>Roger Ebert on "Clockwork Orange":
>
>>>Kubrick's ``A Clockwork Orange'' (1971) starred Malcolm McDowell
> as a violent lout in a fearsome world of the near future; its prophetic
> vision was so disturbing that the movie is banned in Britain to this
> day.<<
>
>( http://www.suntimes.com/output/showcase/kub08i.html )
>
>Tom Mohr on "Clockwork Orange":
>
>>>Absolutely astonishing that Kubrick could, in three years, go from the
>brilliant heights of "2001" to the decadent depths of "A Clockwork Orange."
>
>An appalling movie. Its appeal is utterly baffling.<<
>
>--
>Tom Mohr
First let's get it clear about 'Clockwork Orange'. The film was
withdrawn from circulation in this country by Kubrick himself after
several UK tabloids launched a moral panic about copy cat attacks
shortly after the film came out. It has never been banned by the
Board of Film Censors, or any other authority, over here and was,
indeed, approved for showing by them. In recent years Kubrick took
legal action on a number of occasions to stop public showing of
bootleg videos of the film in the UK. Just why he withdrew the film
and kept it withdrawn can only be a matter of speculation but my
take is that he simply didn't want the hassle of coping with our
gutter press.
I'm one of the few people here who actually saw it in a cinema. I'd
read the book a few years earlier when I was learning Russian (the
argot spoken by the 'droogs' is based on Russian, Anthony Burgess
- a fellow Lancastrian - was a former teacher of Russian). Visiting
my parents in S London late in the summer of 1973 I was strolling
past the local Odeon and noticed a billing for the film (it was
palying there in some sort of unpublicised preview before the main
opening in the West End), so I went in. I had the great fortune to
take a seat next to a classic S London skinhead and seeing and
hearing his reactions gave me a whole new perspective.
If I'm baffled by anything it's Tom's description of the film as
'decadent' and 'appalling'. I think he's confusing depiction with
approval. Both the book and the film set out to depict appalling
behaviour which they see as the result of social decadence (the
book especially so, which is far more moralistic than the film - for
what it's worth Burgess hated the film). I have seen the film only
once but I remember an astonishing and powerful work of art (albeit
a flawed one), which epitomises Kubrick's ability to combine the
commercial with the artistic in a way few other directors have ever
managed (Hitchcock being the only consistently better). You might
disapprove of what something shows or says but that doesn't mean
it's bad art. On the other hand I found '2001' quite the least of
his work (along with 'Barry Lyndon') as it seems fundamentally
incoherent (not usually a fault of Kubrick) and have never been
able to understand the hippy mystic awe it is held in in some
quarters.
I also used to know what the Russians were saying in '2001' as I
could speak the language at the time. But I've forgotten. I do
recall, however, it wasn't significant.
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Iain Noble
Hound Dog Research, Survey and Social Research Consultancy,
28A Collegiate Crescent Sheffield S10 2BA UK
Phone/fax: (+44) (0)114 267 1394 email:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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