A
Clockwork Orange
Bulleted release and production
data:
-United States 1971 Science Fiction “cult classic”
-137 minutes- color
-Produced by: Hawk Films, Polaris, and Warner Bros.
-Distributed by: Warner Brothers
-Producer/director/screen writer Stanley Kubrick
-Based off of Anthony Burgees’ 1962 novel
-Set design- John Berry
-Costume design- Milena Canonero
-Electronic score- Walter Carlos
-Cinematography- John Alcott
-Film editor- Bill Butler
-Nominated for: best picture, best screenplay, best director, and best film editing
-Copycat violence
-Originally rated X, now R-rated
-Filming was not easy for Malcolm McDowell (Alex) who was temporarily blinded by a scratched cornea during the Ludovico scene, he also cracked two ribs during the humiliation stage show. He nearly drowned as well when his breathing apparatus fell out during the underwater trough scene.
Discussion of the context surrounding A Clockwork Orange with emphasis on production and reception
A Clockwork Orange, produced
in 1971 by Stanley Kubrick was an adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s novel from
1962. According to Kubrick, "the
central idea of the film has to do with the question of free-will. Do we lose
our humanity if we are deprived of the choice between good and evil? Do we
become, as the title suggests, A Clockwork Orange?”
The title implies a clockwork (mechanical, artificial and robotic) human
being and orange is similar to orangutan, an ape like creature. The film, in
Kubrick’s words, “explores the difficulties of reconciling the conflict
between individual freedom and social order.”
A Clockwork Orange was
extremely controversial when it was first released.
Its original rating of X has now been converted to an R rated film.
Despite that, this film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director,
Best Film Editing and Best Screenplay. However
the film was defeated in each category by The French Connection.
A huge debate surrounding the film was the violence it portrayed. “Due to copycat violence that A Clockwork Orange was blamed for Stanley Kubrick withdrew it from circulation in Britain a year after its release.” In an interview with Michel Ciment (1972) Kubrick answers questions on his controversial film. Kubrick explains that the violence in the film may have appeared to be “distant” because everything was seen through Alex’s eyes (in his own special way of seeing what he does). Kubrick said that although some think this view made violence attractive, he finds that totally incorrect. However, he feels that the connection/fascination between Alex and the audience is due to the fact that we can “identify with Alex on the unconscious level.” Kubrick, when asked by Ciment about his attitude towards violence in the film, said that, “the violence in the story has to be given sufficient dramatic weight so that the moral dilemma it poses can be seen in the right context.” In regards to the implications made by Alex’s love for rape and Beethoven, Kubrick says that it “suggests the failure of a culture to have any morally refining effect on society.” He uses Hitler’s love of music and some Nazis’ cultural sophistication as an example.
In the production of A Clockwork Orange Kubrick uses “technical devices which break the narrative fluidity, and the illusion of reality: accelerated action, slow motion, and an unusual reliance on ultra-wide angle lenses.” He did this in order to be “cinematic[ally] equivalent to Burgess’s literary style and Alex’s highly subjective view of things.” He adds “the style of any film has to do more with intuition than with analysis.” An example of a high-speed motion scene was the orgy. Another technique used by Kubrick was hand-held camera work that he actually did himself in order to “move through a confined space or over obstacles” and also to create certain effects that cannot be achieved any other way. The suicide scene of Alex hurling himself out a window was achieved by actually hurling the camera out the window, ruining “a thousand-pound machine…at one throw.”
Most of the shooting of A Clockwork Orange was done “on location with the exception of four sets which were built in a small factory…[n]othing was filmed in a studio.” The scenes of the film were supposed to look futuristic and in order to accomplish this Kubrick “look[ed] through back issues of several British architectural magazines, getting…leads for most of the locations that way.”
Kubrick’s influence is apparent in many aspects of the film. The music for A Clockwork Orange was mostly chosen after the film was completed, although Kubrick “had some of it in mind from the start.” Kubrick wrote the script alone after many others’ scripts had been rejected. In the film the ending is different than in the book. Kubrick says, “There are two different versions of the novel.” He’s never read the version with the extra chapter in which Alex is rehabilitated and feels it may have been added by pressure from the publisher to end on a positive note. Kubrick assures us that he “never gave any serious consideration to using [that ending].” Another hint of Kubrick is in the “Milk Bar” where fiberglass women are used as tables, resembling an exhibition sculpture that he had seen which “displayed female figures as furniture.”
Sources:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/3111/aco.html
http://www.filmsite.org/cloc.html
http://www.clockworkorange.com
Interpretive plot summary and critique
The Stanley Kubrick film, A Clockwork Orange addresses the controversial question of humanity without free-will…does such a thing exist or are the two so intertwined that without one, the other is impossible to attain? The film A Clockwork Orange is set in near future England with the opening image, a close-up of the smirking, puck, protagonist, Alex de Large wearing a bowling hat and one false eyelash on his right eye. Then, the camera zooms out and shows Alex with a cold stare sitting amongst his gang of “droogs” – Georgie, Dim, and Pete. This group led by Alex commit fashioned but senseless acts of terrorism including rape, robbery and mugging. The first crime is the mugging of a drunken bum lying in the gutter under a bridge. Next, there is a violent scene with Alex and the droogs taking on their rivals, a gang headed by Billy boy. This scene begins with the camera panning an abandoned opera house/casino showing a rape victim on stage that escapes Billy boy’s gang when the droogs start their fun. The third crime happens at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander who are tricked into letting Alex and the Droogs into their home. This proves to be a disastrous mistake as Mr. Alexander is assaulted by Alex and is then helplessly forced to watch as his wife is brutally raped. The fourth and final crime is committed at the Health Farm owned by Miss. Weathers. This time Alex is forced to break in when Miss. Weathers fails to fall for his trickery. There is then a battle between Alex and Miss. Weathers, which ends with the death of Miss. Weathers and the police capture of Alex de Long who was betrayed by Georgie and Dim.
Alex is convicted of murder and sentenced to 14 years in prison. During his first two years in prison Alex very studiously tricks the Chaplain into believing in his fake desire to reform. It is during a talk between Alex and the Chaplain that the Ludovico Treatment Technique is first mentioned. This new treatment is designed to help criminals’ reform and get them back into society quickly, using aversion therapy. When the ‘law and order’ minister visits the prison Alex gets himself noticed and in picked as the guinea-pig candidate for the new procedure. The treatment is soon begun on Alex at the Ludovico Medical Center. He is injected with an experimental serum and forced to watch two films. The first filled with violent beatings and rape, and the second a film with Nazi’s atrocities while Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is played in the background. The treatment works all too well and Alex is let back out into society newly conditioned to get sick whenever placed in a position where he has the option to perform a crime or whenever he needs to defend himself.
Once Alex returns home he finds that the world has turned against him. His parents have a lodger who has quickly become the son they never had. Left with no home Alex walks the streets till he runs into the bum he so long ago assaulted. The bun then gets his revenge and attacks the defenseless Alex. Two police officers come to stop the ruckus, but they are none other than two of Alex’s old droogs- Georgie and Dim. The droogs, still angry with Alex because of his abusive treatment of them so long ago also seek their revenge. They get it as they beat Alex and hold him under water in a trough. Once Dim and Georgie leave Alex he goes to a house to seek refuge. Unbeknownst to him the house he goes to is the Alexander residence, the home of the couple he assaulted. Alex ends up back in the hospital ,after attempting suicide at the house, and is comforted by the minister for being treated so horribly by the public. Alex is to be taken care of with a good job and salary as compensation for what he has suffered.
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Websites/ Hyperlinkshttp://www.filmsite.org/cloc.html (Film Review)http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/3111/aco.htm (Film Summary)http://www.clockworkorange.com/ http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4572/
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Questions:
-Alex is a man whose ultra-violent actions go on
without any feel of regret or grievances, which make the viewer grow to
dislike him. Even so, at the
films end how have your reactions changed, or how have they stayed the same?
-How do you feel about the futuristic society that can
control ones every movement, thought, and every action?
Do you think that it is fair for such a government to function in
this manner? Why or why not?
-Musical scores have been used for centuries in films to accomplish different things, how do you think Beethoven was used in this piece, and to what effect did that accomplish? Was it effective?
-There is no denying that A Clockwork Orange is a very
unpleasant film, that does not go along the lines of many films of today,
even so, this masterpiece has many powerful universal themes that most do
not want to acknowledge, but how are these themes impact the viewer?
-What is your take on the quote, “What goes around comes around” in relation to this film? Referencing scenes such as the police assault on Alex, the Beethoven scene, and the old men beating him up in the ally?
“Alright I see how things are now. I’ve suffered and I’ve suffered, and I’ve suffered and everyone wants me to go on suffering!” –Alex
Site Composed by Angela Walker, Angie Glasow, Ashley Rather
Submitted December 3, 2001