Clockwork Orange
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I think this is the coolest movie I´d ever seen, directors must learn from McDowell and do better movies than the ones they are right now...
>>By little orange (Saturday, 16 Nov 2002 06:13)
a walk on the psychotic side, I saw this movie for the first time in the seventh grade and it still remains my favorite after 12 years.
>>By butterfly (Sunday, 24 Nov 2002 18:47)
It's kinda called 'A Clockwork Orange'... not just clockwork orange. One of the best movies ever made.
>>By A (Monday, 2 Dec 2002 22:09)
A Clockwork Orange is one of my favorite movies. Its hard to top a classic like this.
>>By Chicka (Wednesday, 8 Jan 2003 01:48)
I love this move because Malcolm McDowell is very sexy in this move I would love to meet him.
>>By Orange girl (Thursday, 9 Jan 2003 18:29)
YEA THE FILM GOOD BUT THE BOOK IS BETTER
if u have read the book ur know what i mean
>>By Alexs (Tuesday, 28 Jan 2003 13:30)
i think malcolm mcdowell was lovely when he was younger i like him in a clockwork orange hes lovely as alex i like the way he talks and talks to himself while driving i like all the scenes in the film, but not the bit where hes getting eye drops put into his eyes at the cinema scene i like the bit where they play beethoven full blast and alex begs them to turn it off then jumps out of the window what a film
>>By twiggy (Saturday, 22 Feb 2003 12:45)
most people miss the entire message of the movie...they either think it is "cool" because of the violence or the actor is "sexy". the movie is filmed and put together in wonderful aspect. Although, you get more out of the book, in today's world people are too naive to understand the real meaning behind the story. i bet most of these people couldn't even tell you who wrote the book.
>>By Dim (Wednesday, 26 Feb 2003 08:17)
Stanley Kubrick’s take on Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange disappointed me. I found the movie seemed to me a little over the top at times, and most of the novel’s best points were lost in the screenplay. The language of nadsat was thoroughly cleansed to the bare minimum, until only the bone remained. Though nadsat was not a pivotal part of the story, it was one of the things that gave a unique distinction to the novel in general. The movie’s sets seemed overdone, even garish at times. At the very beginning of the movie, I enjoyed the dark, sinister take on the gang, with McDowell playing a fascinating Alex. That is, until I saw the environment. Though it is true, the sex is important to the story, it is important only in the larger sense of “ultra-violence”. Kubrick makes it so that sex seemed to be something Alex was completely obsessed with, when really it was the experience of rape and abusing a girl that he really enjoyed. Also, he treated rape exactly like he treated the physical attack on people; it was just another chance to hurt someone. In the movie, sex shows up constantly, from the very beginning, with the lewd tables and gaudy drink dispensers, to the end, when Alex is cured. It shows up in an old lady’s home, it shows up in the form of a nurse and the doctor, and yet another time with the two girls in the record shop. Alex did not enjoy sex. He enjoyed ultra-violence. He saw women as objects that were to be used for the ol’ ‘in-and-out’. Another thing I found that annoyed me were the electronic versions of classical pieces. I felt that the movie could have benefited more from the more somber tones of the original pieces rather than having a trashy hip-hop version of the pieces. Another thing that bothered me was the in his eagerness to show how violent and sexual Alex was, he lost a lot of the book’s format. The book had an ABA format, with three parts. The first part started with “What’s it going to be then, eh?” Then the story progressed with showing what Alex was truly like. In part 2, Alex was in prison. In Part 3, Alex was “cured” and the section began again with “What’s it going to be then, eh?” Only this time, we saw Alex as a beaten, lowly animal, with no free will, and no freedom of choice. I thought the “What’s it going to be then eh?” was important, and I was frustrated that Kubrick left it out. One thing I particularly enjoyed from the movie was McDowell’s performance as Alex. To me, it was spectacular. He was intense, and he was exactly how I would picture Alex. He was dark, ominous, and threatening all at the same time. Yet he also had room for change. Towards the end of the movie when he was cured, he seemed meek and beaten. However, at the very end of the movie, he gained back his confidence and his ill-refuted personality. On the matter of the last chapter from the book: though you may not know this, Burgess wrote one more chapter to finish off this novel. The novel had Alex meet up with Pete, one of his former “droogs”. In the chapter, Alex had grown up and was 18. he again had another gang to push around, only this time, he was different. He lost a lot of his intensity. He preferred to let others do his dirty work, than sully his own hands. He preferred simple violin and piano solos rather than the extravagant symphonies that he usually favored. When he met Pete again, he found that he had grown up, and married a woman and had had two kids! After this chance encounter with Pete, Alex decides that maybe this is time to move on, to start his own life, not as a hooligan, but as a functioning person of society. Both Kubrick and American printing presses cut out this last chapter because they felt it was too “sentimental”, and that it softened the book’s harsh edge. However, Burgess had a point in introducing this chapter. He questioned many things, but one of the crucial questions of his book was quoted by the prison ‘charlie’. “Does God want a person to be good, or does he want that person to choose good over evil?” or something to that effect. Key word: choose. Burgess introduced a bureaucratic feel toward the question of free will. Who cares what it does, or how its done, all that you need to know is that it works. Burgess clearly feels that this bureaucratic opinion toward free will leads to totalitarianism as demonstrated by the Soviet Union at the time. His reason for adding the final chapter in the book was to prove that even people seemingly hopeless did stand a fighting chance in choosing good over evil. First by Pete, and then by Alex. The book lost some of Burgess’ point, but it did not lose all of it, mainly because the violence and sex were not over exaggerated. However, in the Kubrick version, he seemed to revel in the blood, gore, and pain caused by these hoodlums. He completely lost the main point of this fable. Instead, he painted it with sex and violence. If you’re too lazy to read the book, then you will most likely enjoy this movie. However, if you have, you will find it is only a movie glorifying sex and violence.
>>By Chang (Saturday, 5 Jul 2003 04:37)
It's hard for me to say this, but i like this movie, in some sick and twisted way.... I mean this movie makes me sick and that's the reason why i watch it everytime it's on. But i gotta say, Malcolm MacDowell makes the most hardest roles in this movie. It disgust's me..........
>>By Plaztik (Sunday, 21 Sep 2003 20:07)
A Clockwork Orange is my favorite film of all time... however, the book is even better...
>>By Chelsea Hideous (Wednesday, 5 Nov 2003 06:02)
The book and movie are awsome. I will never forget the first time I saw the movie, it was great. I had read the book like 4 times already, So I had to see the movie.. and it just added to the greatness of it all..
>>By Lucy_fer19 (Wednesday, 19 Nov 2003 18:20)
a masterpiece, made by great mind!
i saw the movie about 3 times before i read the book, which's great as well, but not that much a masterpiece as the film is in its genre. i don't understand people telling the book wouldn't be perfectly transmitted, kubrick couldn't have done it better, his visual and musically work represent the grotesque picture you get when reading the book.
>>By kkrokkbaer (Wednesday, 19 Nov 2003 22:36)
wat rup bitch mexican right here slut fuck what you believe in hore
MEXICANOS CONTROLAN
>>By locote (Wednesday, 19 Nov 2003 22:54)
im looking for some ultra violence can anyone help me out.PLEASE?
>>By secaap (Monday, 1 Dec 2003 11:21)
"ehhh...no time for the old in and out love"
>>By Lex (Wednesday, 28 Jan 2004 14:36)
A Clockwork Orange is a great film but nowhere near greater then the book only due to the cause that simply one is a movie and one is a book. Stanley Kubrik did the movie through his own eyes, no one sees and thinks the same when one looks at a work of art. Everything is left to the eye of the beholder. Then again who would of done a better job with such a film???
>>By IvanBooze (Wednesday, 11 Feb 2004 18:13)
hey A, YOUR AN IDIOT, look at the case does it say a clock work orange? NO I DOESNT!
>>By i hate nicknames (Sunday, 18 Apr 2004 20:21)
i wanna be a droogie
&
sip that nectar
at the milk bar.
the book
is
worth a viddy too.
>>By Helmet (Tuesday, 20 Apr 2004 23:55)
Wow this is one intense movie. And almost perfect.
I notice a lot of people who have seen this movie have read the book.
Lots of wicked irony like how he beat up old guys are the start, and then he gets mobbed by old guys at the end -- and then even more ironically, gets saved and then beat up by his old gang members turned cops -- and *then* Alex seeking help ("it's a real emergency this time") to the "home" in which he once raped someone (using "it's an emergency" to guile his way in).
I was surprised at how much tits and pussy was in this film that was made in 1971. This movie is so much more controversial than anything of the modern era (and not just for the nudity or rape scenes -- in which frat/ sensationalist movies of today portray just that -- yet come nowhere near the gripping, psychological intensity of Clockwork).
To someone who wrote something above me. Do you really think that people like this movie because it's "cool"? Am I wrong in saying this movie is about Alex who finds pleasure in "ultraviolence" and rape, gets sent to jail, is Pavlovian conditioned (i.e. trained to have an aversion to negative stimulus) to feel pain upon urges of violence and sex, and then giving a commentary on whether or not he is really "reformed" or not? I think the vast majority of people get that.
The other thing I noted about this movie is the dialogue. It's just superb, and puts modern cinematic dialogue to shame. Clockwork's dialogue almost seemed Shakespearean.
To the argument abou the movie's title: Both of you have valid points. On the cover it does seem to only say "Clockwork Orange", yet the movie is generally regarded as "A Clockwork Orange." Anyone know for such which is correct?
>>By ftad (Monday, 26 Apr 2004 20:21)
Ah I just worked it out... (*chuckle*)! See on the DVD cover where Alex/Malcolm McDowell is coming out of a cut-out shape with a knife? That is actually in the shape of an "A"
One other thing that is ironic about the movie as a whole, is that what actually made it to the screen in Clockwork as "ultraviolence" is not actually considered ultraviolence to this day. The film wasn't violently explicit is what I'm trying to say; e.g. when he kills the "cat woman" with the dildo, you don't actually see her assumingly mangled face.
In fact things have seemed to be inversed in 1971 to 2004. Such rape and nudity scenes may cause a film to be banned in this day and age. But the violence is nothing really. One person in the Kill Bill thread compared this movie to that. You could actually call the 88 killing of those masked thugs (and decapitations) in Kill Bill, ultraviolence.
Thing is Clockwork puts violence and sex into an eerily realistic and believable context. Kubrick doesn't seem to be taking sides of the victim and the criminal. He is giving both sides of the story. Allowing us to empahise with both Alex, and the victims.
>>By ftad (Tuesday, 27 Apr 2004 05:16)
I enjoyed the not to subtle criticism of behavior therapy that the book and the movie portrayed. W/O cognitive reframing, a violent society will always need negative reinforcement and we cannot live in a constant police state. Obviously, bush, and i hate to bring politics in, but here I go, hasn't seen the movie. The god that is in question here is not that christian fable sort of a persona-good-evil, good vs. evil, choosing good over evil and vice versa. It is a societies mechanism that is used to produce good ( or bad) choices. Afterall, didn't society create the gods (godesses).
So maybe the end of the book did acquiesce to the burgeoning attempts of society to condition a good citizen. Did it? Remember Alex says "O my brothers, remember sometimes thy little Alex that was." and fondly too. Jung may suggest otherwise as well, in his attempt to recognize the shadow and in every Alex in the world, there is a shadow lurking. Kubrick's emphasis on The Shadow in his movie (sex,violence) did prevail and his art did imitate reality. We are talking about reality and how a movie or a book can contribute to ones reality. I find little choice and hope in the ending. Alex misses his young life and the forced entity of getting old and acquiring a "disease" (as Burgess puts it) is inevitable. So, however one looks at it-Alex is contolled by an innate nature to be cruel or Alex gets old and can no longer live his life the way it was, exemplifies the lack of choice in society. How unfortunate.
>>By Darkhalls (Wednesday, 5 May 2004 02:30)
The book by Burgess indicates "A Clockwork Orange".
>>By Darkhalls (Friday, 7 May 2004 07:00)
A Clockwork Orange as the book is titled is a superb piece of work by Burgess, to which this film doesn't really come close in my opinion. but then again its always the case isn't it?
But nevertheless its a good film in its own right. if just a little cold and distant. (as most Kubriks work was).
i thought the violence was shocking, but done honestly without judgement from the director. it certainly did not glamorize it.
The fact that the violence was so shocking, was due mainly not to the actual content which is pretty tame by todays standards , but more because of how realistically it was portrayed. something apparantly lost on modern directors.
But my advice to anyone who likes the film is go buy the book its far better!
>>By mark67 (Friday, 7 May 2004 07:45)
i liked the movie so much!! right now i'm reading the book
>>By xime (Sunday, 6 Jun 2004 17:39)
I don't think the book is better than the movie. It is one of those strange cases on the film is better than the book.
>>By Meliadus (Monday, 7 Jun 2004 16:51)
Brilliantly Ironic, hideously violent subject matter, darker than satan's ass hair.
I love it.
>>By SMASH_YOUR_FACE_IN (Wednesday, 9 Jun 2004 12:08)
I..dont see how this is violent...maybe for its time I guess. I would love to see a re-make and put some meaning into "Ultra Violence"....just keep Paul Anderson away from the script.
>>By quiet-kid (Friday, 27 Aug 2004 21:50)
well i'd have to agree with the people that say the book is better than the movie. don't get me wrong, i absolutely LOVE the movie. i just think the book went into alot more detail and i understood more about the meaning behind the film after reading the book.
>>By xx_tim_xx (Friday, 24 Sep 2004 23:21)
I just saw the movie for the first time last night. What a creepy, dark and cynical film. Very interesting. But dammit! Kubrick has forever ruined "Singin' in the Rain" for me. It used to make me smile to see Gene Kelly dancing and hanging on that lamppost. Now I hear the song and I see McDowell (Alex) with that crazy Pinocchio nose kicking that old guy in the gut.
Also, and I don't know if someone can tell me why....but, whenever I hear Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th, I start to feel sick.
>>By The Walrus (Thursday, 7 Oct 2004 23:00)
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