Post by Capo on Nov 22, 2005 21:04:12 GMT
A Clockwork Orange
Director: Stanley Kubrick
1971 United Kingdom
Alex Delarge and his three droogs, Pete, Georgie and Dim, sit in the Korova Milkbar, making up their rassoodocks what to do with the evening. It doesn’t take them long; they’re soon beating an old tramp senseless, fighting with Billy Boy’s gang, and breaking into an author’s home and raping his wife to their own version of Singin’ in the Rain. Alex’s overpowering ways sees him betrayed by his pals, and he finds himself in jail, where he is used by the Government as a guinea pig for a brainwashing experiment meant to take violence off the streets. It works far better than expected.
On its initial release, A Clockwork Orange astounded critics and the public alike. Seldom before had they been confronted by such repulsive and openly presented acts of violence: rape, or the old in-out, manic gang beatings with giant penises—and all to the sound of Beethoven, which, in a very knowing fashion, became part of the film’s promotional campaign (the tagline read, “Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven”).
But just as Alex’s rebellious ways have him reduced to a mere number at one point in the film, so the director’s insistence on technical preciseness tends, at times, to overwhelm the proceedings, reducing it (perhaps intentionally) to a rather unemotional affair—perhaps the reason why Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1981) and even Full Metal Jacket (1987) all dazzle the eyes and ears but fail to register in the heart.
The film is, however, full of irresistible moments and performances. As our protagonist Alex, Malcolm McDowell (who was beaten to the Oscar by Gene Hackman’s performance as rugged tough cop Popeye Doyle, in The French Connection, whose director William Friedkin also beat Kubrick to the Best Director prize) manages to obtain our pity and sympathy in a film otherwise devoid of sentiment. He has a youthful charm about him, which, even when truanting and called upon by his truant officer to buck up his ideas, brings us over onto his side. The feeling that Alex is, like Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (1967), a youth at odds with the seemingly more mature world around him is heightened when, caught by the police and sustained in prison, he is again visited by the same truant officer who, brought here to offer words of advice to Alex, instead chooses to spit in his face.
In terms of narrative, it is Alex who drives the film; the novel is told from his perspective, and here Kubrick retains some of Burgess’ original work used in voiceover, though it never quite captures the irony or wit of the novel. Comparisons to the novel, however, ultimately fall flat. Kubrick infuriated Stephen King fans when he adapted The Shining and it turned out nothing like they’d imagined. Here, then, a decade before, he turns a colourful, evocative allegory of Catholicism into a cold, almost Orwellian account of Britain’s social order; tellingly, there is not one reference, even fleetingly, to the original’s title.
CREDITS
Director
Stanley Kubrick
Producer
Stanley Kubrick
Screenplay
Stanley Kubrick
based on the Anthony Burgess novel
Director of Photography
John Alcott
Film Editing
Bill Butler
Production Design
John Barry
Art Direction
Russell Hagg
Peter Shields
Costume Design
Milena Canonero
CAST
Malcolm McDowell
Alexander Delarge
Patrick Magee
Mr. Alexander
Michael Bates
Chief guard
Warren Clarke
Dim
John Clive
Stage actor
Adrienne Corri
Mrs. Alexander
Carl Duering
Dr. Brodsky
Paul Farrell
Tramp
Clive Francis
Lodger
Michael Gover
Prison governor
Miriam Karlin
Catlady (Miss Weathers)
James Marcus
Georgie
Aubrey Morris
Mr. P. R. Deltoid
Godfrey Quigley
Prison chaplain
Sheila Raynor
Mum
Director: Stanley Kubrick
1971 United Kingdom
Alex Delarge and his three droogs, Pete, Georgie and Dim, sit in the Korova Milkbar, making up their rassoodocks what to do with the evening. It doesn’t take them long; they’re soon beating an old tramp senseless, fighting with Billy Boy’s gang, and breaking into an author’s home and raping his wife to their own version of Singin’ in the Rain. Alex’s overpowering ways sees him betrayed by his pals, and he finds himself in jail, where he is used by the Government as a guinea pig for a brainwashing experiment meant to take violence off the streets. It works far better than expected.
On its initial release, A Clockwork Orange astounded critics and the public alike. Seldom before had they been confronted by such repulsive and openly presented acts of violence: rape, or the old in-out, manic gang beatings with giant penises—and all to the sound of Beethoven, which, in a very knowing fashion, became part of the film’s promotional campaign (the tagline read, “Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven”).
But just as Alex’s rebellious ways have him reduced to a mere number at one point in the film, so the director’s insistence on technical preciseness tends, at times, to overwhelm the proceedings, reducing it (perhaps intentionally) to a rather unemotional affair—perhaps the reason why Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1981) and even Full Metal Jacket (1987) all dazzle the eyes and ears but fail to register in the heart.
The film is, however, full of irresistible moments and performances. As our protagonist Alex, Malcolm McDowell (who was beaten to the Oscar by Gene Hackman’s performance as rugged tough cop Popeye Doyle, in The French Connection, whose director William Friedkin also beat Kubrick to the Best Director prize) manages to obtain our pity and sympathy in a film otherwise devoid of sentiment. He has a youthful charm about him, which, even when truanting and called upon by his truant officer to buck up his ideas, brings us over onto his side. The feeling that Alex is, like Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (1967), a youth at odds with the seemingly more mature world around him is heightened when, caught by the police and sustained in prison, he is again visited by the same truant officer who, brought here to offer words of advice to Alex, instead chooses to spit in his face.
In terms of narrative, it is Alex who drives the film; the novel is told from his perspective, and here Kubrick retains some of Burgess’ original work used in voiceover, though it never quite captures the irony or wit of the novel. Comparisons to the novel, however, ultimately fall flat. Kubrick infuriated Stephen King fans when he adapted The Shining and it turned out nothing like they’d imagined. Here, then, a decade before, he turns a colourful, evocative allegory of Catholicism into a cold, almost Orwellian account of Britain’s social order; tellingly, there is not one reference, even fleetingly, to the original’s title.
CREDITS
Director
Stanley Kubrick
Producer
Stanley Kubrick
Screenplay
Stanley Kubrick
based on the Anthony Burgess novel
Director of Photography
John Alcott
Film Editing
Bill Butler
Production Design
John Barry
Art Direction
Russell Hagg
Peter Shields
Costume Design
Milena Canonero
CAST
Malcolm McDowell
Alexander Delarge
Patrick Magee
Mr. Alexander
Michael Bates
Chief guard
Warren Clarke
Dim
John Clive
Stage actor
Adrienne Corri
Mrs. Alexander
Carl Duering
Dr. Brodsky
Paul Farrell
Tramp
Clive Francis
Lodger
Michael Gover
Prison governor
Miriam Karlin
Catlady (Miss Weathers)
James Marcus
Georgie
Aubrey Morris
Mr. P. R. Deltoid
Godfrey Quigley
Prison chaplain
Sheila Raynor
Mum