Doctor Omega
Member: Rank 10
Your thoughts on this movie.....
In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.
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Review A Clockwork Orange (1971)
- Thread starter Doctor Omega
- Start date
Your thoughts on this movie.....
In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.
This is one of my favourite soundtracks(also my favourite film).
Doctor Omega
Member: Rank 10
Doctor Omega
Member: Rank 10
Why Kubrick decided to make A Clockwork Orange (1971) | MAKING FILM
Doctor Omega
Member: Rank 10
Anthony Burgess and Malcolm McDowell interview on "A Clockwork Orange" (1972)
The Seeker
Member: Rank 6
"A Clockwork Orange" used to be my favorite movie. My absolute, all-time favorite. I even picked up the book after I saw it (it took me two tries to get through it successfully). I loved Alex, I loved the art deco, and I loved the soundtrack!
Now though? Now, I don't care for it. I'll tell ya why.
When I was young, Alex was so witty and handsome. I had a crush on him. I'll bet plenty of young women have a crush on him, and plenty of young men want to be him. That's because Kubrick lovingly made him the most appealing character in the film. You can almost overlook that he's a rapist/thief/murderer because all his victims are nasty and pathetic.
F. Alexander? Snobbish, out-of-touch, and later completely batty. PR Deltoid a borderline pedophile. Alex's midday (consensual) orgy with two girls (who are the same age as him). A few guys winking at him in prison. He coughs or something and gets chosen for the Ludovico Treatment. The movie might have practically the same plot and some of the same dialogue as the book, but the spirit of the story is totally lost. In the book Your Humble Narrator is sympathetic to some degree, but his nastiness is never glossed over and the other characters (including two ten-year-olds he drugged and raped) are more down-to-earth. Funny how Kubrick couldn't have his golden boy touched by perverts in prison (but pulling the clothes off of women and furniture shaped like naked women is a-ok) or how Alex didn't get the Minister's attention by murdering a cellmate.
Also what's with the all white costumes? The eyelashes and bowler hats were cool, but the outfits they wore in the book were much cooler: "The four of us were dressed in the height of fashion, which in those days was a pair of black very tight tights with the old jelly mould, as we caled it, fitting on the crotch underneath the tights, this being to protect and also a sort of a design you could viddy clear enough in a certain light, so that I had one in the shape of a spider. Pete had a rooker (a hand, that is), Georgie had a very fancy one of a flower, and poor old Dim had a very hound-and-horny one of a clown's litso (face that is). Dim not ever having much of an idea of things and being, beyond all shadow of a doubting thomas, the dimmest of we four. Then we wore waisty jackets without lapels but with these very big built-up shoulders ('pletchoes' we called them) which were a kind of a mockery of having real shoulders like that. Then, my brothers, we had these off-white cravats which looked like whipped-up kartoffel or spud with a sort of a design made on it with a fork. We wore our hair not too long and we had flip horrorshow boots for kicking."
Really Roger Ebert's review said it best: "Alex and his society are smart-nose pop-art abstractions. Kubrick hasn't created a future world in his imagination -- he's created a trendy decor." https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-clockwork-orange-1972
Now if Kubrick hadn't been a narcissist who needed to write his own screenplay, he could have used Burgess' and we could have gotten a fantastic movie. http://www.filmbuffonline.com/FBOLN...y-unknown-clockwork-orange-script-discovered/
I hate remakes but if someone wanted to remake this with Burgess’ screenplay, that would be fine with me. Just don’t turn Alex into a woman. I hope I’m not being sexist but I really don’t think he should be a woman. ACO has been turned into a play and a woman has been cast as Alex before.
Now though? Now, I don't care for it. I'll tell ya why.
When I was young, Alex was so witty and handsome. I had a crush on him. I'll bet plenty of young women have a crush on him, and plenty of young men want to be him. That's because Kubrick lovingly made him the most appealing character in the film. You can almost overlook that he's a rapist/thief/murderer because all his victims are nasty and pathetic.
F. Alexander? Snobbish, out-of-touch, and later completely batty. PR Deltoid a borderline pedophile. Alex's midday (consensual) orgy with two girls (who are the same age as him). A few guys winking at him in prison. He coughs or something and gets chosen for the Ludovico Treatment. The movie might have practically the same plot and some of the same dialogue as the book, but the spirit of the story is totally lost. In the book Your Humble Narrator is sympathetic to some degree, but his nastiness is never glossed over and the other characters (including two ten-year-olds he drugged and raped) are more down-to-earth. Funny how Kubrick couldn't have his golden boy touched by perverts in prison (but pulling the clothes off of women and furniture shaped like naked women is a-ok) or how Alex didn't get the Minister's attention by murdering a cellmate.
Also what's with the all white costumes? The eyelashes and bowler hats were cool, but the outfits they wore in the book were much cooler: "The four of us were dressed in the height of fashion, which in those days was a pair of black very tight tights with the old jelly mould, as we caled it, fitting on the crotch underneath the tights, this being to protect and also a sort of a design you could viddy clear enough in a certain light, so that I had one in the shape of a spider. Pete had a rooker (a hand, that is), Georgie had a very fancy one of a flower, and poor old Dim had a very hound-and-horny one of a clown's litso (face that is). Dim not ever having much of an idea of things and being, beyond all shadow of a doubting thomas, the dimmest of we four. Then we wore waisty jackets without lapels but with these very big built-up shoulders ('pletchoes' we called them) which were a kind of a mockery of having real shoulders like that. Then, my brothers, we had these off-white cravats which looked like whipped-up kartoffel or spud with a sort of a design made on it with a fork. We wore our hair not too long and we had flip horrorshow boots for kicking."
Really Roger Ebert's review said it best: "Alex and his society are smart-nose pop-art abstractions. Kubrick hasn't created a future world in his imagination -- he's created a trendy decor." https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-clockwork-orange-1972
Now if Kubrick hadn't been a narcissist who needed to write his own screenplay, he could have used Burgess' and we could have gotten a fantastic movie. http://www.filmbuffonline.com/FBOLN...y-unknown-clockwork-orange-script-discovered/
I hate remakes but if someone wanted to remake this with Burgess’ screenplay, that would be fine with me. Just don’t turn Alex into a woman. I hope I’m not being sexist but I really don’t think he should be a woman. ACO has been turned into a play and a woman has been cast as Alex before.
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The Seeker
Member: Rank 6
Burgess was inspired by the stilyagi (“style hunters”), the counterculture of 1950s Russia. They were interested in trendy foreign clothing and Western music. Kubrick, on the other hand, got his crappy white costume idea from Malcolm McDowell’s cricket gear. He had him put his jockstrap on over his pants. How edgy.
Another beef I have - in the book, F. Alexander was an author and when Alex and his droogs attacked, he’d been writing a book entitled “A Clockwork Orange.” Alex even reads an excerpt: "The attempt to
impose upon man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round
the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate to a
mechanical creation, against this I raise my sword-pen.” I wish Kubrick had put that in.
And finally - Kubrick ordered all the unused scenes to be destroyed because he’s an asshole. They would have made great extras on a DVD! Among unused footage was an assault on a man coming out of the library (a scene from the book that they took it out when the actor died later that year), the droogs bribing old ladies with drinks (something else they did in the book), and the droogs vandalizing a train (also a scene in the book). They had to take out a lot because the movie turned out to be four hours long - and it feels long enough as it is. If Kubrick had had the cajones to film the prison scenes the way they’d been written it would have been much more watchable.
Another beef I have - in the book, F. Alexander was an author and when Alex and his droogs attacked, he’d been writing a book entitled “A Clockwork Orange.” Alex even reads an excerpt: "The attempt to
impose upon man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round
the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate to a
mechanical creation, against this I raise my sword-pen.” I wish Kubrick had put that in.
And finally - Kubrick ordered all the unused scenes to be destroyed because he’s an asshole. They would have made great extras on a DVD! Among unused footage was an assault on a man coming out of the library (a scene from the book that they took it out when the actor died later that year), the droogs bribing old ladies with drinks (something else they did in the book), and the droogs vandalizing a train (also a scene in the book). They had to take out a lot because the movie turned out to be four hours long - and it feels long enough as it is. If Kubrick had had the cajones to film the prison scenes the way they’d been written it would have been much more watchable.