A Clockwork Orange

Last night I was watching A Clockwork Orange, directed by Stanley Kubrick, on DVD. The film, which was made in 1971 and adapted from an Anthony Burgess novel, is set in near future Britain, and tells the story of Alex (played by Malcolm McDowell) the charismatic but brutal leader of a teenage street gang, who spends his evenings fighting, robbing, and violently assaulting innocent people. After a botched robbery leads to murder, Alex is arrested. however after a couple of years in prison, he still shows no sign of reforming and so he is subjected to an experimental treatment called the "Ludovico Technique", a form of aversion therapy, which renders the subject unable to commit any acts of violence. The treatment works, and upon his release, Alex soon finds out what it's like to be the target. The film was hugely controversial on it's release, and still packs a powerful punch, although it hasn't really aged very well. McDowell gives a superb performance in the lead role. Kubrick famously withdrew the film from circulation in Britain, and it wasn't re-released until after his death in 1999. Burgess soon got sick of the film, which he really had nothing to do with and was adapted from a book he never liked in the first place, because he bore the brunt of a lot of the controversy surrounding it. In fact in the stage directions of Burgess' own musical play version of A Clockwork Orange there is a line: "A man, bearded like Stanley Kubrick, comes on playing 'Singin' in the Rain' on a trumpet. He is kicked off the stage". The film, and especially the book, use an interesting invented slang called 'Nadsat' (Russian for 'teen') which mixes English and Russian. For example: 'droog' = 'friend', 'viddy' = 'see', 'slooshy' = 'hear', 'tolchock' = 'hit', 'glazzies' = 'eyes', 'veck' = 'man', 'devotchka' = 'woman' and so on.

I remember being fascinated by A Clockwork Orange when I was a teenager for years before I finally saw it. I was just really intrigued by the title. I had absolutely no idea what it meant. I read the book for school when I was fourteen. I've read it countless times since. I remember after Kubrick's death, I organised a screening in the Student Union at College of a triple-bill of The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and A Clockwork Orange. It was completely packed out. Standing room only. After the films were over, I was introduced and everyone applauded and I took a bow. Great days.

Today was, as ever, a quiet dull day at work. It gets quite depressing a lot of the time. I really need to get going with doing the things that I want to do. One of the things is that I really lack self-confidence, so I don't really know if I can do all the things that I actually want to do. Like move over to the States and write books and make movies and so on. Anyway, on my way home I bought a copy of Empire magazine, which was quite interesting.