A Clockwork Orange (film)
This article describes the film. For other uses of the term Clockwork Orange
, see Clockwork Orange (disambiguation).
A Clockwork Orange (
1971) is a
film directed and produced by
Stanley Kubrick based on the
novel of the same name by
Anthony Burgess. The film stars
Malcolm McDowell as
charismatic delinquent
Alex DeLarge, and features a soundtrack by
Wendy Carlos. It came in at number 21 on
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills and number 46 on
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies.
Set in a futuristic England ( circa 1995), the film follows the career of a young man named Alex whose main pleasures in life are
classical music (especially
Beethoven),
rape, and random acts of "
ultraviolence". Alex is approximately 18 years of age at the film's beginning, and about 21 years of age at the film's end. Alex provides a voiceover narration through most of the film, relating his story in a fractured teenage vernacular called '
Nadsat', a combination of
Russian,
English, and British slang.
Eventually Alex is caught, jailed for 2 years, and 'rehabilitated' by an experimental program of
aversion therapy (called Luduvico's technique), spearheaded by the government in an effort to solve society's crime problem. The therapy renders him incapable of violence (even in self-defense), but in an unintended
side effect, also makes him unable to enjoy Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony. The doctors whisper to themselves that 'it can't be helped' and that this is 'The punishment element, perhaps?'
Stripped of the ability to fight back, Alex soon falls afoul of both his former partners in crime (the 'droogies'), and some of his former victims. He is then captured by anti-government politicians (one of whom is a former victim seeking
revenge) who drive him insane by playing Beethoven's Ninth; Alex tries to commit
suicide by jumping out a window but fails.
After a long recovery in hospital, Alex seems to be back to his former self. While in the hospital, the Minister of the Interior (who had personally selected Alex for the special treatment) visits Alex and apologizes for the treatment program, saying that he was only following the recommendations of his staff. Alex is then promised a position in government if he agrees to campaign on behalf of the ruling political party, whose public image has been severely damaged in the wake of Alex's suicide attempt. The closing shots of the film feature Alex's voiceover saying "I was cured all right...", anticipating his return to creating havoc. The film ends with a disturbing,
surreal image of Alex having sex with a woman, surrounded by applauding
Victorian gentlemen, an image that suggests that his aggression is accepted by society, now that Alex will be working with politicians instead of criminal outcasts.
One of the central
moral questions of the film, as well as many of Burgess' other books, is the definition of "
goodness". Once he has undergone the aversion therapy, Alex behaves like a good member of society, but not through choice; his "goodness" is as artificial as the clockwork orange of the title. In one scene, the prison chaplain criticizes the therapy, saying that true goodness has to come from within. Another theme is the abuse of liberties.
The film is relatively faithful to the novel, except for the omission of the final chapter. Burgess's novel ends with Alex maturing and growing out of his
sociopathy, eventually becoming an upright citizen. Kubrick's film offers a much
bleaker conclusion; Alex has not
really changed at all, and now he has the government's tacit approval to wreak as much havoc as he likes.
This discrepancy is because Kubrick based his film on the American edition of the novel, which had its final chapter cut at the insistence of the American publisher [
1] He found out about the last chapter in the middle of shooting but found that it was not of the tone of the rest of the book and decided not to include it in the film.
During the filming of the
Ludovico scene, Malcolm McDowell scratched a
cornea and was temporarily blinded. The doctor standing next to him in the scene dropping saline solution into Alex's forced-open eyes, was not just there for filming purposes, but was needed to prevent McDowell's eyes from drying. McDowell also suffered cracked ribs during filming of the humiliation stage show, and nearly drowned when his breathing apparatus failed while being held underwater in the trough scene.
When Alex
jumps out the window to try to end his torment, the viewer sees the ground coming toward the camera until they collide. This
effect was achieved by dropping a portable camera from two or three stories up, lens pointing downward, thus presenting a realistic sense of what such a fall could be like, although the way Alex (either McDowell or a stuntman) jumped, he actually would have landed on his back (presumably into a net).
The film was nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Picture (it lost to
The French Connection) and reinvigorated sales for recordings of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
United States censorship
|
Alex at the Korova Milkbar |
The film was
Rated X on its original release in the United States. Later, Kubrick voluntarily cut 30 seconds from the film for a re-release, which was
rated R and released in the US in 1973. It is a common myth that only the R-Rated version (with the 30 seconds taken out or replaced with less graphic content) can be seen nowadays, but the opposite is in fact true [
2]: all DVDs present the original X-rated form, and only some of the early 80s VHS editions are in the R-rated form.
The film was rated
C (for "condemned") by the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office for Film and Broadcasting because of its explicit sexual and violent content; such a rating conceptually forbade Catholics from seeing the film. The "condemned" rating was abolished in
1982, and since then films deemed by the conference to have unacceptable levels of sex and/or violence have been rated
O, meaning "morally offensive".
British withdrawal
In the
United Kingdom the
sexual violence in the film was considered extreme. Furthermore, claims that the film had inspired copycat behaviour were made: the press blamed the influence of the film for an attack on a homeless person and a rape in which the attackers sang "
Singin' in the Rain". The film was subsequently withdrawn from UK distribution by Kubrick himself.
At the time, it was widely believed that the copycat attacks were what led Kubrick to withdraw the film from distribution in the United Kingdom. However, in a television documentary made after Kubrick's death, his widow Christiane confirmed rumours that Kubrick had withdrawn
A Clockwork Orange on police advice after threats were made against Kubrick and his family. (The source of the threats was not discussed.) That
Warner Bros. acceded to Kubrick's request to withdraw the film is an indication of the remarkable relationship Kubrick had with the studio, particularly the executive
Terry Semel.
Whatever the reason for the film's withdrawal, it could not easily be seen in the United Kingdom for some 27 years. The first video and DVD releases followed shortly after Kubrick's death.
DVD Releases
In 2000, the film was re-released on video and DVD, separately and as part of 'The Stanley Kubrick Collection.' Following bad comments from fans, Warner Bros released the DVD again, digitally restored and remastered. A limited edition collector's set with a soundtrack, poster, booklet and film strip followed in 2002. In 2006, Warner Bros announced a two-disc special edition for September, along with several other Kubrick two-disc sets. Malcolm McDowell recorded a commentary. Several UK retailers have set the release date for November 6th.
Anthony Burgess's response
Burgess had mixed feelings about the film adaptation of his novel. Publicly, he loved
Malcolm McDowell,
Michael Bates and the use of music, and praised the film as 'brilliant', and even as a film so brilliant that it could be dangerous. His initial reaction to the film was very enthusiastic and he insisted that the only thing that bothered him was the removal of the last chapter, though he blamed his American publisher and not Kubrick (who had read the American version of the book, missing its last chapter). According to his autobiography, Burgess got along quite well with Kubrick. The two both had similar philosophical and political views, they both were very interested in literature, film, music, and Napoleon (Burgess even dedicated his book
Napoleon Symphony to Kubrick, who gave him ideas for it). However, things started to go bad when Kubrick left Burgess to defend the film from the accusations that it glorified violence. A devoted Christian, he tried numerous times to explain its Christian moral point to outraged Christian groups who felt it was a Satanic influence, and even defend it from accusations by the left-wing media that it supported 'fascist' dogma. He even collected awards for Kubrick. Burgess was deeply hurt and felt Kubrick had used him as a pawn for the film's publicity.
Malcolm McDowell, who went on a publicity tour with Burgess, shared his feelings, and at times said some pretty harsh things about Kubrick. Burgess and McDowell said that proof of Kubrick's out-of- control ego was the fact that only his name appears in the opening credits. Burgess would go on to spoof Kubrick's image in several of his later works: his musical version of
A Clockwork Orange (which includes a character who looks just like Kubrick, and who is beaten up early in the piece);
The Clockwork Testament, in which the fictional poet FX Enderby is similarly attacked for supposedly glorifying violence in a film adaptation; and finally thinly-disguised references to Kubrick also appear in Burgess's novel,
Earthly Powers, which features a crafty director named Zabrick.
The film's soundtrack combines
classical music with electronic music created by
Wendy Carlos (credited under the name Walter Carlos).
The music in this film can be interpreted as extending the theme of conditioning to the audience: during any scene of violence in the movie, beautiful classical music is played, so that for a short while afterwards, whenever the viewer listens to that music, they may remember the violent images in the movie.
The track listing is as follows:
# "Title Music From
A Clockwork Orange",
Wendy Carlos# "The Thieving Magpie (
Rossini, Abridged)", A Deutsche Grammophon Recording# "Theme From
A Clockwork Orange (Beethoviana)", Wendy Carlos# "Ninth Symphony, Second Movement (Abridged)", A Deutsche Grammophon Recording, probably the one conducted by
Ferenc Fricsay.# "March From
A Clockwork Orange (Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement, Abridged)", Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind# "William Tell Overture (Rossini, Abridged)", Wendy Carlos# "Pomp And Circumstance March No. 1", Sir Edward Elgar# "Pomp And Circumstance March No. IV (Abridged)", Sir
Edward Elgar# "Timesteps (Excerpt)", Wendy Carlos# "Overture To The Sun", Terry Tucker# "I Want To Marry A Lighthouse Keeper", Erike Eigen (movie version is somewhat different)# "William Tell Overture (Abridged)", A Deutsche Grammophon Recording# "Suicide Scherzo (Ninth Symphony, Second Movement, Abridged)", Wendy Carlos# "Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement, (Abridged)", A Deutsche Grammophon Recording (
Von Karajan, 1963, uncredited)# "Singin' In The Rain",
Gene Kelly, lyrics by
Arthur Freed, music by
Nacio Herb Brown.
|
Album cover of 1972 LP
(Columbia KC 31480) |
The title track for
A Clockwork Orange is based on
Henry Purcell's
Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary.
Three months after the official soundtrack was released, composer
Wendy Carlos released a version (Columbia KC 31480) containing unused cues and other musical elements which had not appeared in the film. For example, Kubrick had only used part of Carlos's "Timesteps", and the
synthesizer rendition of the Scherzo from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony had been shortened. In addition to these materials, the second soundtrack LP contained a synthesizer version of Rossini's "La Gazza Ladra", for which Kubrick had used an orchestral performance. In
1998, a compact disc was distributed containing a new, digital remastering of the synthesizer material. The CD contains Carlos's compositions, including those Kubrick did not use, and the cues "Biblical Daydreams" and "Orange Minuet" which the 1972 LP had not included.
Carlos composed the first three minutes of "Timesteps" before reading Burgess's novel. Originally, she had intended it to introduce a rendition of the Ninth Symphony
's Choral movement, played with a vocoder. "Timesteps" was completed roughly the same time Kubrick had wrapped photography for his film; along with the vocoder performance of Beethoven's Ninth, it became the foundation for Carlos and Kubrick's collaboration.
Stanley Kubrick reportedy asked
Pink Floyd frontman
Roger Waters if he could use elements of the song "
Atom Heart Mother" in the soundtrack. Waters rejected the request but later asked Kubrick if he could appropriate sounds from
2001: A Space Odyssey - a request Kubrick rejected.
"March From
A Clockwork Orange" was the first recorded song to feature the use of a
vocoder for singing, and is often cited as the inspiration for many
synthpop bands.
The character Dim is played by a young
Warren Clarke, now most famous as Dalziel in the UK detective drama series
Dalziel and PascoeThe first dramatization of
A Clockwork Orange (excerpts from the first three chapters only) was by the
BBC, for part of the programme
Tonight, broadcast shortly after the novel's original publication. No recording of this dramatization has survived.
Seven years prior to the Kubrick film,
Andy Warhol had produced a low-budget version, titled
Clockwork (also known as
Vinyl). Reportedly, the only two recognizable scenes are those where Victor (Alex) wreaks general havoc and undergoes the Ludovico treatment.
Members of
The Rolling Stones proposed to film their own adaptation before Kubrick decided to do so. Other unrealized versions were supposedly to contain girls in miniskirts or senior citizens instead of teenagers.
Both the story and individual elements have had a strong influence on
popular culture in general and
popular music in particular. They have also been targeted by parodies, affectionate and otherwise. The
related article contains an extensive, though not exhaustive, list of these.
Plays
After Kubrick's film was released, Burgess wrote a
Clockwork Orange stage play. In the stage version, Dr. Branom "defects" from the psychiatric clinic when she realizes that the treatment has destroyed Alex's ability to enjoy music. The play restores the novel's ending, ending with Alex deciding to start a family. One of Alex's early victims is modelled on Kubrick: a bearded trumpeter who plays "Singin' in the Rain" at the Korova milkbar.
A second play, entitled
A Clockwork Orange 2004, was written for the
Royal Shakespeare Company in 1990. This is entirely free of references to the film, but does away with the novel's ending.
* Alex is younger in the book (around 15) than in the movie (around 18).
* There is a librarian assaulted in the book. This does not occur in the film.
* In the film, Alex meets up with the tramp later who assaults him. While Alex and his droogs did beat up a tramp in the book, Alex did not meet him later in the book. In the book, Alex met up with the gentleman carrying books on crystallography who assaults him in a library along with several other elderly people.
* There is a scene where Alex is beaten up by prison guards. This is not in the movie.
* In the book, Alex, while in prison, learns of the death of his former droog Georgie. This does not happen in the movie and Alex meets up with Georgie after his release from prison.
* In the book, Alex gets beaten up by his former droog, Dim, and his former rival, Billy Boy. It's never specified as to what they did to Alex, other than he gets beaten up. In the film, Alex is beaten up by Dim and Georgie, his former droogs. They take Alex down a wooden path to a watering trough, where Dim forces Alex's head under water, while Georgie beats him with his nightstick. After a minute of this, they stop.
* The 21st chapter of the book is not in the film.
* While incarcerated in the book, Alex and his cellmates brutally beat up a man who was just put in their cell for being a nuisance. Alex is told to give the man some "tolchoks" and Alex accidentally kills him. His persistent signs of violence is why Alex is selected for the Ludovico technique.
* The phrase A Clockwork Orange is not mentioned in the film. In the novel, the writer who Alex assaults has written a book called "A Clockwork Orange", and Alex mentions that he's heard of it, but has never read it.
*In the novel Alex rapes two 10-year-old girls, Marty and Sonietta, after meeting them in a record shop. For the film version, the girls' age is increased to about 17 and their sexual encounter with Alex is consensual.
*The deranged author in the book, F. Alexander, does not have his last name mentioned in the movie, so there is no ironic parallel between the two "Alexanders" implied in the novel.
*In the film, Alex's surname is given verbally as 'DeLarge' on his arrival at prison. This appears to have been taken from a pun in the book, when Alex (referring to his penis) refers to himself as 'Alexander the Large' (as opposed to '
Alexander the Great'). In a close-up shot of a newspaper article, he is called "Alex Burgess". Alex's surname is not given in the book. During his two years in prison he is referred to only as 655321, his prisoner number.
See also: List of cultural references to A Clockwork Orange*The film contains only one mention of, or reference to, the phrase "A Clockwork Orange": we see 'A Clockwork Orange' written on a piece of paper in Mr. Alexander's typewriter. The fact that the author Frank is supposed to have written a political tract by that name (with an explicit passage explaining the title, which is 'quoted' in the novel) is not mentioned.
*The album cover of the soundtrack to
2001: A Space Odyssey, also directed by Stanley Kubrick, is clearly visible in the record-shop scene, as is the cover to The Beatles'
Magical Mystery Tour.
*In the film version, the car seen before the scene of ultraviolence at "HOME" is the
M-505 Adams Brothers Probe 16. Only three were produced.
*The female furniture sculptures in the Korova Milkbar were based on works by sculptor
Allen Jones.
* Filming started in September
1970 and wrapped on
April 20,
1971.
* In both the book and the film, a band called
The Heaven Seventeen is mentioned, having a single at number 4 in the charts called
Inside. This was the inspiration for the name of the Eighties pop band
Heaven 17. The UK pop group
Moloko, from Sheffield like Heaven 17, took their name from the milk drink that Alex and the droogs drink in the Korova bar.
* The combination to Alex's bedroom door is 17-34-89
* After the Ludovico treatment scene Malcolm McDowell has had an overwhelming fear of eyedrops.
*
Location of the town It seems that the most likely location for the town in which Alex dwells is
Elstree in
Hertfordshire. He notes the presence of 'sophistos' from the TV studios round the corner - there is a very large
BBC studio complex at Elstree. Additionally the owner of the health farm telephones
Radlett police station. Radlett is a small town a few miles north of Elstree.
* Underground rapper Cage has a track on his album "Movies for the Blind" entitled "Agent Orange". The beginning notes are the ones used in the beginning of the movie. And he even says his name is Alex and uses the famous "right right" confirmation.
*Burgess, Anthony (1978). Clockwork Oranges. In
1985. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0091360803 (
extracts quoted here)
*
List of counterculture films*
A Clockwork Orange Multimedia Guide*
A Clockwork Orange - A Hollwood Gothique Retrospective*
A Prophetic and Violent Masterpiece -
Theodore Dalrymple in the
City Journal*
Comparison of Book and Film*
Tabula Rasa: The Clockwork Orange Files
