A Clockwork Orange (1971) helped establish director Stanley Kubrick as one of the most innovative filmmakers of all time. For him film must be a work of art, and art exists for its own sake. The film has no goal beyond its own enjoyment. Given its subject matter—political corruption, hedonism, violence, and the elusiveness of moral certitudes—one might even go so far as to call A Clockwork Orange a nihilistic film in both form and content. This style of filmmaking would later heavily influence the “New Hollywood” directors.
The film is an adaption of Anthony Burgess' 1962 novella in which, the novel's teenage anti-hero (Alex) gives a first-person narration about his violent exploits and his experiences with state authorities intent on reforming him (Books). Additionally, the film differs greatly from the novel in that, it is far more ambiguous then the novel. The film tries to move away from, coming up with a final moral or conclusion to the story conclusion and tries to leave the story more open to interpretation. This decision for a more ambiguous ending is a very conscious decision on the part of Kubrick, who also chooses not to include the final chapter of the novel. In the final chapter of the novel Alex sees the error of his way and turns his life around. He omitted this chapter from the film not only because the American edition did not include it, but also because this ending would not work with his idea of what the film was to convey. More specifically, the film depicts nihilistic elements and does not have one central theme (save revelry in the cinematic spectacle itself) nor does the film convey any overarching moral or social lesson.
People often feel uncomfortable when there is no message in a film. They do not know ...
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...ork was thematically complex, formally innovative, morally ambiguous, anti-establishment, and rich in mythic resonance. Moreover, these directors spoke for a generation disillusioned by the Vietnam War and disenchanted by the ruling elite.
Lastly, he paid amazing attention to detail and was always an endless pursuer of the perfect scene. He though that editing was as important as filming, because it allowed him to make film an art form. Additionally, he was the master of every genre and thanks to him a new set of directors would be influenced by his use of special effects, lighting, and use of music, his ability to make films that dealt with issues that were in the public mind or soon would become apparent to society. Moreover, Kubrick’s biggest influence on the “New Hollywood” directors was that he placed in them the importance of the artistic value of film itself.
There have been many books published solely on philosophy, and many more than that solely written about human nature, but very infrequently will a book be published that weaves these fields together as well as A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess. In this Book Burgess speculated on the fact “the significance of maturing by choice is to gain moral values and freedoms.” He achieved this task by pushing his angsty teenaged character, Alex, through situations that challenge the moral values of himself and his friends. In the novel, A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess, Alex himself, must choose good over evil in order to gain moral values which will allow him to mature into a “man” in the latter of his two transformations.
There are many books that have been banned or challenged, but the one that is being presented in this paper is Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. The topic of this paper is to inform you of many things and when you have finished it will have you leaving asking yourself one question. First, a summary of A Clockwork Orange will be shared with you, so that you can have an insight as to how the rest of the paper relates to the book. Second, you will find out where, why and when the book was banned and/or challenged and you will discover what the book contains that would “offend” people. Finally, you will discover the literary merit of this book, which means you will discover if is a work of quality.
The film, “A Clockwork Orange,” is, to me, an almost exact replica of today’s society. Basically, one kid, who seems to have come from a financially sound home and community, goes through about three stages--1. He violates the laws society has set forth to maintain order. 2. He is caught and punished for his crimes against society. 3. He feels remorse for his violence and sexually deviance (although, at the end of the film, he’s back to his old, delinquent self).
First published in 1962 (McNamee), follows fifteen year old Alex. The novel starts with Alex recounting a typical night of "ultraviolence" that he and his "droogs" participate in. The night includes drinking, drugs, and violence of the worst kind including rape. Eventually this lifestyle catches up to him, and Alex is arrested (Burgess 67). He is offered the opportunity to participate in an experimental procedure that it is believed will cure him of his violent behavior and his sentence is reduced (82). When he is released, Alex realizes that the treatment has rendered him effectively unable to make his own decisions about whether to do the right or the wrong thing as well as sucking pleasure out of every day things he used to enjoy such as music and art (156). Alex finds himself at the mercy of a man he had crossed in the past (167) and attempts to commit suicide (169). In the original British edition of the book, the final chapter reveals that after waking up in the hospital, Alex's went on to finally grow up and settle down, however in the first published version to reach America this final 21st chapter was left out so that the novel ended with the failing of the conditioning and Alex returning to his old ways (Jarvis).
As Madeleine L’Engle aptly said, “because to take away a man's freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person,” taking away freedom of choice is equivalent to stripping off humanity. Mankind has evolved to have the ability to use the mind for reason and understanding, which separates humans from beasts and machines. It is this ability that allows man to analyze and formulate different choices, and have the freedom over them. Despite the knowledge that freedom of choice is fundamental in making humans human, social control has always been one of the leading reasons to justify the removal of that freedom. Through showing the need for the loss of freedom for social stability and the resulting problems, both The Unincorporated Man and A Clockwork Orange highlight the conflict between control and freedom.
It can be argued that at the end of the Second World War, arts were the first that began to feel the sense of liberalisation that society will later experience. In 1951 the British Censor Board introduced the X rating which dealt directly with films that were not “merely sordid films dealing with unpleasant subjects, but films which while, not being suitable for children, are good adult entertainment films which appeal to an intelligent public”. This was also the way in which the board perceived A Clockwork Orange. However, at the beginning of the 1960s, this sense of post war liberalisation received a strong backlash and began raising questions regarding the direction in which art was going. These questions started be asked more frequently and by the time A Clockwork Orange was released, they managed to shed a negative light on the ideas presented in the movie.
In both Nineteen Eighty-four and A Clockwork Orange, free will and the misuse of power are two intrinsically linked themes which are woven throughout and that govern everything that happens within both novels. The different reactions of different characters are an area that both George Orwell and Anthony Burgess focus on with interesting parallels between the two main protagonists, Alex and Winston.
A dynamic interplay of art and life can be evinced in the relationship between films and society. Films provide escape from daily life, opportunity to solve mysteries, chances to identify with powerful competent heroes and discussions of morality that are comfortingly unambiguous. By opening a window on exotica, films enable us to become voyeurs, secret observers of the personal and even intimate lives of characters even when we know that the stories are largely fantasies. The present thesis proposes to focus its attention on film studies, subsumed within Cultural Studies to examine Alfred Hitchcock’s oeuvre. Cultural Studies evident in the study of cultural artifacts (films, music, novels) and examination of practices (sports, national events) is
A Clockwork Orange was claimed by many to be Burgess's greatest accomplishment. The main character, Alex, is a young teen with a drive for violence, rape and general rebellion without remorse, yet he still has a charming intelligent quality. The law finally catches him and he is convicted of murder and sentenced to 14 years in prison. After two years he becomes aware of a route to early release and after killing a cellmate he is elected (almost voluntarily) to be the first to travel it. However, the process is not at all what he expected it to be. He soon finds himself being subjected to immoral films and induced illness to condition him to become ill at even the thought of a "bad" act. When conditioning is complete, A...
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
... movie stars like royalty or mythical gods and goddesses, viewing the drama between great archetypal characters in a personal psychic realm. By considering the statements made and their societal impact from a Marxist perspective, Benjamin’s method is highly effective, as it does not simply consider art in terms of pure aesthetics anymore, but considers art’s place in a society capable of mechanically reproducing and endlessly duplicating film, photography, and digital art. His qualm with losing the aura and mystique of an original work is negated by the cult of movie stars, the adoration of fame, the incorporation of soundtracks which embody a particular time period, cinematographic allusions, and time-capsule-like qualities of a film such as Basquiat, a 90s tribute to the 80s, produced both as a part of and resulting from the art movements and trends it addresses.
In essence, the term New Hollywood refers to the great changes experienced in American film history from the mid-1960’s to the early 1980’s. It is mostly considered as a time of revival. Consequently, during this period, the young filmmakers gained popularity in the industry due to the influence they had after changing the types of film production, marketing and production, and the general approach of film studios to film-making. Also, in the New Hollywood, the director of a movie took a significant role in film production as opposed to the studio being the center stage. Additionally, the work of these young filmmakers was formally innovative, had an abundance of mythic resonance, thematic complexities, anti-establishment features, and morally
A “clockwork orange” can be described as something that has a convincing outer appearance yet in the inside is merely controlled by outer influences, such as a clock set in motion by its owner. In A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess takes us into the future where violent criminals are forced to be “good,” and introduces us to Alex, a young teen who engages in a life of rape, ultra-violence, and Beethoven with his “droogs,” or friends, and talks in the slang language of “nadsat.” He goes through various phases in his life, evolving into a more mature level of thinking; each of these phases can be seen as clockwork orange. What makes this novel so realistic however, is how real Alex really is and how each of his phases into maturity represents a part of us.
Adaptation is an essential part of the motion picture industry, with a majority of films based on literature and other forms of source material coming out of Hollywood every day. One of the most controversial examples of adaptation, at the time, was the great Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 dystopian drama A Clockwork Orange, based on the novel by Anthony Burgess. In a futuristic society ruled by gangs, corruption, and “ultra-violence,” psychotic teen Alex (wonderfully portrayed by Malcolm McDowell) volunteers for a government-regulated experimental treatment to rid himself of his wrongdoings after committing an act of murder. Through the film, we follow this tragic anti-hero’s journey to discover the central theme of fate - whether the government controls human order, or if there is a freedom of choice. Although the film was originally blasted by critics for its excessive use of violence and sexuality, it has since become recognized as one of the most psychologically captivating pieces in cinema, earning its place among AFI’s “100 Years...100 Movies” list. Clockwork Orange’s fascinating mise-en-scène (staging, lighting, costuming), cinematography, music selection, use of voice-over-narration, and narrative structure brilliantly establish the novel’s realistic satire of the dystopian future, making the film one of Kubrick’s most successful adaptations.
"Movie Spotlight: "A Clockwork Orange"" Review. Newspaper Source Plus (2013): 1-2. Ebscohost.com. Web. 8 Jan. 2014.