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Categories: 1971 films | AFI 100 Movies | AFI 100 Thrills | Best Picture Oscar Nominee | British films | Controversial films | Cult films | Dystopian films | Kubrick films | Science fiction films A Clockwork Orange (film)
Burgess claimed that the title came from an old Cockney expression "As queer [i.e. strange] as a clockwork orange". He later wrote that the "title would be appropriate for a story about the application of Pavlovian, or mechanical, laws to an organism which, like a fruit, was capable of colour and sweetness," referring to Alex's negatively conditioned responses to violence and sex which prevent his exercise of free will.
SynopsisSet a few years in the future, the film follows the career of a teenager named Alex whose main pleasures in life are European classical music, especially Beethoven, sex of all kinds, and random acts of extreme violence ("ultraviolence" in Alex's idiom). He tells his story in a teenage slang called "Nadsat", which mixes Russian with English slang. Eventually Alex is caught and "rehabilitated" by a program of aversion therapy, which, though rendering him incapable of violence (even in self-defence), also makes him unable to enjoy his favourite classical music as an unintended side effect. The moral question of the film is that Alex is now "good", but his ability to choose this has been taken away from him; his "goodness" is as artificial as the clockwork orange of the title. Eventually Alex falls foul of some of his former victims, and after a long recovery in hospital he seems to be back to his former self. The closing shots of the film feature his voiceover saying "I was cured all right..." with him anticipating his return to creating havoc. ControversyRated X on its original release in the United States, the film was nonetheless nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture (it lost to The French Connection) and reinvigorated sales for recordings of Beethoven's ninth symphony. Later, a censored R-rated version was also released in the US; both the original X-rated and the later R-rated version are today available on VHS and DVD. Notably, the MPAA has since reclassified the X-rated version of the film to R. The film was rated C (for "condemned") by the United States Catholic Conference's Office for Film and Broadcasting because of its explicit sexual and violent content (such a rating conceptually forbade Catholics from seeing the film so rated; 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"). In the United Kingdom the sexual violence in the film was considered extreme at the time, with the press blaming the influence of the film for an attack on a homeless person. It was widely believed that Kubrick's annoyance at this response led to him withdrawing 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 from United Kingdom distribution 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. Whatever the reason for the film's withdrawal, it could not easily be seen in the United Kingdom for some 27 years, until after Kubrick's death. SoundtrackAs with most major movie releases, a soundtrack was issued for A Clockwork Orange. It may be considered to be a monumental album in that it contains a "first": the song "March From A Clockwork Orange" was the first recorded song to feature the use of a vocoder. It is available on the Warner Bros. record label. The soundtrack is cited as the reason that many Synth Pop bands formed. The track listing is as follows:
Three months after the official soundtrack was released, composer Wendy Carlos released a version (Columbia KC 31480) containing unused cues and other musical elements which had not appeared in the film. Kubrick had only used part of Carlos's Timesteps, for example, and the synthesizer rendition of the Scherzo from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony had been shortened. In addition to these materials, the second soundtrack LP contained a synthesizer version of Rossini's La Gazza Ladra, for which Kubrick had used an orchestral performance. In 1998, a compact disc was distributed containing a new, digital remastering of the synthesizer material. The CD contains Carlos's compositions, including those Kubrick did not use, and the cues Biblical Daydreams and Orange Minuet which the 1972 LP had not included. It is interesting to note that Wendy Carlos had composed the first three minutes of Timesteps before reading Burgess's novel. Originally, Carlos had intended Timesteps to introduce a rendition of the Ninth Symphony's Choral movement, played with a vocoder. Timesteps was completed roughly the same time Kubrick had wrapped photography for his film; it and the vocoder performance of Beethoven's Ninth became the foundation for Carlos and Kubrick's collaboration. InfluenceBoth the story and individual elements have had a strong influence on popular culture in general and popular music in particular. Perhaps most notably, the 1980s British electropop band Heaven 17 took their name from an eponymous band in the book. Although the British dance act Moloko's name simply means "milk" in Russian, it was adopted indirectly from Nadsat in which it has the same basic meaning, but also refers to a milk drink with admixed drugs. References in pop music abound outside the English-speaking world as well. In 1988, the German punk rock outfit Die Toten Hosen released their breakthrough concept album Ein kleines bisschen Horrorshow (a reference to Alex's Nadsat phrase a bit of [the old] horrorshow [ultraviolence]), having been involved as musicians in a German stage production of A Clockwork Orange. In 2002, Poland's alternative stars Myslovitz released an album entitled Korova Milky Bar, a reference to the place where Alex and his friends meet to consume their drug-enhanced moloko. The Streetpunk/oi band Lower Class Brats has maintained a theme of both the film and the book in the band's lyrics, merchandise, and even the members's tattoos. Countless other references can be traced in books, movies, and even computer games. Trivia
Alternate usages
ReferencesBurgess, Anthony (1978). Clockwork Oranges. In 1985. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0091360803 (extracts quoted here)
See also
External links
Categories: 1971 films | AFI 100 Movies | AFI 100 Thrills | Best Picture Oscar Nominee | British films | Controversial films | Cult films | Dystopian films | Kubrick films | Science fiction films The contents of this article are licensed from Wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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