A Clockwork Orange (film)

A Clockwork Orange

Theatrical release poster by Bill Gold
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Produced by Stanley Kubrick
Written by Script:
Stanley Kubrick
Novel:
Anthony Burgess
Narrated by Malcolm McDowell
Starring Malcolm McDowell
Warren Clarke
Michael Bates
James Marcus
Michael Tarn
Patrick Magee
Cinematography John Alcott
Editing by Bill Butler
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) December 19, 1971 (1971-12-19)
(United States)
January 13, 1972 (1972-01-13)
(United Kingdom)
Running time 136 minutes
Country United Kingdom
United States
Language English
Budget $2.2 million
Gross revenue $26,589,400

A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 darkly satirical science fiction film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. The film concerns Alex (Malcolm McDowell), a charismatic delinquent whose pleasures are classical music (especially Beethoven), rape, and so-called 'ultra-violence'. He leads a small gang of thugs (Pete, Georgie, and Dim), whom he calls his droogs (from the Russian друг, “friend”, “buddy”). The film tells the horrific crime spree of his gang, his capture, and attempted rehabilitation via a controversial psychological conditioning technique. Alex narrates most of the film in Nadsat, a fractured, contemporary adolescent argot comprising Slavic (especially Russian), English, and Cockney rhyming slang.

This cinematic adaptation was produced, directed, and written by Stanley Kubrick. It features disturbing, violent images, to facilitate social commentary about psychiatry, youth gangs, and other contemporary social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian, future Britain. A Clockwork Orange features a soundtrack comprising mostly classical music selections and Moog synthesizer compositions by Wendy Carlos. A notable exception is “Singin’ in the Rain”, chosen because it was a song whose lyrics actor Malcolm McDowell knew.[1] The now-iconic poster of A Clockwork Orange, and its images, were created by designer Bill Gold. The film also holds the Guinness World Record for being the first movie in media history to use the Dolby Sound system.

Contents

Plot

In the near-future of London, Alex and his friends, called "droogs", Pete (Michael Tarn), Georgie (James Marcus), and Dim (Warren Clarke), are partaking of "milk plus", a milk with various drugs mixed in, at the Korova Milk Bar prior to an evening of "the old ultra-violence". They proceed to beat up an elderly vagrant under a motorway and interrupt an attempted gang rape of a woman in an abandoned casino by a rival gang of camouflage wearing Walts led by Billyboy[2] (Richard Connaught). They subsequently get in a brawl with their rivals. Upon hearing the sounds of police sirens, Alex and his gang flee, stealing a car and driving into the countryside. They then gain entry to the home of Mr. Alexander, a writer, under false pretenses and assault him while violently raping his wife (Adrienne Corri), all while Alex sings Singin' in the Rain. When they return to the milk bar, Alex strikes Dim when he interrupts a female patron who is singing the Ode to Joy from the final movement of the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven, a composer Alex admires.

The next day, Alex skips school and has an encounter with probation officer Mr. Deltoid (Aubrey Morris). Deltoid is exasperated with Alex and talks about all his hard work with him. Deltoid is the one person who easily sees through Alex's lies. After picking up and having sex with two girls from a record shop, Alex regroups with his droogs in his building lobby, but finds Georgie insisting the gang be run in a "new way" that entails less power for Alex and more ambitious crimes. As they walk along a canal, Alex attacks his droogs in order to re-establish his leadership.

That night, the gang attempts to invade the home of a woman (Miriam Karlin) who lives alone with her cats and runs a health farm. In the process, she gets into a fight with Alex, and Alex bludgeons her with a phallus-shaped statue. Dim smashes a milk bottle across Alex's face, temporarily blinding him and leaving him to be found by the police as Dim, Georgie, and Pete flee the scene. During his interrogation, Alex is told by Mr. Deltoid that he is now a murderer, because the woman died from her injuries.

Alex is tried for murder, convicted, and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Two years into his sentence, Alex becomes friends with the prison chaplain and takes a keen interest in the Bible, but primarily in the more violent passages. The Minister of the Interior (Anthony Sharp) arrives at the prison looking for volunteers for the Ludovico technique, an experimental aversion therapy for rehabilitating criminals. Alex eagerly steps forward, wanting only to get out of prison, and not caring at all about the technique, much to the disgust of Chief Officer Barnes (Michael Bates). At the Ludovico facility, Alex is placed in a straitjacket and forced to watch films containing scenes of extreme violence while being given drugs to induce reactions of revulsion. The films presented includes real scenes in Nazi Germany as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony plays over it. Alex realises this will probably condition him against Beethoven's music and makes an agonised though unsuccessful attempt to have the treatment end prematurely before the conditioning sets in. Two weeks later, after the treatment is finished, Alex's reformed behaviour is demonstrated for the audience. He is unable to respond to an Irish actor's (John Clive) shouting insults and picking a fight with him, and a feeling of sickness attacks him when he is presented with a young naked woman who sexually arouses him. The Minister declares Alex to be cured, but the chaplain asserts that Alex no longer has any free will.

Alex is immediately released from prison. He returns home only to find that his possessions have been confiscated by the state and his parents have rented his room to a lodger named Joe (Clive Francis), leaving him on his own. On the street, Alex comes across the same vagrant he had assaulted before the treatment, who shouts for his friends and they attack Alex. Two policemen arrive to break up the fight, but Alex discovers the policemen to be his former droogs, Georgie and Dim. They drag Alex out to the countryside, where they brutally beat and half-drown him in a cattle water trough, before leaving him for dead.

Battered and bruised, Alex wanders to the home of Mr. Alexander, who does not recognise him from two years previously, due to the mask Alex had worn at the time. Permanently crippled from that attack, Mr. Alexander now lives with a personal bodyguard, manservant, and physical trainer named Julian (David Prowse). Mr. Alexander takes Alex into his home, aware that he had undergone the Ludovico treatment due to the story published in all of the country's newspapers. Mr. Alexander tends to Alex's wounds, but the memories of his assault return when Alex sings "Singin' in the Rain" while he is taking a bath. Mr. Alexander drugs Alex, locks him in the upper floor of his home and plays Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at full volume through a powerful stereo on the floor below, knowing that the Ludovico treatment will cause immense pain to Alex. In order to escape the torture, Alex becomes suicidal and throws himself out of the room's window.

Alex recovers consciousness days later to find himself in traction, with dreams about doctors messing around inside his head. Through a series of psychological tests, Alex finds that he no longer has a revulsion to violence. The Minister of the Interior comes to Alex and apologises for subjecting him to the treatment, and informs him that Mr. Alexander has been "put away". The Minister then offers Alex an important government job and, as a show of goodwill, has a stereo wheeled to his bedside playing Beethoven's Ninth. Alex then realises that instead of an adverse reaction to the music, he sees images of sexual pleasure. He then states, in a sarcastic and menacing voice-over, "I was cured, all right!"

Cast

Themes

Morality

The film’s central moral question (as in many of Burgess’ books), is the definition of “Goodness”, and whether it makes sense to use aversion theory to stop immoral behavior.[3] Stanley Kubrick writing in Saturday Review described the film as

...a social satire dealing with the question of whether behavioral psychology and psychological conditioning are dangerous new weapons for a totalitarian government to use to impose vast controls on its citizens and turn them into little more than robots.[4]

Similarly on the film production's call sheet (cited at greater length above), Kubrick wrote

It is a story of the dubious redemption of a teenage delinquent by condition-reflex therapy. It is at the same time a running lecture on free-will.

After aversion therapy, Alex behaves like a good member of society, but not by choice. His goodness is involuntary; he has become the titular clockwork orange — organic on the outside, mechanical on the inside. In the prison, after witnessing the Technique in action on Alex, the chaplain criticises it as false, arguing that true goodness must come from within. This leads to the theme of abusing liberties — personal, governmental, civil — by Alex, with two conflicting political forces, the Government and the Dissidents, both manipulating Alex for their purely political ends.[5] The story critically portrays the “conservative” and “liberal” parties as equal, for using Alex as a means to their political ends: the writer Frank Alexander — a victim of Alex and gang — wants revenge against Alex and sees him as a means of definitively turning the populace against the incumbent government and its new régime. Mr Alexander fears the new government; in telephonic conversation, 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 shall have the full apparatus of totalitarianism.

On the other side, the Minister of the Interior (the Government), jails Mr Alexander (the Dissident Intellectual) on excuse of his endangering Alex (the People), rather than the government’s totalitarian régime (described by Mr Alexander). It is unclear whether or not he has been harmed, however, the Minister tells Alex that the writer has been denied the ability to write and produce “subversive” material that is critical of the incumbent government and meant to provoke political unrest.

It has been noted that Alex's immorality is reflected in the society in which he lives.[6] The Cat Lady's love of hardcore pornographic art is comparable to Alex's taste for sex and violence. Lighter forms of pornographic content adorn Alex's parents' home and in a later scene Alex awakens in hospital from his coma, interrupting a nurse and doctor engaged in a sexual act.

Psychology

Ludovico Technique apparatus.

Another critical target is the behaviourism (or "behavioural psychology") of the 1940s to 1960s as propounded by the psychologists John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner. Burgess disapproved of behaviourism, calling prominent behaviourist B. F. Skinner’s most popular book, Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971), “one of the most dangerous books ever written”.[7] Although behaviourism's limitiations were conceded by its principal founder, J. B. Watson, Skinner argued that behaviour modification – specifically, operant conditioning (learned behaviours via systematic reward-and-punishment techniques) rather than the "classical" Watsonian conditioning – is the key to an ideal society.[8] The film's Ludovico technique is widely perceived, however, as a parody of aversion therapy more than of classical or operant conditioning.[9]

In showing the "rehabilitated" Alex repelled by both sex and violence, the film suggests that in depriving him of his ability to fend for himself, Alex's moral conditioning via the Ludovico technique dehumanises him, just as Alex's acts of violence in the first part of the film dehumanise his victims. The technique's attempt to condition Alex to associate violence with severe physical sickness is akin to the CIA’s Project MKULTRA of the 1950s.

The Ludovico technique has been compared to the existing technique of chemical castration.[10]

Production

During the filming of the Ludovico Technique scene, 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 a real physician present to prevent the actor’s eyes from drying. McDowell also cracked some ribs filming the humiliation stage show.[11] Special effects-wise, when Alex jumps out the window in an attempt to commit suicide, the viewer sees the ground approaching the camera until collision, i.e. as if from Alex's point of view. This effect was achieved by dropping an Eyemo clockwork camera in a box, lens-first, from the third story of the Corus Hotel. To Kubrick's surprise, the camera survived three takes.

Adaptation

The cinematic adaptation of A Clockwork Orange (1962), by Anthony Burgess, was accidental. Screenplay writer Terry Southern gave Kubrick a copy of the novel, but, as he was developing a Napoleon Bonaparte-related project, Kubrick put it aside. Soon afterward, however, the Bonaparte project was cancelled and, sometime later, Kubrick happened upon the novel. It had an immediate impact. Of his enthusiasm for it, Kubrick said, “I was excited by everything about it, the plot, the ideas, the characters and of course the language ... The story functions, of course, on several levels, political, sociological, philosophical and, what’s most important, on a dreamlike psychological-symbolic level”. Kubrick wrote a screenplay faithful to the novel, saying “I think whatever Burgess had to say about the story was said in the book, but I did invent a few useful narrative ideas and reshape some of the scenes”.[12]

The novelist’s response

Anthony Burgess had mixed feelings about the cinema version of his novel, publicly saying he loved Malcolm McDowell and Michael Bates, and the use of music; he praised it as “brilliant”, even so brilliant that it might be dangerous. Despite this enthusiasm, he was concerned that it lacked the novel's redemptive final chapter, an absence he blamed upon his American publisher (this chapter being omitted in all US editions of the novel prior to 1986) and not Kubrick.

Burgess reports in his autobiography You’ve Had Your Time (1990) that he and Kubrick at first enjoyed a good relationship, each holding similar philosophical and political views and each very interested in literature, cinema, music and Napoleon Bonaparte. Burgess's 1974 novel Napoleon Symphony was dedicated to Kubrick. Their relationship soured, however, when Kubrick left Burgess to defend the film from accusations of glorifying violence. A (lapsed) Catholic, Burgess tried many times to explain the Christian moral points of the story to outraged Christian organisations and to defend it against newspaper accusations that it supported fascist dogma. He also went to receive awards given to Kubrick on his behalf.

Burgess was deeply hurt, feeling that Kubrick had used him as a film publicity pawn. Malcolm McDowell, on publicity tour with Burgess, shared his feelings, and, at times, spoke harshly about Kubrick. As evidence, both novelist and actor cited Kubrick’s uncontrolled ego manifest in the film credits: the only author credited is "Kubrick". Later, Burgess spoofed Kubrick’s image, firstly in the musical version of A Clockwork Orange, where a Kubrick-like character is beaten; then in The Clockwork Testament (1974) novel, where the poet F.X. Enderby is attacked for “glorifying” violence in a film adaptation; and, in 1980, as the crafty director Sidney Labrick in the novel Earthly Powers.

Previous film versions

The first dramatization of A Clockwork Orange, featuring only the story’s first three chapters, was made for the BBC programme Tonight, broadcast soon after the novel's original publication in 1962; no recording is known to exist. Six years before Stanley Kubrick’s film, Andy Warhol made Vinyl, a low-budget version of the work. Reportedly, only two scenes are recognizable: “Victor” (Alex) wreaking havoc and undergoing the Ludovico treatment. However, both Kubrick's and Warhol's films start with a similar shot - camera zooming out of Alex's face.

Direction

Director Stanley Kubrick was a perfectionist of meticulous research (with thousands of photographs taken of potential locations), many scene takes - however per Malcolm McDowell, he usually “got it right” early on, so there were few takes. Filming took place between September 1970 and April 1971, marking A Clockwork Orange as his quickest film shoot in the later part of his career. Technically, to achieve and convey the fantastic, dream-like quality of the story, he filmed with extreme wide-angle lenses[13] such as the Kinoptik Tegea 9.8mm for 35mm Arriflex cameras[14], and used fast- and slow motion to convey the mechanical nature of its bedroom sex scene or stylize the violence in a manner similar to Toshio Matsumoto’s Funeral Parade of Roses(1969)[15].

Locations

A Clockwork Orange was photographed mostly on location in metropolitan London. Little studio filming was used, except for the Korova Milk bar, the Prison Check-in sequence, and scenes of Alex at F. Alexander's house taking a bath, and in the hallway. Sets for these parts were built at an old factory on Bullhead Road, Elstree, which also served as the production office. Other scene locations in the film include:

Reception

A Clockwork Orange was critically well-received, and nominated for several prizes, including the Academy Award for Best Picture (losing to The French Connection), also re-invigorating sales of Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony”. More recently, A Clockwork Orange earned a 90% “Fresh” rating in the Rotten Tomatoes movie review website.[17]

Despite critical praise, the film had notable detractors. Chicago movie reviewer Roger Ebert gave A Clockwork Orange two stars out of four, calling it an “ideological mess."[18] In the New Yorker magazine review “Stanley Strangelove”, Pauline Kael called it pornographic, because of how it dehumanised Alex’s victims, while highlighting the sufferings of the protagonist. Also noting that the cinematic Alex no longer enjoyed running-over small animals or raping under-aged girls, and argued that violent scenes — the Billyboy’s gang extended stripping of the very buxom woman they intend to rape — were offered for titillation; “Stanley Strangelove” is in Deeper into Movies (1974) a collection of her film criticism.

John Simon noted that the novel’s most ambitious effects were based on language and the alienating effect of the narrator’s Nadsat slang, making it a poor choice for a film. Concurring with some of Kael’s criticisms, about the depiction of Alex’s victims, Simon noted that the writer character (young and likeable in the novel), was played by Patrick Magee, “a very quirky and middle-aged actor who specialises in being repellent”. Moreover complaining, “Kubrick over-directs the basically excessive Magee until his eyes erupt, like missiles from their silos, and his face turns every shade of a Technicolor sunset.”; the review is in Reverse Angle: A Decade of American Films (1982) a criticism collection.

Responses and controversy

Along with Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Wild Bunch (1969), Dirty Harry (1971) and Straw Dogs (1971), the film is considered a landmark in the relaxation of control on violence in the cinema.[19] In the United Kingdom, A Clockwork Orange was very controversial, and withdrawn from release by Kubrick himself. By the year 2000, its re-release time, cinephiles had conferred it Cult Film status. It is 21st in the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills and number 46 in the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies, although in the second listing it is ranked 70th of 100. “Alex De Large” is listed 12th in the villains section of the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains. In 2008, the AFI's 10 Top 10 rated A Clockwork Orange as the 4th-greatest science-fiction movie to date.

American censorship

In the United States, A Clockwork Orange was rated X in its original release form. Kubrick later, voluntarily, replaced some 30 seconds of sexually explicit footage, from two scenes, with less bawdy action, for an R-rated re-release in 1973. Current DVDs present the original X-rated form, and only some of the early '80s VHS editions are the R-rated form.[20]

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office for Film and Broadcasting rated it C (“Condemned”) because of the explicit sex and violence. Conceptually, said rating of condemnation forbade Roman Catholics from seeing A Clockwork Orange. In 1982, the Office abolished the “Condemned” rating; hence, films the Conference of Bishops deem to have unacceptable sex and violence are rated O, “Morally Offensive”.

British withdrawal

The British authorities considered the sexual violence extreme, furthermore, there occurred legal claims that the movie A Clockwork Orange had inspired true copycat behaviour, as per press cuttings at the British Film Institute. In March 1972, at trial, the prosecutor accusing the fourteen-year-old-boy defendant of the manslaughter of a classmate, referred to A Clockwork Orange, telling the judge that the case had a macabre relevance to the film.[21] The attacker, a Bletchley boy of sixteen, pleaded guilty after telling police that 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”.[22] The press also blamed the film for a rape in which the attackers sang “Singin' in the Rain”.[23] Subsequently, Kubrick asked Warner Brothers to withdraw the film from British distribution.

Popular belief was that those copycat attacks led Kubrick to withdraw the film from distribution in the United Kingdom, however, in a television documentary, made after his death, widow Christiane confirmed rumours that he withdrew A Clockwork Orange on police advice, after threats against him and family (the source of those threats are undiscussed). That Warner Bros. acceded to his withdrawal request indicates the good business relations the director had with the studio, especially the executive Terry Semel. The ban was vigorously pursued in Kubrick’s lifetime. One art house cinema that defied the ban in 1993, and was sued and lost, is the Scala cinema at Kings Cross, London; the same premises of present-day Scala nightclub. Unable to meet the cost of the defence, the cinema club was forced into receivership.[24]

Whatever the reason for the film's withdrawal, for some 27 years, it was difficult to see the film in the United Kingdom. It reappeared in cinemas, and the first VHS and DVD releases followed soon after Kubrick’s death. On 4 July 2001, the uncut A Clockwork Orange, had its premiere broadcast on Sky TV’s Sky Box Office; the run was until mid-September.

Withdrawal controversy documentary

In 1993, Channel 4 broadcast Forbidden Fruit, a twenty-seven-minute documentary about the controversial withdrawal of the film in Britain.[25] It contains much footage from A Clockwork Orange, thus, marking the only time portions of the film were shown to British audiences during the twenty-seven year ban. Kubrick failed to stop the Forbidden Fruit documentary’s use of said footage.

Differences between the film and the novel

Director Stanley Kubrick’s film is relatively faithful to the novel by Anthony Burgess, omitting only the final, positive chapter, wherein, Alex matures and outgrows sociopathy. Whereas the film ends with Alex offered an open-ended government job — implying he remains a sociopath at heart — the novel ends with Alex’s positive change in character. 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.[26] He 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. The introduction to the 1996 edition of A Clockwork Orange, says that Kubrick found the end of the original edition too blandly optimistic and unrealistic.

Thematic alterations of the novel
Changes in characterization and motivation
Close-up of Beethoven's face. The image appears printed on a window shade in Alex Delarge's home
References to Beethoven
"Deleted scenes" from the novel
Characters added to the film
Other changes to ages of characters
Other differences
Changes in plot details (in chronological order)
References to previous Kubrick films

Soundtrack

A Clockwork Orange
Soundtrack by Wendy Carlos
Released 1972
Recorded 1971
Genre Electronic music
Label Columbia Records
Wendy Carlos chronology
Sonic Seasonings
(1972)		 A Clockwork Orange
(1972)		 Walter Carlos' Clockwork Orange
(1972)

The music is a thematic extension of Alex’s (and the viewer’s) psychological conditioning. The soundtrack of A Clockwork Orange comprises classical music and electronic synthetic music composed by Wendy Carlos. Some of the music is heard only as excerpts, e.g. Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 (aka Land of Hope and Glory) ironically heralding a politician’s appearance at the prison. 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 London en route to Westminster Abbey. “March from A Clockwork Orange” was the first recorded song featuring a vocoder for the singing; synthpop bands often cite it as their inspiration. Neither the end-credits, nor the soundtrack album, name the orchestra playing the Ninth Symphony excerpts, however, in Alex’s bedroom, there is a close-up of a microcassette tape labeled: 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.

It was originally intended to use music entirely by Carlos. But the synthesized selections weren't finished on time, hence the final mix of synthesized and orchestral music.

In the novel, Alex is conditioned against all classical music, but in the film, only against L.V. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the soundtrack of a violent Ludovico Technique film. The audience do not see every violent film Alex is forced to view during Ludovico conditioning, yet the symphony’s fourth movement is heard. Later, using the symphony’s second movement, Mr Alexander, and fellow plotters, impel Alex to suicide.

Track listing
  1. “The Funeral of Queen Mary”, Wendy Carlos [7]
  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 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 Sound of Sunforest [1969] album of the group, Sunforest)
  11. "I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper", Erika Eigen (from Sound of Sunforest, the 1969 album of her group, Sunforest - the film version is different to the soundtrack version)
  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.

Second version

Three months after the official soundtrack's release, composer Wendy Carlos released Walter Carlos' Clockwork Orange (1972) (Columbia KC 31480), a second version of the soundtrack containing unused cues and musical elements unheard in the film. For example, Kubrick used only part of “Timesteps”, and a short version of the synthesiser transcription of the Ninth Symphony’s Scherzo. The second soundtrack album contains a synthesiser version of Rossini's “La Gazza Ladra” (The Thieving Magpie); the film contains an orchestral version. In 1998, a digitally-remastered album edition, with 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 excluded from the 1972 edition.

Carlos composed the first three minutes of “Timesteps” before reading the novel A Clockwork Orange. Originally intending it as the introduction to a vocoder rendition of the Ninth Symphony’s Choral movement; it was completed approximately when Kubrick completed the photography; “Timesteps” and the vocoder Ninth Symphony were the foundation for the Carlos–Kubrick collaboration.

Moreover, Stanley Kubrick asked Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters to use elements of the Atom Heart Mother suite. Waters refused when he found that Kubrick wanted the freedom to cut up the piece to fit the film.[31] Later, Waters asked Kubrick if he could use sounds from 2001: A Space Odyssey; Kubrick refused.[32]

Reuse of music

Wendy Carlos reused many of the musical motifs from this score (including the main themes by Purcell, Rossini, and Beethoven) in Clockwork Black, the 4th movement of her (1998) musical composition Tales of Heaven and Hell.

Awards and honors

Home media 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 British 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 British retailers had set the release date as 6 November 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 23 October 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.

In popular culture

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ IMDb page
  2. ↑ Both Burgess' novel and Stanley Kubrick's published movie script have this character's name as one word "Billyboy" although the Internet Movie Database lists him in the credits with two words "Billy Boy".
  3. ↑ A general discussion of this question that references A Clockwork Orange can be found at [1]
  4. ↑ Saturday Review, December 25, 1971
  5. ↑ A review of the book which discusses Alex's role as a political pawn may be found at [2]
  6. ↑ Film analysis at Collative Learning.com http://collativelearning.com/a%20clockwork%20orange%20review.html
  7. ↑ "A Clockwork Orange: Context". sparknotes.com. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/clockworkorange/context.html. 
  8. ↑ See also, for example, the 1948 utopian novel Walden Two.
  9. ↑ http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_1_oh_to_be.html
  10. ↑ [3]
  11. ↑ http://worldtv.com/blog/misc/
  12. ↑ http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0012.html
  13. ↑ "A Clockwork Orange". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19720211/REVIEWS/202110301/1023. 
  14. ↑ [4]
  15. ↑ [5]
  16. ↑ Filming Locations Malcolmmcdowell.net, accessed 2007-07-22
  17. ↑ "A Clockwork Orange Movie Reviews". Rotten Tomatos. http://au.rottentomatoes.com/m/clockwork_orange/. Retrieved 2010-01-16. 
  18. ↑ Ebert, R: "A Clockwork Orange," Chicago Sun-Times, 11 February 1972
  19. ↑ Ian MacDonald, Revolution in the Head, Pimlico, p.235
  20. ↑ "Article discussing the edits, with photographs". geocities.com. Archived from the original on 2009-10-23. http://www.webcitation.org/5kjLwkaI8. 
  21. ↑ "Serious pockets of violence at London school, QC says", The Times, 21 March 1972.
  22. ↑ “ ‘Clockwork Orange’ link with boy’s crime”, The Times, 4 July 1973.
  23. ↑ [6]
  24. ↑ "Scala's History". scala-london.co.uk. http://www.scala-london.co.uk/scala/scalashistory.php. Retrieved 2007-11-12. 
  25. ↑ "Without Walls: Forbidden Fruit (1993) A Clockwork Orange BBC Special - Steven Berkoff". Archived from the original on 2009-10-23. http://www.webcitation.org/5kjLwLe8z. 
  26. ↑ "The Kubrick FAQ Part 2". visual-memory.co.uk. http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/faq/index2.html#slot21. 
  27. ↑ Kubrick: Seven Films Analyzed by Randy Rasmussen p. 112
  28. ↑ "A Clockwork Orange (1971) Deleted, Cut Scenes and Outtake Pictures from the Film not on DVD". Archived from the original on 2009-10-23. http://www.webcitation.org/5kjLvwXr6. 
  29. ↑ Stanley Kubrick by John Baxter p. 255
  30. ↑ Stanley Kubrick by Vincent Lobrutto p. 365-6 and Stanley Kubrick, director by Alexander Walker, Sybil Taylor, Ulrich Ruchti p. 204
  31. ↑ Blake, Mark (2007). Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd. London, United Kingdom: Aurum Press Limited. p. 153. ISBN 978 1 84513 366 5. 
  32. ↑ Blake, Mark (2007). Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd. London, United Kingdom: Aurum Press Limited. p. 349. ISBN 978 1 84513 366 5. 
  33. ↑ http://www.goldenglobes.org/browse/film/23471

Bibliography

  • Burgess, Anthony. 1978. "A Clockwork Orange". In his 1985. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-136080-3

External links

Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange
Media

Novel (1962)  · Vinyl (1965)  · A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Concepts

Ludovico technique · Nadsat
Related articles

Alex · List of cultural references to A Clockwork Orange · Korova Milk Bar  · Walter Carlos' Clockwork Orange
Films directed by Stanley Kubrick
1950s
Flying Padre (1951) · Day of the Fight (1951) · Fear and Desire (1953) · The Seafarers (1953) · Killer's Kiss (1955) · The Killing (1956) · Paths of Glory (1957)
1960s
Spartacus (1960) · Lolita (1962) · Dr. Strangelove (1964) · 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
1970s
A Clockwork Orange (1971) · Barry Lyndon (1975)
1980s
The Shining (1980) · Full Metal Jacket (1987)
1990s