Tag: Stanley Kubrick

With my lifelong love of classical music – and subversive sense of humor – one might well wonder why it’s taken us so long to get around to discussing “A Clockwork Orange” (1971). Stanley Kubrick’s controversial adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ novel presents an intelligent young sociopath who gets up to all sorts of hooliganism while worshipping Beethoven. We’ll talk about it this week on “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.”

Oscar Wilde wrote, “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all.”

One could just as easily apply Wilde’s maxim to Kubrick’s film. Both film and book portray acts of “ultra violence” that, by all rights, should be both horrific and repellent, and yet Kubrick presents the material in such a way that the story comes across, basically, as a black comedy. And there’s the rub.

The film is actually quite funny, in a twisted sort of way, with deliberately outrageous costumes and set design, grotesque cinematography, and exaggerated performances. Electronically-altered Beethoven and hyperkinetic Rossini grace the equally over-the-top soundtrack. And then there’s Gene Kelly.

We’re like Alex and his droogs, exceeding all speed-limits, on a nocturnal joyride in a stolen supercar. When all at once we’re brought up short by the content of a particular scene that we know should be horrifying, suddenly we’re conscious of the inappropriateness of the rigored smile on our lips. That’s when the movie becomes truly disturbing.

Kubrick subjects us to an inversion of Alex’s rehabilitation therapy, in which we find a peculiar enjoyment in violence, but then the therapy is reversed, so that we realize how monstrous we’ve allowed our sympathies to become. It’s a great trick, Kubrick turning a cold lens on the viewer. It’s the most subversive element in a film that seems to embrace subversion.

The peel of “A Clockwork Orange” turns out to be a multilayered one. There are all sorts of interesting questions raised about free will, government, science, correctional institutions, violence and objectification, and yes, morality. Watching “A Clockwork Orange” is like being stretched around inside a taffy puller. Yet somehow, it’s also very, very funny. To some.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize there are those who are not equipped to take the journey: basically those who see no humor in it at all. These fall into two categories: those who find the characters’ behavior too difficult to watch; and those who glorify and emulate it. It’s a movie that inspired copycat crimes, and which became a popular defense among attorneys arguing for lighter sentences for their juvenile clients. Kubrick himself had it pulled from distribution in the U.K., where he made his home, after receiving multiple death threats. The film is especially attractive to young people, which is why you still see so many Little Alexes strolling around college campuses at Halloween.

Should we blame the movie for celebrating violence? Or is, in fact, “A Clockwork Orange” neither moral nor immoral? It’s a film that plays with our perceptions by forcing us to acknowledge some nauseating truths – holding our eyes open, as it does Alex’s – even as we laugh at some very inappropriate jokes.

For the politically correct, I’m guessing, it’s a film that has aged very badly; but for students of human nature, it’s all too up-to-date.

Just one man’s analysis. There’s plenty of food for thought, as we mark my third anniversary as neither a moral nor an immoral co-host on Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Orange you eager to be in the comments section? We’ll be there like “Clockwork,” as we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc., this Friday evening at 7:30 EDT.

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Viddy well, little brothers!

Did you know that Anthony Burgess himself was a composer? In fact, he considered himself as much a composer as a writer. You can check out his “Petite Symphonie pour Strasbourg” here:

A rediscovered Cello Sonata, appropriate Memorial Day, it turns out, since the slow movement bears the dedication “For the Dead 1939-45.”

Burgess works for piano