A Clockwork Orange (1971)
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It's just been shown on Channel 4 in the UK. The first time ever on UK Terrestrial TV, and also the first time that I've ever seen it.
I was much too young when it came out, then Kubrick banned it in the UK, and although it's been shown since his death, I've never felt it worth trying to see.
While there has been much worse scenes of sex and violence since, they are still quite disturbing. I think that Kubrick wanted to make it very clear that Alex was not a charcter for us to have any sympathy for, so that we would still not have sympathy for him even at the end. It was the copycat acts of gangs who had seen the film that disturbed Kubrick the most and led him to ban the film.
The predictions of youth violence against the elderly, Neo-Nazism, truancy, gang warfare, inhuman sprawling concrete housing estates -- they all came true very quickly, if they weren't already present in 1972.
I found it quite boring actually; the little moralistic story could have been told in a few minutes if the violence and brutality was taken out, but I was astounded at how much of it had been copied by more modern films. So, while it isn't a fantastic film, it is one of those essential films that have influenced a generation. Anyway, it's pretty hard to criticise a film that's 30 years old.
I noticed that while Alex stole a 1995 Durango car, Volkswagon Beetles were still popular in the future and Police cars still had those two-tone horns.
I was much too young when it came out, then Kubrick banned it in the UK, and although it's been shown since his death, I've never felt it worth trying to see.
While there has been much worse scenes of sex and violence since, they are still quite disturbing. I think that Kubrick wanted to make it very clear that Alex was not a charcter for us to have any sympathy for, so that we would still not have sympathy for him even at the end. It was the copycat acts of gangs who had seen the film that disturbed Kubrick the most and led him to ban the film.
The predictions of youth violence against the elderly, Neo-Nazism, truancy, gang warfare, inhuman sprawling concrete housing estates -- they all came true very quickly, if they weren't already present in 1972.
I found it quite boring actually; the little moralistic story could have been told in a few minutes if the violence and brutality was taken out, but I was astounded at how much of it had been copied by more modern films. So, while it isn't a fantastic film, it is one of those essential films that have influenced a generation. Anyway, it's pretty hard to criticise a film that's 30 years old.
I noticed that while Alex stole a 1995 Durango car, Volkswagon Beetles were still popular in the future and Police cars still had those two-tone horns.
I've just read the book and I was actually surprised at how closely the film follows the book. The violence is all in the book, it has to be otherwise you would sympathise more with Alex later.
Considering that the book was written in 1962, its predictions of the future are even more uncanny.
The book makes more of the political aspects. That makes you feel more sympathy for Alex as he becomes a political tool, rather than for his inability to defend himself from his earlier victims, but I didn't think much of the ending in which Alex and his former droogs just "grow up."
That says that violence in society is purely related to juvenile behaviour. I don't see that myself. I see much more 'road rage' type incidents and people with tantrums acting like 3 year olds whose toys have been taken away, but these are in grown men and women. The organisers of 'Football Hooligans' are always shown to be middle-aged men in white collar professions. There is certainly something wrong with our society and it ultimately stems from bad parenting, and the 'ME, ME, ME' culture, but people don't just 'grown out of it'.
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