kept "The Blue Danube" waltz playing for about 10 min. after "THE END," with a black screen? My personal theory is that it dovetails with the film's themes: just as there is more than we know outside the boundaries of what we call "universe," there is more outside the boundaries of what we call "film." Unseeable perhaps, but there nonetheless. Whaddya think?

I think you're onto something with that one. It would definitely fit Kubrick an the style of 2001.

 

[Testament]

<SNIP>Burgess also hated Kubrick's movie version of his story.

Largely because it's missing the 21st Chapter of the book, which was also cut from the first print run. Does that chapter feel, I don't know, out of place? Yes, and Kubrick, it would seem, agrees, hence its omission.

It does, however, complete the story, and for that alone, it should have been in there. Without it, the film is even more shocking and repulsive, as "nothing to see here" said. It changes the whole angle.

 

[Viking Bastard]

As someone who hasn't read the book, what happened in chapter 21?

 

[mmu1]

Basically, Alex grows up. He gets a cushy government job in (IIRC) a music archive as compensation for what was done to him.

He does try to do the whole gang thing on the side again, but this time around, he's much older than the other members - what amuses them bores him, the way they throw around money annoys him (now that he actually works for a living - cushy job or not), and staying up all night when you actually have to show up for work the next day isn't quite as appealing.

A few things happen that reinforce his perception that what he's playing at is pointless, including a meeting with one of his old gang buddies, now happily married and very respectably middle-class - and he basically decides that he's done with the things he did as a kid, and it's time to move on. Very similar to the ending of Trainspotting in some ways - "You think we're so different? Well, from now on, I'm going to be just like you. Job, wife, family. How do you like that?"

 

[Viking Bastard]

How... disappointing.

 

[mmu1]

How... disappointing.

BTW, here is the actual text if you want to take a look: http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0062.html