A Clockwork Orange (film)

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A Clockwork Orange

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Produced by Stanley Kubrick
Written by Anthony Burgess
Stanley Kubrick
Starring Malcolm McDowell
Music by Wendy Carlos
Cinematography John Alcott
Editing by Bill Butler
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) December 19, 1971
Running time 136 min.
Country Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom
Language English
Budget $2.2 million
Gross revenue $26,589,355
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 satirical science fiction film adaptation of a 1962 novel of the same name, by Anthony Burgess. The adaptation was produced, written and directed by Stanley Kubrick. It stars Malcolm McDowell as the charismatic and psychopathic delinquent Alex DeLarge.

A Clockwork Orange features disturbing, violent imagery to facilitate social commentary on psychiatry, youth gangs, and other topics in a futuristic dystopian society. The film features a soundtrack comprising mostly classical music selections and Moog synthesizer compositions by Wendy Carlos.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Set in 1995 England, the film follows the life of a young man named Alex DeLarge, whose pleasures are classical music (most especially Beethoven), rape, and ultraviolence. He is leader of a small gang of thugs (Pete, Georgie and Dim), whom he refers to as his "droogs" (from the Russian word друг meaning "friend" or "buddy"). Alex narrates most of the film in "Nadsat"; the fractured, contemporary adolescent argot comprising Slavic (especially Russian), English, and Cockney rhyming slang. Alex is irreverent and abusive of others; he lies to his parents to skip school and has an expensive stereo sound deck blasting a classics recordings collection.

After drinking narcotic-laden milk at the Korova Milk Bar, Alex and his droogs ridicule and beat an old drunken vagrant under a motorway flyover. They then proceed to a run-down theater, where a rival gang led by Billy Boy are about to rape a woman. A fight between the two gangs ensues; Alex and his droogs emerge victorious and leave before the police arrive. Alex (with the gang) steals a "Durango 95" sports car (which is actually an Adams Probe 16[1]) for a reckless drive into the countryside. They then perpetrate a home invasion, beating a reclusive writer named Mr. Alexander and raping his wife while singing and dancing to "Singin' in the Rain".

While skipping school for the day, Alex picks up two teenyboppers in a record shop, takes them home, and engages in a threesome with them (comedically shown in extreme fast-motion) to the strains of the William Tell Overture. (In 1971, there was journalistic controversy about whether this scene constituted "obscenity" or not.[citation needed]) Alex soon learns that his droogs are not satisfied having him as their leader. Although he is slightly threatened, he seemingly deals with the problem by kicking two of the droogs (Georgie and Dim) into a decorative urban pool as they walk along the "flat block marina" and slashes the back of Dim's hand, demonstrating his leadership and unwillingness to be overthrown.

That night, Alex is caught during a burglary, a mutinous set-up by his ill-contented droogs. Alex breaks into a woman's house and uses a phallic sculpture to bludgeon the owner, unintentionally killing her. Alex is then attacked by Dim, hit in the head with a milk bottle and left helpless at the scene of their crime to be caught by the police. At the police station, he learns that his robbery victim has died, thus making him a murderer. He is sentenced to 14 years in prison. After serving two years, he is offered a chance at parole if he submits to the Ludovico technique, an experimental aversion therapy developed by the government to solve societal crime. The technique involves being exposed to extreme depictions of on-screen violence under the influence of a nausea-inducing drug. Alex is unable to look away from the screen and has his head held immobile and each of his eyes held open by small specula. Consequently, Alex is rendered incapable of violence, even in self-defense, and also incapable of touching a naked woman during a test of the technique. In an unintended side effect, the technique has also rendered him unable to listen to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the background score used in one of the films that is a montage of images of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis; the scientist-doctors apologize: "It can't be helped", saying that musical aversion is "the punishment element, perhaps?"

Once Alex has successfully completed the therapy, he returns home, joyful at the thought of starting afresh. However, he is unpleasantly surprised by the discovery that his parents have rented out his room to a new young man, essentially "replacing" their son. With no place to go, stripped of the ability to fight back, Alex despondently wanders London. He soon encounters the vagrant from the beginning, who quickly recognizes him and attacks Alex with his street friends. Two policemen break up the scene, who turn out to be two of his former droogs, Georgie and Dim. They take him into the outskirts of town, where they beat and half-drown him.

Alex wanders through the woods and unwittingly arrives upon the house of the writer whose wife he had raped and beaten earlier in the film. Mr. Alexander was apparently crippled in the initial assault, and is now confined to a wheelchair. Since Alex was wearing a mask during the earlier assault, Mr. Alexander does not recognize him. However, he does recognize Alex's case from the newspapers, and takes him in, with the intention of using him as a political tool to shame the government. Mrs. Alexander has died due to an illness, which her widowed husband believes was brought on by the rape, and he is now attended by a large, muscular manservant named Julian. Mr. Alexander soon learns who he is dealing with upon hearing Alex sing "Singing in the Rain" while in the bath, which was the same song he sung while raping his wife. Subsequently, he drugs Alex and attempts to drive him insane with an electronic version of the Ninth Symphony (Second Movement) played at full volume below Alex's locked bedroom. The boy attempts suicide by jumping out a window, but survives.

During his long recovery in the hospital, Alex talks about half-remembered dreams he has of people "messing about with me gulliver (Nadsat for 'head')". It is unclear if Alex is remembering his old treatment, or is undergoing new treatment to turn him back to what he was. Soon he is visited by the Minister of the Interior who earlier had personally selected Alex for the Ludovico treatment. He apologizes to Alex for the treatment's consequences, saying he was only following his staff's recommendations. He ultimately rewards Alex's gesture of support by presenting him with an enormous stereo playing the Ninth Symphony's finale (Fourth Movement), to which Alex listens with no physical reaction.

The government has promised Alex a job if he agrees to campaign on behalf of the ruling political party, whose public image has been severely damaged by Alex's attempted suicide. At the film's end, while having a vision of himself copulating with a woman in the snow, while a crowd of people dressed in Victorian clothing observe and applaud, Alex narates: "I was cured, all right...", implying the Ludovico treatment has been reversed and he is now able to exert his freedom of choice.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Production

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 a real doctor 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 of 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). Reportedly the camera sustained lens damage but it was otherwise still functional.

[edit] Direction

Director Stanley Kubrick was a notorious perfectionist, and so he demanded many takes during the making of his films. In the words of actor Malcolm McDowell, however, he usually got it right, so Kubrick did not have to do too many takes. Despite his perfectionism Kubrick was able to complete filming between September 1970 and its wrap on April 20, 1971, making it his fastest produced film. Kubrick wanted to give the film a dream-like, fantasy quality, and filmed many scenes with fisheye lenses. He also used fast and slow motion after being influenced by certain scenes in Toshio Matsumoto's Funeral Parade of Roses.[citation needed]

[edit] Locations

A Clockwork Orange was shot almost entirely on location in and around London with comparatively little of the film filmed in a studio.

[edit] Reception

The film was positively received and was nominated for important awards including 4 Oscar nominations (see below). The film received an 90% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However some critics had mixed opinions, with Roger Ebert giving the film 2 stars and calling it an "ideological mess".[3]

[edit] Responses and controversy

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. It also caused considerable controversy (see below) and was withdrawn from release in the UK. By the time of its re-release in the year 2000, it had already gained a reputation as a cult classic. It was recently placed at number 21 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills and number 46 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies, though in the second listing it ranked in 70th place. Alex De Large was placed at number 12 in the villain section of the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains list.

[edit] United States censorship

The film was rated X on its original release in the United States. Later, Kubrick voluntarily replaced roughly 30 seconds of footage from two scenes with less bawdy action for a 1973 re-release, rated R. It is a common myth that only the R-rated version can be seen nowadays, but in fact the opposite is true: all DVDs present the original X-rated form, and only some of the early 80s VHS editions are in the R-rated form.[4]

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".

[edit] British withdrawal

In the United Kingdom, the sexual violence in the film was considered extreme. Furthermore, it was claimed that the film had inspired copycat behavior. In March 1972, a prosecutor at a trial of a 14-year-old boy accused of the manslaughter of one of his classmates referred to A Clockwork Orange, telling the judge that the case had a macabre relevance to the film.[5]

The attacker, a boy aged 16 from Bletchley, pleaded guilty after telling police that his friends had told him of the film "and the beating up of an old boy like this one"; defence counsel told the trial "the link between this crime and sensational literature, particularly A Clockwork Orange, is established beyond reasonable doubt".[6] The press also blamed the influence of the film for a rape in which the attackers sang "Singin' in the Rain". Kubrick subsequently requested that Warner Brothers withdraw the film from UK distribution.

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.

The ban was vigorously pursued during Kubrick's lifetime. One art house cinema that defied the ban in 1993, and was sued and lost, was the Scala cinema at Kings Cross, London, on the same premises as the present-day Scala nightclub. Unable to meet the cost of the defence, the cinema club was forced into receivership. [7]

Whatever the reason for the film's withdrawal, it could not easily be seen in the United Kingdom for some 27 years. The first VHS and DVD releases followed shortly after Kubrick's death. It was also shown in many UK cinemas.

[edit] Awards and nominations

The film was nominated for 4 Academy Awards. However, The French Connection won in all these categories for that year:

Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s) 1972 Nominated

  • BAFTA Film Award Best Art Direction

John Barry

Best Cinematography John Alcott

Best Direction Stanley Kubrick

Best Film

Best Film Editing William Butler

Best Screenplay Stanley Kubrick

Best Sound Track Brian Blamey John Jordan Bill Rowe

  • Directors Guild of America, USA

Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s) 1972 Nominated DGA Award Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures Stanley Kubrick

Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s) 1972 Nominated Golden Globe Best Director - Motion Picture Stanley Kubrick

Best Motion Picture - Drama

Best Motion Picture Actor - Drama Malcolm McDowell

Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s) 1972 ****Won Hugo Best Dramatic Presentation****

Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s) 1972 Won Silver Ribbon Best Director - Foreign Film (Regista del Miglior Film Straniero) Stanley Kubrick **********

  • Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards

Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s) 1972 Won KCFCC Award Best Film *********

Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s) 1971 Won NYFCC Award Best Director ******** Stanley Kubrick

Best Film

Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s) 1972 Nominated WGA Award (Screen) Best Drama Adapted from Another Medium Stanley Kubrick

[edit] Themes

[edit] Morality

One of the film's central moral questions – as well as in many of Burgess's other books – is the definition of "goodness". After aversion therapy, Alex behaves like a good member of society, but not by choice; his "goodness" is involuntary and mechanical, like that of the titular clockwork orange. In prison, the chaplain criticises the Ludovico Technique, saying that true goodness must come from within. Another theme is the abuse of one's liberties – both by Alex and by those using him for their various ends. The film is also critical of both parties using Alex as a tool to those ends: Frank Alexander, writer and victim of Alex and the droogs, not only wants revenge over Alex, but sees him as a means to definitively turn the people against the government and its new regime – Mr. Alexander is afraid of this new government. Speaking on the phone, he says:

…Recruiting brutal young roughs into the police; proposing debilitating and will-sapping techniques of conditioning. Oh, we’ve seen it all before in other countries; the thin end of the wedge! Before we know where we are, we will have the full apparatus of totalitarianism.

On the other side, the Minister of the Interior, representing the government, puts Mr. Alexander away, using the excuse of him being a danger to Alex. Whether he has been harmed or not remains unclear, but from what the Minister tells Alex, it is obvious that the author has been denied his ability to write and, more importantly, to produce "subversive" material, critical of the current government and prone to cause unrest.

[edit] Psychology

Another central theme is outrage against behavioral psychology (popular throughout the 1940s through the 1960s), as propounded by psychologists John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner. Burgess disapproved of behaviorism, calling Skinner's most popular book, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, "one of the most dangerous books ever written".[8] Although Watson conceded behaviorism's limitations, Skinner argued that behavior modification (learning techniques of systematic reward and punishment) is the key to an ideal society (see Walden Two). Dr. Ludovico's technique, which is highly reminiscent of the notorious Project MKULTRA, is the form of behavior modification the scientists applied to Alex to condition associating violent acts with a sensation of severe physical illness, thereby preventing him from being violent. This film embodies a mistrust of behaviorism, especially the perceived dehumanization and lack of choice associated with behavior modification methods.

Belgian cinema writer Anthony Bochon points out the criminological question underlying the Ludovico treatment. He describes the quality of the film description of the Ludovico treatment as "a problem of integrating the bad, the criminal, who is rejecting human dignity, into Humanity itself. Kubrick didn't make an apology of some fascist practices but simply brought his vision of the future of our society and how violence is fed by our society"[9].

[edit] Adaptation

Kubrick's film is relatively faithful to Burgess's novel, omitting only the final, positive chapter in which Alex matures and outgrows sociopathy. The film ends with Alex offered an open-ended government job, implying that Alex remains a sociopath at heart, while the novel ends with Alex's positive change. This plot discrepancy occurred because Kubrick based his screenplay upon the novel's American edition, its final chapter deleted on insistence of the American publisher.[10] Director Kubrick claimed not having read the complete, original version of the novel until he had almost finished writing the screenplay, and that he never considered using it. In the introduction of the 1996 edition of the novel, it is said that Kubrick found the end of the original edition too blandly optimistic and unrealistic.

Some other notable differences:

Alex and his droogs are a few years older in the movie than in the book, and the two 10-year-old girls Alex raped in the novel are likewise several years older (for obvious reasons), and the sex consensual, in the analogous scene in the movie. Also, instead of former enemy Billyboy becoming Dim's police partner, it's fellow former droog Georgie.

[edit] DVD releases

In 2000, the film was released on videotape and DVD, both individually and as part of The Stanley Kubrick Collection DVD set. Consequent to negative comments from fans, Warner Bros re-released the film, its image digitally restored and its soundtrack remastered. A limited-edition collector's set with a soundtrack disc, movie poster, booklet and film strip followed, but later was discontinued. In 2005, a UK re-release, packaged as an "Iconic Film" in a limited-edition slipcase was published, identical to the remastered DVD set, except for different package cover art. In 2006, Warner Bros announced the September publication of a two-disc special edition featuring a Malcolm McDowell commentary, and the releases of other two-disc sets of Stanley Kubrick films. Several UK retailers had set the release date as November 6, 2006; the release was delayed and re-announced for 2007 Holiday Season. An HD DVD, Blu-ray, and DVD re-release version of the film was released on October 23rd, 2007. The release accompanies four other Kubrick classics. 1080p video transfers and remixed Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (for HD DVD) and uncompressed 5.1 PCM (for Blu-ray) audio tracks are on both the Blu-ray and HD DVD editions. Unlike the previous version, the DVD re-release edition is anamorphically enhanced.

[edit] Anthony Burgess's response

Burgess had mixed feelings about the film adaptation of his novel. Publicly, he loved Malcolm McDowell and Michael Bates, and its use of music; he praised the film as "brilliant," even as a film so brilliant that it could be dangerous. His initial reaction to the film was very enthusiastic, insisting that the only thing that bothered him was the removal of the story's last chapter, for which he blamed his American publisher and not Kubrick.

According to his autobiography, Burgess got along quite well with Kubrick. Both men held similar philosophic and political views; both were very interested in literature, cinema, music, and Napoleon Bonaparte (Burgess dedicated his book Napoleon Symphony to Kubrick). However their relationship was soured when Kubrick left it to Burgess to defend the film from accusations of glorifying violence. As a (lapsed) Catholic, Burgess tried many times to explain the story's Christian moral points to outraged Christian organisations who felt it a Satanic social influence; to defend it against journalistic accusations that it supported "fascist" dogma; and Burgess even received awards for Kubrick.

Burgess was deeply hurt, feeling Kubrick had used him as a film publicity pawn. Malcolm McDowell, who did a publicity tour with Burgess, shared his feelings, and at times said harsh things about Kubrick. Burgess and McDowell cited as evidence of Kubrick's uncontrolled ego that only Kubrick's name appears in the authorial opening credits. Burgess spoofed Kubrick's image in later works: the musical version of A Clockwork Orange, featuring a character resembling Kubrick who is beaten early in the work; The Clockwork Testament, wherein the fictional poet FX Enderby is attacked for supposedly glorifying violence in a film adaptation; and Burgess's novel Earthly Powers, which features a crafty director named Zabrick.

[edit] Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack comprises classical music and electronic synthetic music composed by Wendy Carlos (credited at the time to Walter Carlos).

Some of the pieces of classical music excerpted make only the briefest appearance in the film, a case in point being the "Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1" theme better known as "Land of Hope and Glory", which is used in highly ironic fashion to herald the appearance of a politician in the prison, and is not heard again.

The main theme is an electronic transcription of Henry Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, composed in 1695 for the procession of Queen Mary's cortège through the streets of London enroute to Westminster Abbey.

The film's music can be interpreted as a thematic extension of Alex's psychological conditioning, affecting the viewers.

[edit] Track listing

  1. "Title Music from A Clockwork Orange"[2], Wendy Carlos
  2. "The Thieving Magpie (Rossini, Abridged)", A Deutsche Grammophon Recording
  3. "Theme from A Clockwork Orange (Beethoviana)", Wendy Carlos
  4. "Ninth Symphony, Second Movement (Abridged)", A Deutsche Grammophon Recording, probably the one conducted by Ferenc Fricsay.
  5. "March from A Clockwork Orange (Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement, Abridged)", Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind
  6. "William Tell Overture (Rossini, Abridged)", Wendy Carlos
  7. "Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1", Sir Edward Elgar
  8. "Pomp and Circumstance March No. IV (Abridged)", Sir Edward Elgar
  9. "Timesteps (Excerpt)", Wendy Carlos
  10. "Overture to the Sun", Terry Tucker (instrumental from the 1969 album of her group, "Sunforest")
  11. "I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper", Erika Eigen (from the 1969 album of her group, "Sunforest" - movie version is somewhat different from soundtrack)
  12. "William Tell Overture (Abridged)", A Deutsche Grammophon Recording
  13. "Suicide Scherzo (Ninth Symphony, Second Movement, Abridged)", Wendy Carlos
  14. "Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement, (Abridged)", A Deutsche Grammophon Recording (Von Karajan, 1963, uncredited)
  15. "Singin' in the Rain", Gene Kelly, lyrics by Arthur Freed, music by Nacio Herb Brown.

Three months after the official soundtrack's release, composer Wendy Carlos released a second version of the soundtrack (Columbia KC 31480) containing unused cues and musical elements unheard in the film. For example, Kubrick only used part of "Timesteps", and a shortened version of the synthesiser transcription of the Ninth Symphony's Scherzo. Additionally, this second soundtrack LP contained a synthesiser version of Rossini's "La Gazza Ladra"; Kubrick used an orchestral performance in the film's soundtrack. In 1998, an edition of the soundtrack containing digitally-remastered tracks of the synthesiser music was released. It contains Carlos's compositions, including those unused in the film, and the "Biblical Daydreams" and "Orange Minuet" cues unincluded in the 1972 soundtrack LP record.

Carlos composed the first three minutes of "Timesteps" before reading Burgess's novel. Originally, she had intended as the introduction to a vocoder rendition of the Ninth Symphony's Choral movement; "Timesteps" was completed at roughly the time when Kubrick completed the film's photography; "Timesteps" and the vocoder Ninth Symphony were the foundation for Carlos's and Kubrick's collaboration.

Reportedly, Stanley Kubrick asked Pink Floyd mainman Roger Waters if he could use elements of the "Atom Heart Mother" suite in the soundtrack; Waters rejected the request. Later, Waters 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 featuring a vocoder for singing, and often is cited as inspiration for many synthpop bands.

Neither the end-credits nor the soundtrack album name the orchestra playing the classical excerpts from the Ninth Symphony, however, in Alex's bedroom, early in the story, there is a fleeting close-up of a microcassette tape labelled: "Deutsche Grammophon – Ludwig van Beethoven – Symphonie Nr. 9 d-moll, op. 125 – Berliner Philharmoniker – Chor der St. Hedwigskathedrale – Ferenc Fricsay – Irmgard Seefried, Maureen Forrester, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Ernst Haefliger".

[edit] Previous film versions

The first dramatisation of A Clockwork Orange (excerpted from the story's first three chapters only) was by the BBC, for part of the programme Tonight, broadcast shortly after the novel's original publication in 1962. No recording of this dramatisation has survived.

Six years before Stanley Kubrick's film version, Andy Warhol produced a low-budget version in 1965, titled Vinyl). Reportedly, only two scenes are recognisable: "Victor" (a renamed Alex) wreaking havoc, and undergoing the Ludovico Treatment.

[edit] Miscellaneous

Burgess sold the rights to the screenplay to a then upcoming rock n roller, Mick Jagger, for a very low price.
Mick Jagger went on to sell it to Kubrick. This was supposedly why Burgess disclaimed the relations with the
movie along with it's anti-"status quo".

[edit] Differences between the film and the novel

  • In the novel, Dr. Branom is a male. In the film, the character is female.
  • The film uses Nadsat significantly less often than the book in order to make the film more accessible.
  • In the film Alex has a pet snake. There is no mention of this in the novel. This was added by Kubrick due to Malcolm McDowell's fear of snakes.[citation needed]
  • Alex's weapon of choice in the book is a britva (razor); in the film, he wields a cane with a knife concealed in the handle (similar to a Japanese shikomizue).
  • In the film, Alex and his droogs beat a tramp, who later recognizes him and, with other homeless people, assaults him after his treatment. In the book, Alex beats an old man carrying library books, who later recognizes him and (with other aged people) assaults him in a library after his treatment. Alex and his droogs also beat a tramp in the book, but Alex did not meet him again as he was presumably killed.
  • In the novel, Alex and his gang pay for a group of old ladies' drinks, bribing them into providing the police with an alibi to cover a crast (shop burglary). None of this appears in the film; the scene with the old ladies was shot, but not used.[citation needed]
  • The girl that is about to be raped by Billy Boy's gang is ten in the book, but a young woman in the film.
  • In the novel, the writer whose wife Alex rapes is named "F. Alexander", leading to an ironic comparison between the two "Alexander"s. The film does not mention his surname, though he is called "Mr. Alexander" in the credits. In the film, he is addressed by his first name, "Frank," a detail not revealed in the book.
  • In the novel, Alex takes home and rapes two ten-year-old girls, Marty and Sonietta, after meeting them in a record shop. In the film, the girls are about 14 years old, and their sexual encounter with Alex is consensual.
  • In the film, the "cat lady" whose house Alex breaks into possesses a great deal of sexual artwork, including a rocking penis sculpture with which Alex delivers the (inadvertent) killing strike. None of this artwork is mentioned in the book, in which Alex uses a small bust of Beethoven to deliver the fatal blow. In the film, it is in fact the "cat lady" who uses the Beethoven bust as a weapon to defend herself from Alex. The "cat lady" in the novel is elderly, addled, and living in a cat-ridden house of Miss Havisham-style dilapidation; the "cat lady" in the movie is in her early 40s, sharp, and living in a health farm which (according to dialogue) has closed for a week.
  • When trying to escape from the cat lady's house, Alex is stopped by Dim, who attacks him and leaves him for the police. In the novel, Dim uses his "oozy" (or chain) to whip Alex across the face. In the film, Dim smashes a milk bottle across the side of Alex's head.
  • In the film, Alex's surname is spoken as "DeLarge" on arrival at prison; this surname is a pun based on the book, when Alex (referring to his penis) calls himself "Alexander the Large" (in turn a reference to Alexander the Great). In a close-up shot of a newspaper article, Alex is identified as "Alex Burgess". In the novel, Alex's surname is unknown.
  • In the novel, Alex's prisoner number is 6655321; in the film, it is 655321.
  • In the novel, Alex is beaten by prison guards. The film does not show this, but Alex mentions it in his narration.
  • In the novel, an imprisoned Alex learns of the death of his former droog Georgie during a botched burglary. In the film, Alex meets with Georgie after being freed from prison (see below).
  • In the novel, the incarcerated Alex and cell mates brutally beat a man just put in their cell, for being a nuisance. Alex is told to give the man some "tolchocks", and accidentally kills him. For such persistent violence, Alex is selected to undergo the Ludovico Technique. In the film, Alex volunteers for the treatment and is chosen in part for his good behavior in prison.
  • In the novel, Alex is beaten by his former droog, Dim, and his former rival, Billy Boy, who have both joined the police; the beating itself is not described (though it is implied he was raped as well as beaten, as they put their clothes back on after they have administered his "summary"). In the film, Billy Boy is replaced in this scene by Georgie, another former droog (who had died in the novel); they take Alex down a wood path to a watering trough, where Dim forces Alex's head underwater, and Georgie beats him with his truncheon. Actor Malcolm McDowell nearly drowned during filming when his air tank failed, as the (unbroken) scene lasted 60 seconds.[citation needed]
  • In the book, F. Alexander lives alone after the death of his wife, and manages most of the housework by himself despite his condition. In the film, he is shown to have hired a bodyguard named Julian to help him around the house and guard the home from future break-ins. The bodyguard is played by former bodybuilder and future Darth Vader, David Prowse in a brief role.
  • In the novel, F. Alexander recognizes Alex through a number of careless references to the previous attack (e.g. his wife then claiming they did not have a telephone). Whereas, in the film, Alex is recognized when singing the song 'Singing in the Rain', in the bath, which he hauntingly does whilst attacking F. Alexander's wife. The song does not appear at all in the book, as it was an improvisation by actor Malcolm McDowell when Kubrick complained that the rape scene was too "stiff".[citation needed]
  • Alex is conditioned against all music in the book, but in the film he is only averse to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
  • During one of the applications of the Ludovico Technique, Beethoven's Fifth symphony is played, and Alex begs for them to stop. In the movie, it is the Ninth symphony which is played during this scene.
  • The last chapter (21) of the novel was not filmed. In this chapter, Alex encounters Pete, the third member of the original gang (who was heavily cut out of the film) who has grown beyond his violent ways and married; Alex realises that he wishes to do the same, but believes his violence was an unavoidable product of his youth.
  • The film includes the phrase "A Clockwork Orange" only once. We see A Clockwork Orange written on a piece of paper in Mr. Alexander's typewriter. The book explains that the author Frank is supposed to have written a political tract by that name (with a passage explaining the title), but this is not mentioned in the movie.
  • In the film, while Alex is being tortured by Mr. Alexander, Kubrick composes the shot so that the author is transformed into a bust of Beethoven. Even the arrangement of the scarf around his neck suggests the contours of a statuette.
  • In the film, the car seen before the home invasion is the M-505 Adams Brothers Probe 16, in the novel however, it is referred to as Durango 95. Only three were produced. In the TV-programme Top Gear (Season 2004, 2nd episode, aired October 31, 2004), the one used in the film was nominated for restoration in the Restoration Rip-off feature.

[edit] References to other Kubrick's films

[edit] References in Popular Culture

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • In The Simpsons episode Dog of Death, Santa's Little Helper is forced to endure a movie that will turn him into a vicious attack dog. His eyes are held open with several probes, just like Alex during his rehabilitation. In the episode Treehouse of Horror III, Bart is dressed as Alex DeLarge for Halloween. A third reference appeared in the episode Duffless, in which a scene depicts Bart having a nervous breakdown after reaching for cupcakes.
  • The opening sequence of Robot Chicken features a cyborg chicken who also has its eyes held open in the way Alex's are, while being forced to watch a bank of televisions playing the shows opening credits.
  • A gang shown in the underground motorcycle racing sequence of Batman & Robin dresses like the character of Alex deLarge.
  • British metal band Grim Reaper has a song entitled Suck It And See, which is one of the "speech bubbles" that Alex had written on the wall.
  • In the TV show Rocko's Modern Life there is a stray dog that has a bowler hat and eye liner like the character Alex.
  • The Opening Cinema of Conkers Bad Fur Day is a direct parody of the opening of A Clockwork Orange.
  • In Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny, JB is attacked in the park by a gang who is dressed like (and talks like) Alex's gang.
  • British band Blur's single "The Universal" featured a video which was a tribute to A Clockwork Orange.
  • The music group DeVotchka dubbed their name from Nadsat's devotchka; translating to Girl in Russian.
  • In the music video "All That I've Got" by The Used there is a scene in which the lead singer is dressed in a similar style to that of Alex in the film.
  • In the music video of "Never Gonna Stop (The Red Red Kroovy)" by Rob Zombie, the band are dressed as Alex and his Droogs, and appear in the Korova Milk Bar and a scene referencing the ride in the stolen Durango 95.
  • Brazilian Thrash Metal band Sepultura's 11th studio album will be a concept album inspired by the movie. The band had debated doing this for their 10th album, but opted to base it on Dante's Divine Comedy instead.
  • British punkrock band The Adicts has been inspired by the movie since the beginning of the band. They still perform live dressed up like Alex and his friends. Their logo is practically the same as the logo of the movie.
  • One of the songs on the first album (Inflikted) of a new project of Sepultura founding members Max Cavalera and Igor Cavalera, Cavalera Conspiracy titled "Ultra-violent" and inspired by the film A Clockwork Orange.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Probe 16 - The Imp Site
  2. ^ Filming Locations Malcommcdowell.net, accessed 2007-07-22
  3. ^ Ebert, R: A Clockwork Orange, Chicago Sun-Times, 11 February 1972
  4. ^ [1] - Article discussing the edits, with photographs.
  5. ^ "Serious pockets of violence at London school, QC says", The Times, 21 March 1972.
  6. ^ "'Clockwork Orange' link with boy's crime", The Times, 4 July 1973.
  7. ^ Scala's History The Scala website, accessed 12 November, 2007
  8. ^ SparkNotes: A Clockwork Orange: Context
  9. ^ Anthony Bochon, "L'Histoire dans le cinéma anglo-américain parlant", Paris, Editions Le Manuscrit, at page 82.
  10. ^ The Kubrick FAQ Part 2

[edit] See also

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