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Ep. 19: A Clockwork Orange Carries Complexities on Pages Screens and Behind the Scenes
13 Plays6 months ago
In this episode of 'Adaptation: The Book to Movie Podcast,' Nate and Chris discuss 'A Clockwork Orange,' originally written by Anthony Burgess, before being adapted for the screen by the one and only Stanley Kubrick, the legendary filmmaker behind 'The Shining,' '2001: A Space Odyssey' and many more.
They discuss how Burgess created his own vernacular for the characters of his fictitious world, what the title actually means and the biggest difference between the movie and its source material.
UP NEXT: 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' by Manuel Puig, with film adaptations directed by Hector Babenco and Bill Condon.
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Hosts: Nate Day, Chris Anderson
Producer: Nate Day
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Transcript
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Introduction to 'A Clockwork Orange' Discussion
00:01:04
Speaker
Welcome to Adaptation, the Book to Movie podcast.
00:01:20
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I'm Nate.
00:01:21
Speaker
And I'm Chris.
00:01:22
Speaker
And today we are talking about a certified classic.
00:01:26
Speaker
What book and movie are we talking about, Chris?
00:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, this is A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.
00:01:35
Speaker
And the film adaptation directed, written and directed by Stanley Kubrick.
00:01:40
Speaker
But before we dive in, what you been up to?
Hosts' Personal Updates
00:01:43
Speaker
How are you, buddy?
00:01:45
Speaker
Good, good.
00:01:46
Speaker
I think maybe a little bit better now that I'm done reading this book.
00:01:49
Speaker
We got another hefty one here for ourselves.
00:01:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:55
Speaker
Not in the same way as caught stealing was, but we'll get into that.
00:01:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:00
Speaker
Still down.
00:02:01
Speaker
We've got a couple more days here in Florida before we head back up.
00:02:04
Speaker
What have you been up to?
00:02:06
Speaker
I've just been packing.
00:02:07
Speaker
I'm moving this weekend as of recording.
00:02:11
Speaker
So just doing that and getting in a couple of car accidents that are not my fault.
00:02:15
Speaker
And that's an important distinction.
00:02:18
Speaker
If you know me, that's important that I add that extra bit there.
00:02:24
Speaker
Very important.
00:02:25
Speaker
Yes.
00:02:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:26
Speaker
But you've been reading lately besides Clockwork Orange?
00:02:30
Speaker
A little bit.
00:02:31
Speaker
I've only finished one.
00:02:33
Speaker
I don't think I didn't, I didn't talk about this last time, right?
00:02:36
Speaker
Tender is the flesh.
00:02:37
Speaker
Oh, I don't think so.
00:02:39
Speaker
Maybe you did actually.
00:02:41
Speaker
Why does that sound familiar?
00:02:42
Speaker
Is that a famous one?
Comparing 'Tender is the Flesh' and 'A Clockwork Orange'
00:02:44
Speaker
This is that one that Ariel sent you and I. Okay.
00:02:48
Speaker
No, I didn't read that.
00:02:49
Speaker
Uh, this came out in 2017.
00:02:52
Speaker
It is, uh, Argentine author.
00:02:53
Speaker
Yes.
00:02:59
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Augustina Basterica.
00:03:01
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It's basically a modest proposal on steroids.
00:03:05
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It's exactly what the title sounds like.
00:03:08
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It is a wild ride.
00:03:09
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It made A Clockwork Orange feel a little bit tame.
00:03:12
Speaker
So if that tells you anything, yeah.
00:03:17
Speaker
Did you tell Ariel?
Guest Scheduling and Superman Movie
00:03:18
Speaker
We were supposed to have Ariel on for this episode, but had some scheduling snafus, so we'll get her on a later one.
00:03:24
Speaker
But did you tell her that you read it?
00:03:26
Speaker
I don't think I have yet.
00:03:27
Speaker
I only just finished it a couple days ago, and I've been on such a journey trying to track down our next one, Kiss of the Spider Woman, that I think it kind of slid by unnoticed a bit.
00:03:40
Speaker
Oh, well, I look forward to hearing what her reaction is to your reaction.
00:03:46
Speaker
I mean, she seemed to, well, I can't tell if she seemed to enjoy the book terribly, but she definitely was trying to get us to read it pretty hard.
00:03:54
Speaker
Yeah, I'm just not going to do that.
00:03:57
Speaker
No, I know.
00:03:57
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I knew you'd be.
00:03:58
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But what have you been watching?
00:04:03
Speaker
I have been busy, like I said, getting ready to move and whatnot.
00:04:08
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So I haven't been to the theater, actually, since the last time we spoke.
00:04:11
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I did catch up finally and watch the new Superman movie last night, maybe the day before.
00:04:20
Speaker
It's okay.
00:04:21
Speaker
It's fine.
00:04:21
Speaker
That's pretty much all I have to say.
00:04:27
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Makes sense.
00:04:28
Speaker
Again, we've discussed it.
00:04:30
Speaker
I've never found you to be a big superhero cat.
00:04:34
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Yeah, exactly.
00:04:35
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I'm sort of burnt out on it and I don't love the writer director.
00:04:38
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So I just, I think it was one of those movies that I was not going to love regardless, you know?
00:04:43
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Yep.
00:04:44
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Yep.
00:04:45
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Yep.
00:04:47
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But that's about it for me.
00:04:48
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Excellent.
00:04:50
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Well, let's talk Clockwork
Content Warnings for 'A Clockwork Orange'
00:04:52
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Orange.
00:04:52
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You read the book and now it's time for you to teach me about it.
00:04:56
Speaker
A few quick notes before we dive in, actually.
00:04:58
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Both the book and the movie, A Clockwork Orange, contain some pretty graphic sequences, including psychological torturous procedures and violence that's both physical and sexual.
00:05:09
Speaker
And Chris and I kind of talk about those in some detail throughout our discussion here.
00:05:13
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So please do what you need in order to protect your peace while you listen to this podcast.
00:05:18
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Also, we felt this discussion about A Clockwork Orange in particular wouldn't be very effective if we avoided spoilers to our usual degree, or try to at least.
00:05:29
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So please be forewarned that this episode will contain spoilers for both the book and the movie.
00:05:34
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Thank you for listening and enjoy our discussion.
Anthony Burgess's Life and Influences
00:05:36
Speaker
Yes.
00:05:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:37
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There is, we'll strap in.
00:05:40
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I have, as I told you before we started recording, I've tried to pare this down a lot.
00:05:45
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There is a lot to talk about here.
00:05:47
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Yeah.
00:05:50
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So real high level, I tried to give you the super fast of the author himself and then get into the book a little bit.
00:05:58
Speaker
A Clockwork Orange, the novel, was published in 1962 by Anthony Burgess, born in Manchester,
00:06:08
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UK born in the UK, which I keep, we really keep finding a lot of British authors.
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah, we do.
00:06:14
Speaker
We should diversify a little bit.
00:06:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:17
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Seems to happen a lot.
00:06:19
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I found a very cool quote from him here to kick off our discussion that I think summarizes a lot of my thoughts, trying to talk about him as an individual.
00:06:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:31
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He said, I have a feeling that many other people whose trade is in words are
00:06:36
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are not sufficiently concerned with finding out what words are.
00:06:40
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They are happy to join words together, but not, in my view, interested in analyzing their sounds, forms, and meanings.
00:06:50
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And this is from a book that he wrote and published in 1969 called Language Made Plain.
00:06:58
Speaker
He was, near and dear to my heart, a linguist.
00:07:02
Speaker
Yeah, that does sound right up your alley.
00:07:05
Speaker
Yeah, super stoked.
00:07:07
Speaker
We'll get into that as we go here, but I thought that was so cool finding an entire book of his very far away from A Clockwork Orange, and we'll explain why in a second.
00:07:20
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Okay.
00:07:21
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Again, super fast, highlight reel, The Crazy Life of John Burgess Wilson.
00:07:28
Speaker
born 1917 in Manchester, England.
00:07:31
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Mom and sister died during influenza epidemic, believed his father held this against him, that they passed and he did not, was raised by...
00:07:42
Speaker
paternal aunt until he remarried the landlady that owned the shops.
00:07:50
Speaker
They were a relatively affluent middle-class family because pre-war war years, they ran basically a booze and tobacco shop.
00:07:58
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Shocker.
00:08:00
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Pretty recession-proof.
00:08:02
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Yep.
00:08:05
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He joined the army during World War II, was stationed in Gibraltar.
00:08:09
Speaker
There was a blackout in
00:08:12
Speaker
England while he was stationed there and his pregnant wife at the time was brutally assaulted and raped by four American soldiers who had deserted the front, causing her to lose the child and inspiring one of the more horrific scenes of the book we're discussing today.
00:08:29
Speaker
You still with me?
00:08:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:33
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He was essentially a professional educator and journalist from here on.
00:08:38
Speaker
They said he had this sort of anti-establishment streak, but nonetheless was picked out in the Army for his natural gifts, skills in linguistics.
00:08:55
Speaker
So he ended up becoming a sergeant major, I believe, before retiring.
00:09:03
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Went back to England, then went to Malaya as part of the British colonial service, was moved on to Brunei, which is a little bit further east.
00:09:11
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While in Malaya, learned Malay proficiently.
00:09:16
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Very difficult Southeast Asian language.
00:09:19
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Went to Brunei.
00:09:21
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A lot of controversy around this.
00:09:26
Speaker
Different sources I found.
00:09:28
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The...
00:09:30
Speaker
The primary accepted story is that while they're in the civil service, he received a medical examination that showed he had a terminal inoperable brain tumor.
00:09:43
Speaker
Ooh.
00:09:45
Speaker
um he claimed at least at some point that this was a false medical report because he had been doing some writing that uh was not appreciated by all parties while there and this was their way of getting him out of the service scandalous yeah there's a there's a lot going on some others at the time who knew him
00:10:07
Speaker
believed he had, I didn't write down the medical term, but that he was a habitual liar and he faked this entire thing in order to get back to England and begin writing full time.
00:10:19
Speaker
Oh,
00:10:21
Speaker
regardless of where the truth is in there, an equally wild story of what came next was that supposedly, at least from the public view, he did believe he had a terminal, inoperable brain tumor and would die in one year and spat out five novels back to back in order to provide fiscally for his wife, who he believed would soon be a widow.
00:10:47
Speaker
Attaboy.
00:10:48
Speaker
Still with me.
00:10:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:50
Speaker
Okay, that includes this novel, which he called, again, I didn't write it down, crazy French literary term, Esprit de Triomphe, something like that.
00:11:01
Speaker
Supposedly, he wrote A Clockwork Orange in exactly three weeks, just a blazing torrent of pages and ideas.
00:11:11
Speaker
That's crazy.
00:11:13
Speaker
That's wild.
00:11:13
Speaker
Yes.
00:11:14
Speaker
I mean, even if that's an exaggeration and the truth is three months as opposed to three weeks,
Burgess's Creative Works and Nadsat Language
00:11:20
Speaker
that's crazy.
00:11:22
Speaker
But he does go back and begin writing full-time finally after this very sordid career through many other outlets.
00:11:30
Speaker
He's teaching at universities around England.
00:11:36
Speaker
meets an Italian woman who was familiar with his work.
00:11:39
Speaker
They begin an affair, but he refuses to leave his wife.
00:11:42
Speaker
Again, unconfirmed, but supposedly because he was maybe afraid of this
00:11:46
Speaker
paternal uncle who was like a cardinal in the church.
00:11:50
Speaker
His wife is an alcoholic, ends up dying from whatever the psoriasis, liver failure, the alcoholic disease.
00:11:59
Speaker
And it was crazy not finding these details, but just looking at his marital details that first wife died in 68 and he got married.
00:12:09
Speaker
That same year, it's because he had already been in a relationship with this woman for four years, with whom he already had a son, and he marries her and finally officially recognizes this son of his that he had not officially recognized for the first four years of that poor boy's life.
00:12:28
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:12:29
Speaker
Imagine being the kid that like inherits this legacy.
00:12:32
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:33
Speaker
And it's, and it's from, from a second marriage and an illegitimate relationship and crazy.
00:12:41
Speaker
Absolutely crazy.
00:12:42
Speaker
If I remember correctly, I believe this son has also passed.
00:12:47
Speaker
Yes.
00:12:48
Speaker
Paolo Andrea passed in 2002.
00:12:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:53
Speaker
A lot going on there.
00:12:54
Speaker
Um, so that's like the,
00:12:57
Speaker
big picture of him and just this one novel.
00:13:00
Speaker
He also wrote plays.
00:13:02
Speaker
He also did a lot of journalism, writing articles for the guard.
00:13:05
Speaker
He wrote a review that I cut from our discussion for time of the Hobbit for the guardian in like 74 or something like that.
00:13:17
Speaker
Cool.
00:13:18
Speaker
Um, wrote over 250 musical compositions.
00:13:23
Speaker
What?
00:13:24
Speaker
Musical compositions?
00:13:26
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:13:26
Speaker
Orchestral compositions.
00:13:29
Speaker
He wished to be remembered as a...
00:13:34
Speaker
composer who also happened to write novels as opposed to what is clearly the truth that he is known as a novelist.
00:13:42
Speaker
And I would imagine almost no one knows he was a composer at all.
00:13:47
Speaker
Right.
00:13:47
Speaker
I have to imagine that was news to you.
00:13:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:50
Speaker
That's, I mean, it makes sense given some of the stuff in a clockwork orange, but how many did you say musical?
00:13:59
Speaker
150, some being fairly interesting.
00:14:02
Speaker
Oh, you look some up.
00:14:03
Speaker
I have been listening to him all week.
00:14:06
Speaker
Wow.
00:14:07
Speaker
As of the time of writing these notes, he had roughly 399 monthly listeners on Spotify.
00:14:13
Speaker
So I believe that made me number 400.
00:14:18
Speaker
His discussion of music, as you just stated, they discuss classical music a lot in Clockwork Orange, and it is fairly interesting and astute.
00:14:28
Speaker
Oh, I actually wrote this down as like a little mini question for you.
00:14:31
Speaker
Do they get into that dialogue and analysis in the film?
00:14:35
Speaker
About classical music?
00:14:37
Speaker
Yes.
00:14:39
Speaker
Not really beyond the fact that the protagonist is a fan of Beethoven.
00:14:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:47
Speaker
Okay, that's fair.
00:14:48
Speaker
Yes, Alex throughout the book talks a lot about classical music.
00:14:51
Speaker
Okay, that actually seems fair.
00:14:54
Speaker
I really expected it to be along the lines, this will only be interesting for my buddies Jay and Tucker and my dad, but that's fine.
00:15:02
Speaker
I thought it would be along the lines of Arnold Schoenberg or Albin Berg, this weird modern, what the heck is happening.
00:15:10
Speaker
Um, most of it is fairly interesting.
00:15:12
Speaker
He's been compared to Hindemith and, oh shoot, there was a second one that I can't remember off the top of my head now.
00:15:21
Speaker
Um, and it is along those lines.
00:15:23
Speaker
He has some weird stuff.
00:15:24
Speaker
He has some guitar quartets and, um, the bad tempered electronic keyboard, which is a,
00:15:31
Speaker
mildly humorous allusion to Bach's famous, the well-tempered clavier.
00:15:37
Speaker
But yeah, absolutely fascinating.
00:15:40
Speaker
He wished to be known for that.
00:15:42
Speaker
Me and 399 other people have listened to him this month and that's it.
00:15:46
Speaker
Crazy.
00:15:46
Speaker
Well, a lot more people probably read Clockwork Horns this month.
00:15:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:15:52
Speaker
And that's, again, we will get to that.
00:15:55
Speaker
So, wrote a whole bunch of music, wrote just north of 30 novels besides his nonfiction work, taught himself piano at the age of 14 because he wanted to be a composer and his parents said there's no money in it, so they wouldn't pay for lessons, taught himself Persian,
00:16:15
Speaker
And getting back to what we almost nearly just touched on, ultimately detested unquestionably his most famous work, A Clockwork Orange.
00:16:26
Speaker
Really?
00:16:28
Speaker
He compared it to Rachmaninoff's Requiem and one of Beethoven's pieces that they were both very well known for, but they were pieces written very much
00:16:44
Speaker
in those individuals' youth before they really came into their own
00:16:48
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:49
Speaker
And Pete essentially considered people ignorant consumers.
00:16:53
Speaker
Exact same thing.
00:16:53
Speaker
Yes, this was something he wrote literally because he needed the money.
00:16:59
Speaker
He was not very proud of it.
00:17:02
Speaker
It sounded, his description smacked of the lead singer of Flock of Seagulls complaining that everyone wants to hear their one hit and that's it.
00:17:12
Speaker
It's like, hey dude, you did something that people love.
00:17:16
Speaker
What do you expect?
00:17:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:19
Speaker
So that was pretty fascinating.
00:17:20
Speaker
Yes.
00:17:21
Speaker
Not pleased that that is the piece that he became known for at all.
00:17:27
Speaker
That just blows my mind.
00:17:28
Speaker
I would just simply shut my mouth and take all of the money that I would have gotten from this and moved on.
00:17:37
Speaker
Well, he very much believed that the book's success was in large part due to the Kubrick film adaptation, and we will get into why that particular motive really rubbed him the wrong way.
00:17:52
Speaker
But I will give my final notes on him as an individual and transition from here into the book description.
00:17:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:59
Speaker
So, Burgess was a polyglot, which means you are proficient in six languages.
00:18:04
Speaker
He spoke over ten,
00:18:07
Speaker
He invented NADSAT, the slang sort of youth language used throughout A Clockwork Orange.
00:18:18
Speaker
Oh, he invented it.
00:18:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:21
Speaker
Yes.
00:18:22
Speaker
That was why I went down the rabbit hole of seeing if there was any connection between him and Tolkien, another...
00:18:28
Speaker
author that we've obviously already discussed who made up languages for his books.
00:18:31
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Language.
00:18:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:33
Speaker
That's, that's interesting.
00:18:34
Speaker
And that will probably come up later.
00:18:39
Speaker
Oh, it was, it fascinated me to find out because the entire time it was really tough.
00:18:44
Speaker
Um, initially I had to go very slow.
00:18:46
Speaker
I did the audio book of this one, which super cool.
00:18:50
Speaker
One had an incredible, I think it was the 88 version had an incredible preface.
00:18:57
Speaker
by Burgess himself, which is where a lot of my facts here came from.
00:19:01
Speaker
The book is read by Tom Hollander.
00:19:06
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:19:07
Speaker
And then the end of the recording that I had from the library, about an hour of it was Burgess himself reading excerpts from the book.
00:19:18
Speaker
Oh, cool.
00:19:19
Speaker
So it was a banger of audiobook edition.
00:19:23
Speaker
Usually I'm not one to recommend a particular
00:19:26
Speaker
printing or reprint of a book, but this was anyone listening interested in the audio book.
00:19:31
Speaker
If you can get your hands on this one in particular, it was incredible.
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:36
Speaker
This was, first of all, not the first language that he invented for a book.
00:19:42
Speaker
I found at least one other one.
00:19:44
Speaker
And he also deliberately chose to make up his own sort of youth vernacular slang, as opposed to just copying whatever would have been current in
00:19:55
Speaker
early 1960s England, because he knew that whatever the slang of the day was would immediately become outdated.
00:20:03
Speaker
Yep.
00:20:04
Speaker
Makes it timeless.
00:20:07
Speaker
Yes.
00:20:07
Speaker
And he's 100% correct.
00:20:08
Speaker
You can't pin this down to one time.
00:20:12
Speaker
You don't read it thinking, oh, this is what people said 50 years ago, you know, which I think happens in, I immediately evoked the, like, beatnik, The Road, some of the books like that.
00:20:26
Speaker
where you absolutely are like, all right, I'm on board with the writing, but this slang is just corny.
00:20:31
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You know what I mean?
00:20:32
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Too old.
00:20:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:34
Speaker
Yep.
00:20:35
Speaker
So I think he obviously made a great call there.
00:20:37
Speaker
He also said of the story more broadly, uh, that to show people changing is to create a novel.
00:20:49
Speaker
And when it lacks this, it becomes a fable or an allegory.
00:20:56
Speaker
And that's going to come up in reference to the movie because he considers Kubrick's rendition and creation exactly that, a fable where what he set out to make and did make was a novel.
00:21:11
Speaker
Huh.
00:21:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:13
Speaker
I see.
00:21:13
Speaker
I see what he's saying.
00:21:15
Speaker
I'm just deciding if I agree.
00:21:17
Speaker
Keep that.
00:21:17
Speaker
Just keep it in mind.
00:21:18
Speaker
Keep it in mind.
00:21:19
Speaker
I think you're going to come around.
00:21:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:21
Speaker
So again, the book itself, finally, the book itself, he described it as a cash
Plot and Structure of 'A Clockwork Orange'
00:21:28
Speaker
grab.
00:21:28
Speaker
He needed the money at the time.
00:21:30
Speaker
He had just been diagnosed with the tumor, given a year to live, cranked these books out to raise funds for his soon to be widow.
00:21:40
Speaker
Right?
00:21:41
Speaker
Right.
00:21:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:42
Speaker
It is the tale of a youth, Alex, who we follow, or I guess, is that his name in the movie?
00:21:47
Speaker
Yes, it is.
00:21:48
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:49
Speaker
Yes.
00:21:49
Speaker
Alex pursues his daily fancies of committing ultra violence and general mischief, essentially, as far as we can tell mischief for the sake of mischief.
00:22:00
Speaker
Right.
00:22:01
Speaker
Right.
00:22:02
Speaker
One of the early scenes, I'm curious if this is what they start with in the movie.
00:22:07
Speaker
They, he and his friends, his three buddies, what does he call them?
00:22:10
Speaker
His droogs have plenty of money on them, but they go to the bar and,
00:22:16
Speaker
buy a bunch of drinks for these old ladies, basically as an excuse to spend all their cash so that they can go rob a convenience store to get more cash.
00:22:27
Speaker
Oh, no, it's not.
00:22:28
Speaker
That scene isn't in the movie, but it would fit in perfectly.
00:22:33
Speaker
Interesting.
00:22:33
Speaker
It seemed like such an appropriate opening.
00:22:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:36
Speaker
But yeah, you see what I mean?
00:22:39
Speaker
Crime for the sake of crime.
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:44
Speaker
He was very particular about the symbology of writing the book in 21 chapters.
00:22:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:54
Speaker
So he deliberately wrote the book in 21 chapters because 21 is the age of majority in the UK at the time where you can go out and make your own decisions.
00:23:04
Speaker
And regardless of how fast this was written, how much he tried to ignore it or
00:23:11
Speaker
disown it later.
00:23:13
Speaker
This is very much a book about free will and you making your own decisions and how that interacts with society.
00:23:21
Speaker
Right.
00:23:22
Speaker
Totally.
00:23:24
Speaker
Um, so 21 chapters deliberately.
00:23:28
Speaker
So because in the 21st chapter, and I think this will be a massive shock for you.
00:23:35
Speaker
So sit back, get stable, Nate.
00:23:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:23:38
Speaker
Four on the floor.
00:23:38
Speaker
He, he completely renounces his ways.
00:23:42
Speaker
Suddenly decides, Oh, this is dumb.
00:23:45
Speaker
Why am I committing crime?
00:23:46
Speaker
I want to settle down.
00:23:47
Speaker
I want to have a family.
00:23:49
Speaker
That's how it ends.
00:23:51
Speaker
Yep.
00:23:52
Speaker
And he walks away from the life of crime.
00:23:54
Speaker
Yep.
00:23:55
Speaker
That's crazy.
00:23:56
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:23:56
Speaker
Right.
00:23:57
Speaker
And here's why that is a shocker for you.
00:24:00
Speaker
Having only seen the movie, the American publishers did not want that.
00:24:08
Speaker
The 21st was removed from the American version.
00:24:13
Speaker
That's kind of a bummer to do to his vision.
00:24:17
Speaker
Isn't that crazy?
00:24:19
Speaker
I guess I didn't realize that like, like international,
00:24:23
Speaker
that they could just do that.
00:24:26
Speaker
Yep.
00:24:27
Speaker
Well, they, they had such a fiscal incentive for him.
00:24:30
Speaker
He was like, I needed the money in 61.
00:24:33
Speaker
And so this was completely changing the story, but I said, okay, cause it's what they demanded.
00:24:38
Speaker
Oh, I guess.
00:24:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:40
Speaker
I guess that tracks.
00:24:41
Speaker
And then even though I believe he said Kubrick filmed it in the UK,
00:24:46
Speaker
he still based it on the American publication, which is America is the only publication that did that.
00:24:51
Speaker
It's been translated into dozens of languages, obviously was huge in the UK for almost two decades before the film was made.
00:24:59
Speaker
Nope, for one decade before the film was made.
00:25:03
Speaker
And only the American version does this.
00:25:07
Speaker
So why did the American publishers not want that?
00:25:11
Speaker
Great question.
00:25:12
Speaker
I'm glad you asked.
00:25:14
Speaker
This is another quote from his interview here, his preface to the 88 release reprint.
00:25:21
Speaker
I send letters of intention or missed intention while Kubrick and my American publisher coolly bask in the rewards of their misdemeanor.
00:25:32
Speaker
The American publishers claimed that Americans as a people are stonier, tougher, and they believed removing that last chapter is
00:25:41
Speaker
which is the only thing that makes Alex a dynamic character, would make it more gritty and real.
00:25:48
Speaker
And they thought he didn't actually want this to happen to Alex.
00:25:52
Speaker
He just had to soften the ending for the story to be palatable to other audiences.
00:25:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:59
Speaker
That's interesting.
00:26:00
Speaker
That'll come up in our movie discussion too.
00:26:03
Speaker
Okay, I wondered, and I hope so.
00:26:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's that big difference that, in his opinion, makes his version a true novel with a dynamic protagonist, and Kubrick's was a fable.
00:26:17
Speaker
No change.
00:26:19
Speaker
He had a fascinating description in his interview.
00:26:22
Speaker
He called his Canadian, in reference to JFK, in the Flow and Change,
00:26:31
Speaker
and the Kubrick American version, the Nixonian, bad people do bad things, and that's it, view of the world.
00:26:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:45
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely wild that this weird chicken and egg situation now develops for us to dissect.
00:26:54
Speaker
He believes the book
00:26:56
Speaker
was one of his weaker works of a frankly massive body of work.
00:27:01
Speaker
Never would have been that famous without the movie, but the movie makes such a massive critical change.
00:27:08
Speaker
I mean, I can't say it's virtually a different story, but that is a huge change.
00:27:15
Speaker
Yeah, that is a big deal.
00:27:18
Speaker
And it is because of that being made that the book is even known.
00:27:22
Speaker
So it's like,
00:27:23
Speaker
Oh, you made this huge change to my story, you know, from their point of view.
00:27:26
Speaker
Well, no one would have even heard your story if we hadn't published it.
00:27:30
Speaker
Right.
00:27:32
Speaker
Crazy.
00:27:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:35
Speaker
So besides that massive, massive shift at the end, criminal becoming not criminal.
00:27:43
Speaker
We've put the cart before the horse here a little bit.
00:27:45
Speaker
The reason that's such a crazy ending in and of itself is the kind of,
00:27:51
Speaker
linchpin of this entire story up to that point is the crazy conditioning and deconditioning, which I have to imagine was absurd to witness in film form.
00:28:02
Speaker
Yeah, totally.
00:28:03
Speaker
100%.
00:28:04
Speaker
Okay, I'll let you describe that when we get to it.
00:28:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:28:10
Speaker
But this is a massive state experiment.
Themes and Characters in the Story
00:28:13
Speaker
You see clear allusions to the conservative at this time, mid-50s to mid-60s UK, the Macmillan
00:28:21
Speaker
administration and prime ministers under Elizabeth II.
00:28:29
Speaker
The threat of the socialists to the West of this time, you know, this is coming right after McCarthyism and America's big second Red Scare, right?
00:28:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:39
Speaker
And so you see this fairly simplistic character built, followed by an insane government intervention, where he is conditioned and then deconditioned once they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
00:28:53
Speaker
Right?
00:28:54
Speaker
Right.
00:28:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:56
Speaker
And then again, in book form, goes right back to his merry crime-committing ways, and then suddenly decides not to and walks away from it.
00:29:08
Speaker
And then that part is removed from the American... It's just, I can't get over it.
00:29:11
Speaker
It's absolutely wild.
00:29:14
Speaker
My last bit about the book, you have a very curious relationship with the protagonist throughout.
00:29:22
Speaker
Sure.
00:29:24
Speaker
Right.
00:29:24
Speaker
Once again, similar to the last couple we've covered, frankly, an objectively deplorable creature in this violent youth that...
00:29:36
Speaker
just loves to beat people up, shred books, a cardinal sin, steal money, and commit rape.
00:29:44
Speaker
Like, just...
00:29:45
Speaker
Absurd, right?
00:29:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:47
Speaker
Yep.
00:29:48
Speaker
But we are also presented with this myriad of ways that he is subsequently mistreated by his family, obviously by the government, by the jailers.
00:30:00
Speaker
And again, in the novel version, eventually by his own accord decides to walk away from his previous antics.
00:30:08
Speaker
And so it
00:30:10
Speaker
it is tremendously deep and complex and compelling.
00:30:16
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:30:20
Speaker
So again, I hope I included few enough details to still make this an enticing book.
00:30:26
Speaker
I know there was one big spoiler included in there, but you truly, there almost isn't a discussion without that included.
00:30:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:35
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:30:35
Speaker
I don't know how you could talk about this without...
00:30:38
Speaker
Getting into the nitty gritty a little bit.
00:30:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think so.
00:30:43
Speaker
Should we do a little ad break and then get to the movie?
00:30:46
Speaker
I am so curious how they treated this in film.
00:30:50
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:30:51
Speaker
We will be right back.
00:30:55
Speaker
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00:31:22
Speaker
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00:31:31
Speaker
Welcome back to Adaptation, the book to movie podcast.
00:31:34
Speaker
Today we're talking about Clockwork Orange, written by Anthony Burgess and adapted to film by Stanley Kubrick.
00:31:40
Speaker
And we're about to dive into the film side.
00:31:42
Speaker
Chris gave us a great lowdown of the book.
00:31:44
Speaker
The movie version of this story was released in
Stanley Kubrick's Film Adaptation
00:31:49
Speaker
1971.
00:31:49
Speaker
Like I said, both written and directed by Kubrick, who is
00:31:53
Speaker
and has always been, and will always be one of the greatest directors to ever make movies.
00:32:00
Speaker
Um, and it stars Malcolm McDowell as Alex, the young man that you were describing this movie.
00:32:06
Speaker
Uh, we've talked about this movement off mic a little bit and in a prerecorded episode that nobody has heard yet.
00:32:13
Speaker
Um, it came right in the, it came right in the middle of the new Hollywood movement or really right at the beginning of the new Hollywood movement.
00:32:20
Speaker
which was a change in the way that American movies were being made.
00:32:25
Speaker
People were a lot more lax about displaying violence and sex and profanity and things like that.
00:32:34
Speaker
And then a lot of the themes of these movies had to do with disaffected people or people feeling disaffected by their society, government,
00:32:45
Speaker
Big Brother sort of thing.
00:32:48
Speaker
So this movie was very much a watershed moment within that movement because in particular of its depictions of violence and sex and the fact that they didn't pull a lot of punches, no pun intended, when they were putting these things on screen.
00:33:08
Speaker
Yeah, sorry, had to say it.
00:33:10
Speaker
And this is, this is still considered an American film.
00:33:13
Speaker
I mean, it was Phil, it's a, it's a book written by a British author published in the UK originally, and then filmed in the UK, but it's still an American film.
00:33:23
Speaker
Yes.
00:33:24
Speaker
Because it was backed by American companies, American.
00:33:27
Speaker
Ah, okay.
00:33:28
Speaker
Financers.
00:33:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:29
Speaker
Yep.
00:33:30
Speaker
Yep.
00:33:31
Speaker
Um,
00:33:32
Speaker
I also pulled a quote.
00:33:33
Speaker
I thought it's funny that you started with a quote from Burgess because I was lucky enough to see this movie in theaters this weekend.
00:33:41
Speaker
Sweet.
00:33:42
Speaker
So I guess I did go see a movie in theaters now that I'm thinking about it.
00:33:46
Speaker
But as I was walking out of the theater, I was like, I just want to know what Kubrick, like, how can you put into one sentence what I just saw?
00:33:55
Speaker
And so he described it in the Saturday Review as, quote, a social satire dealing with the question of whether behavioral psychology and psychological conditioning are dangerous new weapons for a totalitarian government to use to impose vast controls on its citizens and turn them into little more than robots.
00:34:15
Speaker
And I thought it was kind of interesting that he gave such a clinical definition of the movie.
00:34:21
Speaker
You know, like so much of that sentence is about the ideas behind it instead of how he told the story or how the story was told by Burgess.
00:34:30
Speaker
So I just thought it was very interesting.
00:34:32
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:34:33
Speaker
Like I said, clinical or sterile of an answer that was.
00:34:37
Speaker
Yes, sterile is a great, I mean, it feels antiseptic.
00:34:41
Speaker
It feels like he lifted that straight out of the DSM-5.
00:34:45
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:34:46
Speaker
It feels like a talking point that he in the studios probably rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed and worked out with legal and just very interesting that it, that's kind of the way they leaned.
00:35:00
Speaker
Like you mentioned the U S edition was adapted, which was missing the final chapter of the novel.
00:35:05
Speaker
I did not look up what was in that final chapter, but
00:35:09
Speaker
Obviously, you've told me now, but my understanding was that it was quite crucial to Alex's redemption arc and that the story takes a very redemptive turn in that last chapter.
00:35:22
Speaker
This movie instead ends on a very ominous and uncomfortable note, which I think is very in line with the rest of the movie.
00:35:29
Speaker
You're supposed to feel uncomfortable, basically top to bottom.
00:35:33
Speaker
Yes.
00:35:34
Speaker
In every frame of this movie.
00:35:37
Speaker
And Kubrick has said in interviews that he found the final chapter of that book to be thematically inconsistent with everything else in A Clockwork Orange.
00:35:47
Speaker
So he sort of stands by his decision to not have included it.
00:35:52
Speaker
Interesting.
00:35:54
Speaker
Yeah, because that redemption arc, I mean, having only seen the movie, I can tell you that my feeling is that
00:36:04
Speaker
the fact that he walks away from a life of crime really downplays those themes of like being disaffected and being at the mercy of people that you shouldn't be at the mercy of.
00:36:15
Speaker
And so it's just a little bit more in line with the time period and with some of the themes that Kubrick explored in a lot of his filmography.
00:36:28
Speaker
So I can see how the puzzle pieces fell the way that they did.
00:36:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:34
Speaker
No, I see what you mean.
00:36:38
Speaker
I mean, it's not like the final chapter lends itself to this redemption arc.
00:36:43
Speaker
Chapter 21 is the entire redemption arc.
00:36:47
Speaker
Full stop.
00:36:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:36:49
Speaker
It's not really an arc so much as plot point.
00:36:53
Speaker
Yes.
00:36:53
Speaker
Well, and again, the numerology of having 21 chapters was so deliberately important to him.
00:37:01
Speaker
And to both the American publisher and Kubrick's credit,
00:37:06
Speaker
it feels very ham fisted.
00:37:08
Speaker
It is kind of shoehorned in there at the end.
00:37:12
Speaker
Really?
00:37:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:13
Speaker
I think, I think if I had, had not heard the analysis of his intention, I would also have, well, I did initially upon reading it, I did find chapter 21 unsatisfying.
00:37:26
Speaker
So I do very much understand their complaint.
00:37:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:30
Speaker
Interesting.
00:37:31
Speaker
What I was not able to figure out or, or didn't,
00:37:35
Speaker
look into, I guess, was whether Kubrick had read the 21st chapter beforehand.
00:37:41
Speaker
If he knew he was adapting the American version, I'm sure at some point that information came across his desk.
00:37:47
Speaker
I'd do have.
00:37:48
Speaker
But like I said, it's very in line with his filmography to have cut that last chapter to maintain the momentum of the themes, basically.
00:38:01
Speaker
Is Kubrick the one who did One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?
00:38:04
Speaker
He did not do Cuckoo's Nest.
00:38:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:08
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:38:10
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:10
Speaker
I don't know why that's worth.
00:38:11
Speaker
I'm sure we'll cover it at some point on this pod.
00:38:14
Speaker
I think we'll have to.
00:38:15
Speaker
Yes.
00:38:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:16
Speaker
Clockwork Orange ended up being nominated for four Oscars, including best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay, and best editing.
00:38:25
Speaker
It did not win any of those, but interesting that we'll sort of get back to its reception here in a minute.
00:38:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:33
Speaker
Interesting that it ended up with four pretty major awards or nominations.
00:38:39
Speaker
There was a lot of, what's it called when people leave jobs a lot, like turnover.
00:38:45
Speaker
There was a lot of turnover in the pre-production of this and a lot of sort of big ideas in the lead up to this film being made.
00:38:53
Speaker
Several directors had been attached or interested throughout this process.
00:38:58
Speaker
What I thought was really interesting was that at certain points, both the Rolling Stones and the
00:39:02
Speaker
and the Beatles were considered to play Alex and his droogs.
00:39:08
Speaker
Fascinating.
00:39:09
Speaker
I couldn't tell which Beatle was supposed to play Alex.
00:39:12
Speaker
I do know that Mick Jagger was supposed to play Alex.
00:39:17
Speaker
Of course.
00:39:17
Speaker
Which is kind of interesting because he a little bit looks like Malcolm McDowell.
00:39:21
Speaker
So I just am so fascinated by that coincidence.
00:39:26
Speaker
But the idea is that these bands would have also contributed to the soundtrack because music plays such a big part in these or in this story.
00:39:35
Speaker
Huge, huge.
00:39:36
Speaker
I don't know.
00:39:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:39:37
Speaker
I don't know how I feel about them.
00:39:39
Speaker
I don't, I'm very much in the minority, but I don't like the movies that the Beatles starred in.
00:39:44
Speaker
I find them to be kind of kitschy and not very good.
00:39:47
Speaker
So I sort of think that this, they made the right call when, when all of that fell through and Kubrick eventually ended up with the rights to,
00:39:56
Speaker
make this film, but would have been interesting to see nonetheless.
00:39:59
Speaker
It would be very interesting.
00:40:02
Speaker
It would be a completely different piece.
00:40:06
Speaker
Totally.
00:40:07
Speaker
I mean, the statement piece of it all would just be so much bigger, you know, if they had like the world's biggest stars in this movie.
00:40:16
Speaker
It almost feels like that would have made it like just the predecessor to The Wall, you know, the Pink Floyd movie.
00:40:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:27
Speaker
Like it would have, it would have inherently made it so much about whatever music they attached.
00:40:33
Speaker
Right.
00:40:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:34
Speaker
And I don't totally know if it was going to be like, you know, some of the Beatles movies are like straight up musicals and some of them are just like movies with the Beatles soundtrack.
00:40:44
Speaker
I don't know what what the details were on their contributing or, you know, potential to contribute to the soundtrack.
00:40:50
Speaker
But you're right.
00:40:51
Speaker
It would have we'd be looking at it totally differently.
00:40:54
Speaker
It just would have been a product of this band rather than.
00:40:57
Speaker
Yes.
00:40:58
Speaker
This cinematic experience.
00:41:02
Speaker
That.
00:41:02
Speaker
boy, that's fascinating.
00:41:03
Speaker
I can't, I, I like, my brain is stuck now just picturing them in this setting.
00:41:11
Speaker
Totally.
00:41:12
Speaker
The other thing that I really noticed while I was watching the movie was that was the score because, um, Hey, I wanted to, to mention it to you.
Film's Music and Controversies
00:41:22
Speaker
Uh, it's really unique because there's music playing almost the entire time in the movie, even over dialogue and things like that.
00:41:29
Speaker
I was like,
00:41:31
Speaker
This is, that's just very kind of unusual for it to be so prominent in the movie.
00:41:37
Speaker
It's made up mostly, or at least partially, I guess, of famous classical compositions.
00:41:43
Speaker
Not very much Beethoven, the Ninth Symphony, his Ninth Symphony is played several times throughout and of course referenced, I don't know, umpteenth times.
00:41:53
Speaker
But for the most part, the already composed music was written by Henry Purcell.
00:41:59
Speaker
Edward Elgar and Rossini, among a few others for the score of the movie.
00:42:06
Speaker
So kind of interesting that Kubrick really leaned into that musical side of it as well.
00:42:12
Speaker
Yeah, that is interesting.
00:42:14
Speaker
I mean, it feels more interesting in light of like his blatant disagreement with the author's original intention, like, oh, so this part you thought was cool and you should be faithful to.
00:42:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that is interesting.
00:42:27
Speaker
I wish, I guess I wish that he had explored some of the themes of classical music a little bit more because it was very jarring that this character was so into Beethoven, you know, like,
00:42:38
Speaker
That's not at all who you expect to be into classical music.
00:42:42
Speaker
So I would have loved a little bit more depth there, especially because they use it.
00:42:46
Speaker
in part to do that.
00:42:48
Speaker
What did you call it?
00:42:49
Speaker
Conditioning?
00:42:49
Speaker
The torture, basically.
00:42:51
Speaker
Yes.
00:42:51
Speaker
Yep.
00:42:52
Speaker
And he's so infuriated by it.
00:42:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:55
Speaker
When the movie came out, it was actually met with mixed reviews at the time, which is pretty standard for movies of the new Hollywood movement because they were so jarring.
00:43:04
Speaker
A lot of people maybe could have held personal biases against seeing violence and sex online on TV.
00:43:13
Speaker
screen but a lot of people critiqued it like I said they don't dig into a lot of the these ideas deeply like the music the reference to the title is completely left out of the movie which we'll talk about later when he says it in the in the dialogue of the book they do not include that in the movie yeah no it's not in the movie why
00:43:37
Speaker
Well, I don't know.
00:43:38
Speaker
I had to look up.
00:43:40
Speaker
I didn't realize for about two days after watching it that I didn't know what the title meant.
00:43:47
Speaker
I had to look it up, but we'll get more into that later.
00:43:52
Speaker
I did note that popular film critics Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael did not like the movie, which is really odd considering they were big proponents of new Hollywood films.
00:44:02
Speaker
So I included that to just sort of highlight the fact that it
00:44:06
Speaker
Just everybody was kind of uneasy with this movie.
00:44:09
Speaker
I think partly because it was so severe, but, you know, it's obviously been much more embraced since then.
00:44:16
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:44:19
Speaker
One thing notable at the time as well is that Kubrick actually had the movie pulled from British theaters and stopped screening it altogether in England after accusations that it inspired copycat crimes of rape and abuse.
00:44:35
Speaker
My gosh.
00:44:36
Speaker
I know.
00:44:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:37
Speaker
The movie really leans into sort of younger people versus older people.
00:44:42
Speaker
That's a theme that's pretty heavy in the movie.
00:44:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:46
Speaker
And that was just being repeated.
00:44:49
Speaker
And it would occasionally come up in like court depositions and stuff that people felt inspired by the movie, which is thick and sad and crazy.
00:45:00
Speaker
So he had it pulled.
00:45:01
Speaker
And from what I've read...
00:45:03
Speaker
It was very difficult to view it in any capacity in the UK until Kubrick died in 99.
00:45:09
Speaker
Wow, that's crazy.
00:45:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's crazy that it had such a huge cultural effect, you know?
00:45:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:16
Speaker
Not just the UK, either.
00:45:19
Speaker
Lots and lots of countries.
00:45:20
Speaker
I was going to list them all out, but there was just too many to do it, and a lot of them have such weird nuances.
00:45:26
Speaker
Several countries have banned this movie outright, some of them...
00:45:31
Speaker
they've banned it in all settings except academic.
00:45:34
Speaker
Like I said, lots of weird loopholes and nuances.
00:45:37
Speaker
Some of the countries have lifted those restrictions in the years again, since Kubrick's death.
00:45:42
Speaker
And of course the release of the movie, others have not, there are still countries where you can't watch this movie.
00:45:49
Speaker
Really?
00:45:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:51
Speaker
I mean, it's like I said, it's really severe.
00:45:53
Speaker
The, the conditioning scene.
00:45:56
Speaker
Oh, that's right.
00:45:56
Speaker
You, you wanted to know how they depicted it.
00:46:00
Speaker
Yes.
00:46:00
Speaker
It's severely uncomfortable.
00:46:02
Speaker
He's in a, they call it a rehab clinic, but you know, it's not.
00:46:08
Speaker
They, basically they drug him and then they take him into a movie screening room where they,
00:46:14
Speaker
My mom is going to hate this part.
00:46:16
Speaker
She's always talked about how much this part of the movie has disturbed her.
00:46:21
Speaker
So you can skip ahead, mom, if you need to.
00:46:23
Speaker
They hold his eyes open with these metal headpiece, and they subject him to watch these videos of violence and sex and general crime and debauchery and hate.
00:46:37
Speaker
A lot of these films include Nazi symbolism and propaganda.
00:46:42
Speaker
And the drugs that they gave him
00:46:45
Speaker
made him really sick.
00:46:46
Speaker
So he starts to physically associate being sick with, you know, these hateful, hurtful crimes.
00:46:54
Speaker
Really disturbing because Malcolm McDowell's performance is really, really strong.
00:46:58
Speaker
And, you know, he's just like absolutely wigging out in these scenes.
00:47:02
Speaker
I wrote in my Letterboxd review that this movie is a tough watch if you're a sympathetic puker like I am.
00:47:07
Speaker
He spends a lot of time kind of retching and gagging throughout the second half of the movie, really.
00:47:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:14
Speaker
And I also just as like a fun, not so fun aside, had, you know, laser eye surgery earlier this year and had your awake during it and they pin your eyes open.
00:47:25
Speaker
And so I had to come home and take my rescue anxiety medication because I was a little bit triggered by these crazy scenes.
00:47:37
Speaker
That makes a lot of sense.
00:47:39
Speaker
And fun fact, there's somebody sitting beside Alex.
00:47:43
Speaker
during these screenings that's keeping his eyes moist.
00:47:47
Speaker
They're just putting like saline drops or something in his eyes.
00:47:49
Speaker
That was an actual optometrist that was there to keep the actor's eyes moist during the scenes because there's like two or three scenes of this during the movie that are very long, which means he spent like days with his eyes propped open and
00:48:04
Speaker
They needed to make sure.
00:48:06
Speaker
And I believe he got his cornea scratched at one point, and it was a pretty chaotic piece of the film to film.
00:48:13
Speaker
So, yeah, that was a real medical professional, giving him eye drops.
00:48:18
Speaker
But despite the movie's severity and some people not being able to...
Cult Status and Legacy of the Film
00:48:24
Speaker
you know revisit it like my mom um it has become a cult classic and has really been culturally reclaimed and it's now known as as truly a great film and in the year 2020 it was added to the national film registry after being deemed culturally historically or aesthetically significant which is the standard for for getting into that collection what a turnaround
00:48:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:51
Speaker
So crazy, just kind of a wackadoo story and a wackadoo movie and yeah, just crazy all around.
00:48:58
Speaker
I went into this discussion like so excited.
00:49:01
Speaker
We were talking about maybe watching it tonight after we recorded.
00:49:05
Speaker
But I'm really having second thoughts about whether this is a movie I want to see.
00:49:10
Speaker
I mean, I think, yeah, we'll get to it later.
00:49:13
Speaker
But I think it's worth, if you've not seen it, I think it's worth a watch.
00:49:19
Speaker
I don't know if it's like family movie night material.
00:49:21
Speaker
But we'll talk about it.
00:49:26
Speaker
It feels like it's like noon alone in the living room with all the lights on and windows open is the only way I could stomach it.
00:49:33
Speaker
That's pretty much, yeah, like I said, I had to come home and take medication because it was too much.
00:49:40
Speaker
And that, you know, I like when a film is affecting like that, but holy shit.
00:49:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:46
Speaker
Yep, absolutely.
00:49:48
Speaker
But let's dive into our discussion questions.
00:49:50
Speaker
Why don't you hit me with one?
00:49:53
Speaker
Yes.
00:49:53
Speaker
Okay.
00:49:54
Speaker
Once again, as we've discussed this entire time, a bafflingly violent book.
00:50:00
Speaker
I feel like you've, to a large extent, answered this already.
00:50:04
Speaker
But as I was reading, I was immediately ready to ask you how much of this was brought to the screen.
00:50:11
Speaker
As I read, I pictured a black and white film of some youths
00:50:17
Speaker
wandering the streets of England, committing crimes for an hour and a half.
00:50:21
Speaker
Like that's what I pictured for this film.
00:50:24
Speaker
And I can't imagine that's the full extent of it.
00:50:28
Speaker
No, not quite.
00:50:29
Speaker
It's not black and white, first of all.
00:50:31
Speaker
It's in color.
00:50:32
Speaker
So you can adjust yourself there.
00:50:33
Speaker
I don't know why I thought it was in black and white.
00:50:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:35
Speaker
It is very violent.
00:50:36
Speaker
There's really only a couple of scenes.
00:50:39
Speaker
Well, that's not totally true.
00:50:40
Speaker
Well, yes, it is.
00:50:41
Speaker
Wait, let me think about this for a second.
00:50:44
Speaker
There are only a handful of violent scenes, but the scenes are very long.
00:50:49
Speaker
So if I were to tally up the number of
00:50:52
Speaker
like horrible acts I saw Alex and his droogs commit.
00:50:56
Speaker
I could probably count it on one hand, but it made up for a huge portion of this, like two plus hour movie.
00:51:05
Speaker
Yes.
00:51:06
Speaker
So that's pretty faithful.
00:51:07
Speaker
They really did.
00:51:09
Speaker
They didn't, as you said, pull punches.
00:51:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:13
Speaker
And you, you know, like I said, in the seventies, they were showing more of this on camera.
00:51:16
Speaker
So you're actually seeing the blows land and they like tear women's clothes off.
00:51:22
Speaker
They do sort of cut away right before you see any real sexual violence occur, but there's plenty of nudity in the film in, in these dangerous and unfortunate circumstances that
00:51:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:36
Speaker
And, and just beating people up on camera and it's part of the reason it was so affecting in the seventies is because people hadn't really seen movies like this very much before.
00:51:46
Speaker
Uh huh.
00:51:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:48
Speaker
So yeah, there's plenty of plenty of screen time of Alex and the drugs running around beating people up for basically no reason.
00:51:57
Speaker
Right.
00:51:57
Speaker
Beating each other up for no reason.
00:52:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:00
Speaker
Each other.
00:52:02
Speaker
Old, yeah.
00:52:03
Speaker
I mean, percentage wise, it's kind of the majority of the book is like violent crime.
00:52:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:10
Speaker
I would, I would say the same with the movie.
00:52:12
Speaker
One of my big issues with it is the pacing kind of once he gets into trouble, like, which is arguably the important part of the story.
00:52:22
Speaker
Right.
00:52:23
Speaker
Is when it really starts to fly by and I'm like, well, wait, I need, I need a little bit more here.
00:52:27
Speaker
And I could have used less of the beatings and rapings earlier.
00:52:32
Speaker
yep yep no i agree completely i think i think that and like what we've already kind of gone over about the 21st chapter those are really the signs to me of okay yeah dude wrote this in three weeks like sure yeah could have been polished a bit finessed yeah yeah interesting
00:52:54
Speaker
Okay, well, I wanted to ask you about the title.
00:52:58
Speaker
When I wrote this question down, I had not deliberately looked into it, hoping that the meaning would come to me.
00:53:06
Speaker
And I really wasn't getting anything because clocks and oranges are not referenced in this movie, like I said.
00:53:13
Speaker
Eventually, I did look it up, and I understand that it's a metaphor for something that appears organic but is actually mechanical, which makes sense because we had a human that was conditioned against his nature, basically, right?
00:53:27
Speaker
by, by the government, but I was hoping you could give me the context and tell me, like you mentioned, it was in the dialogue.
00:53:34
Speaker
Can you tell me how that happens in the book?
00:53:38
Speaker
Yes.
00:53:39
Speaker
So this was again, a deliberate, and I think, um, for the most part, failed attempt, uh, on Burgess's part, because quite frankly, I had the exact same question myself.
00:53:51
Speaker
Um,
00:53:52
Speaker
When does he say it in the book?
00:53:54
Speaker
I do not.
00:53:54
Speaker
I know it's one of those scenes where he's sitting there speaking to sort of an authority figure.
00:54:00
Speaker
I don't recall if it's his probation officer before being arrested or his little interview to join the program to do the fast track, whatever, or the head from the Department of the Inferior or Interior.
00:54:20
Speaker
I don't remember which of them he's talking to, but he does say it in the book.
00:54:23
Speaker
And I believe if I understood the Burgess interview correctly in that context, he intends it as exactly what you just alluded to.
00:54:33
Speaker
It was like a turn of phrase at the time.
00:54:36
Speaker
But then later, again, mid 80s, he goes on to explain the title is intended to be much more.
00:54:43
Speaker
And so this was Burgess speaking.
00:54:45
Speaker
He said a Clockwork Orange story.
00:54:48
Speaker
If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a quote-unquote clockwork orange, meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with color and juice, but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the devil, or since this is increasingly replacing both, the almighty state.
00:55:15
Speaker
Huh.
00:55:16
Speaker
And so I think he intended to, I don't know, provide this really insightful reinterpretation of the phrase.
00:55:29
Speaker
But in my mind, everything about his own description there is exactly what you described.
00:55:35
Speaker
It is this creature that has lost its free will, more or less.
00:55:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:55:45
Speaker
I mean, it's not a phrase I've ever heard outside of this book.
00:55:47
Speaker
And I'm sure no matter how perhaps common it was in the vernacular, then after the book and certainly after the movie, there's no way you could continue using it on a regular basis.
00:56:03
Speaker
Yeah, now it means something else.
00:56:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:06
Speaker
Yep.
00:56:07
Speaker
But yeah, I was glad that you had that question because I had the exact same thought.
00:56:12
Speaker
I was deliberately not looking it up.
00:56:15
Speaker
I wanted to understand it from the context of the text itself.
00:56:20
Speaker
And I was just getting nothing.
00:56:23
Speaker
Huh?
00:56:24
Speaker
It's so weird.
00:56:25
Speaker
It's just another one that I guess, like you said, I just have never heard the term clockwork orange before.
00:56:31
Speaker
I'd be curious if anybody listening has, but I just like, again, sort of like the music thing, like thematically that was never really addressed.
00:56:41
Speaker
I'm like, why an orange or a clock?
00:56:43
Speaker
Like when, you know, why not?
00:56:44
Speaker
a toy soldier or something like that, that you could compare him to just about an equal measure, right?
00:56:52
Speaker
A much more ready analogy.
00:56:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:55
Speaker
And that's what I mean.
00:56:56
Speaker
I think he really thought he was doing something clever and potentially could have, but didn't, you know, didn't give it the time to develop that idea.
00:57:06
Speaker
I think.
00:57:07
Speaker
Because he only had three weeks.
00:57:09
Speaker
Exactly.
00:57:10
Speaker
Exactly.
00:57:11
Speaker
That could be wrong.
00:57:11
Speaker
Maybe he communicated all he wanted to and it just wasn't that great.
00:57:17
Speaker
I don't know.
00:57:17
Speaker
I don't know.
00:57:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:57:18
Speaker
What else do you got for me?
00:57:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:57:22
Speaker
This, I, again, really sitting, thinking about the changes, I think more than I usually do.
00:57:29
Speaker
I really rely on, I'm going to learn about the book and then I can't wait to hear what Nate tells me about the movie.
00:57:36
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:57:37
Speaker
For some reason, this one really kept scratching my brain.
00:57:41
Speaker
Why Kubrick?
00:57:44
Speaker
The book just feels so thoroughly and deliberately British through and through.
00:57:51
Speaker
You know, the whole time I'm reading it, I'm picturing The Wall by Pink Floyd, all of the mechanical children, the sex pistols, this rebellion against the monarchy, right?
00:58:05
Speaker
Yep.
00:58:06
Speaker
I cannot understand why they would choose an American to interpret such a text.
00:58:13
Speaker
That's a good question.
00:58:15
Speaker
Well, first of all, like I said, he was not first on the list.
00:58:19
Speaker
They went through a few directors, and I didn't write down who else.
00:58:23
Speaker
they considered, but I would be stunned if there was not at least one Brit on that list for that exact reason.
00:58:29
Speaker
But this movie is really in line.
00:58:31
Speaker
I'm sure it was more a matter of Kubrick being really interested.
00:58:34
Speaker
Okay.
00:58:35
Speaker
Because it's very in line thematically with a lot of
00:58:38
Speaker
movies that he's made.
00:58:40
Speaker
Dr. Strangelove, for example, was kind of a black comedy like this that also explored government overreach, I guess.
00:58:50
Speaker
And oppression of people.
00:58:54
Speaker
A lot of his movies have violence in them.
00:58:56
Speaker
He would go on later to direct Full Metal Jacket and The Shining eventually.
00:59:02
Speaker
The Shining is what I was thinking of earlier, not Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining.
00:59:07
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:59:08
Speaker
Well, then, yes, you're correct.
00:59:10
Speaker
Kubrick did do The Shining.
00:59:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's like morality and control is another thing that he really looks into.
00:59:17
Speaker
His final film is about like a sex cult, basically.
00:59:21
Speaker
So I think it was just probably really interesting to Kubrick more so than...
00:59:27
Speaker
the studio seeking him out.
00:59:28
Speaker
But also, like I said, he was known as one of the greats.
00:59:31
Speaker
So if he, that's like Steven Spielberg wanting to adapt your book, you're like, yes, please.
00:59:36
Speaker
I don't care.
00:59:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:37
Speaker
You're going to say yes.
00:59:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:59:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:59:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:41
Speaker
Interesting question though, because to fit into the new Hollywood movement, it could not have been a British film.
00:59:49
Speaker
So I would be curious to look at like a list of films, uh,
00:59:54
Speaker
in that movement and see how many of them are set in Britain.
00:59:58
Speaker
You know, I'm confident that this one would be on that list.
01:00:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:03
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:04
Speaker
Hmm.
01:00:06
Speaker
It just seems so strange.
01:00:07
Speaker
It feels, I mean, honestly, halfway through this book, I'm like, what the heck were they doing to these kids?
01:00:15
Speaker
Because it also actually is very reminiscent to me of this is going to feel like such a non sequitur.
01:00:24
Speaker
Harry Potter.
01:00:27
Speaker
Really?
01:00:28
Speaker
The aunt and uncle in their brick row houses, keep calm and carry on.
01:00:33
Speaker
Dude works at what, like a drill bit factory or something?
01:00:36
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:00:36
Speaker
Something silly.
01:00:38
Speaker
And I just see, I mean, maybe it's the media and music, certainly, that I consume personally, but just, again, Pink Floyd, Sex Pistols, The Clash, this, not that every country and culture doesn't have their form of youth rebellion.
01:00:58
Speaker
Right.
01:00:59
Speaker
But, like, this entire book, I'm thinking, man, Alex, your parents don't seem that bad.
01:01:03
Speaker
And you literally just, like,
01:01:07
Speaker
verbally abuse them and then sit in bed all day till 7 p.m.
01:01:10
Speaker
when you can go commit violent crime for fun.
01:01:13
Speaker
Like, I just, I don't, it doesn't add up to me.
01:01:18
Speaker
No, no, it doesn't.
01:01:20
Speaker
Totally does it.
01:01:21
Speaker
I mean, that, that makes sense though.
01:01:23
Speaker
I see what you mean.
01:01:24
Speaker
If he expressed interest, yeah.
01:01:26
Speaker
What was, what was Burgess going to say?
01:01:28
Speaker
No, you're not, you're not the right director for me.
01:01:31
Speaker
Right.
01:01:32
Speaker
Right.
01:01:32
Speaker
Well, and you know, if he was, this movie is, you know, came out,
01:01:36
Speaker
only a decade ish after the book.
01:01:39
Speaker
So he, he still might've been in that mindset of getting money, you know?
01:01:43
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:43
Speaker
Just trying to make money.
01:01:44
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
01:01:45
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:47
Speaker
Hmm.
01:01:48
Speaker
All right.
01:01:48
Speaker
Well, my last question for you, I feel like you kind of answered it when you said that he,
01:01:53
Speaker
Burgess made up the slang.
01:01:56
Speaker
But I noticed a huge shift in dialogue in this movie, which, by the way, the movie is narrated throughout by Alex, but it's narrated from the perspective of Alex at the end of the story.
01:02:11
Speaker
So he's undergone all these conditionings and treatments.
01:02:15
Speaker
There's a huge shift in dialogue,
01:02:18
Speaker
from before the conditioning to after, before he's using all the, it's almost Shakespearean the way that I'm like, whoa, you slow down.
01:02:25
Speaker
Like I need you to go back and say those things again so that I can really understand what you're saying.
01:02:31
Speaker
And then afterwards, after the treatments, that's kind of ironed out.
01:02:35
Speaker
And he, you know, speaks a little more sort of quote unquote normal modern English.
01:02:41
Speaker
And I was just curious if that was something you saw in the book as well, if that slang, I guess, disappears.
01:02:48
Speaker
with the treatments.
01:02:49
Speaker
I mean, yeah, yeah, I see.
01:02:51
Speaker
I see exactly what you're asking.
01:02:53
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:54
Speaker
NADSAT, N-A-D-S-A-T.
01:02:57
Speaker
It's actually a combination of other slangs.
01:03:02
Speaker
God, nuts.
01:03:03
Speaker
What did they call it?
01:03:04
Speaker
Like, I think it's the Yorkshire slang where a word would rhyme with something and they would start using that instead of God, Bog,
01:03:18
Speaker
The Rookers of Bog, instead of the Hands of God, he started creating it when he first began relearning Russian.
01:03:28
Speaker
And it's supposedly reminiscent of the youth slang that he experienced there.
01:03:33
Speaker
And then obviously these smatterings of more familiar bits, like for no reason they would say noche instead of night.
01:03:40
Speaker
It's like, okay, so what's the one Spanish word you know?
01:03:43
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:46
Speaker
Yeah, you can't fist your filthy rooker in my gob.
01:03:50
Speaker
You're like, I can see where you're going.
01:03:54
Speaker
I mean, it's frankly brilliant.
01:03:56
Speaker
And that's coming from me with a publicly known fetish for linguistics.
01:04:01
Speaker
So maybe only I think that.
01:04:03
Speaker
But it really is brilliant.
01:04:06
Speaker
There are, that was far too lengthy a description.
01:04:08
Speaker
There are parts throughout the story when he needs to, you know, kind of act straight and he knows that this is not proper English and he kind of shapes it up when he's at court and when he's trying to talk the chaplain into speaking up for him to go do this experimental treatment when he's talking to his parole officer very early on.
01:04:30
Speaker
Did he do that more after the conditioning?
01:04:34
Speaker
A little, but it was not in the book.
01:04:37
Speaker
It was not presented as, I believe you're suggesting this is like a psychological change.
01:04:44
Speaker
Yeah, basically.
01:04:45
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:46
Speaker
In the book, it's presented more as the context that he is in.
01:04:50
Speaker
Okay.
01:04:52
Speaker
Okay.
01:04:53
Speaker
trying to go to the library and being beat up by those old men and then dim and Billy being the cops who take him out of town and beat him.
01:05:02
Speaker
And then he's going to the guy's house who turns out to be the husband of the, now he finds out deceased woman that he and his friends assaulted.
01:05:11
Speaker
Like it's this series of situations where, um, it's in line with how he had already been set up as a character, trying to speak more quote unquote, straight English.
01:05:23
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:24
Speaker
Okay.
01:05:25
Speaker
Interesting.
01:05:27
Speaker
That is odd though.
01:05:27
Speaker
I, boy, I really, I think I have to watch the movie.
01:05:30
Speaker
You've really piqued my curiosity.
01:05:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:34
Speaker
I think, I think you should.
01:05:36
Speaker
This was almost alarming at the time.
01:05:39
Speaker
I found myself thinking in the vernacular of this NADSAT.
01:05:43
Speaker
Oh, no.
01:05:46
Speaker
That's crazy.
01:05:47
Speaker
From working through the book.
01:05:49
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:49
Speaker
And I'd be walking along and yeah, I would say I would like, you know, stream of consciousness to myself.
01:05:55
Speaker
I would, yeah, refer to my head as my Gulliver.
01:05:58
Speaker
My hands is my Rookers.
01:06:00
Speaker
And it's like, oh, this is weird.
01:06:02
Speaker
I mean, just, it's the juxtaposition to me of the fact that so many aspects of the foundational parts of this story seemed so unpolished.
01:06:15
Speaker
And yet, dude made up an entire youth slang vernacular that is absolutely brilliant and used to
01:06:24
Speaker
magnificent effect.
01:06:26
Speaker
Totally.
01:06:27
Speaker
It's sort of interesting too, because it, it reminded me, you know, I've mentioned Shakespeare, but it reminded me of that poem Jabberwocky as well.
01:06:36
Speaker
Um, I forget who wrote it, but it's, it's, I think it's like mostly made up words, but you know exactly what they're saying.
01:06:43
Speaker
And at the same time, it made me think of all this, like skibbity, uh, six, seven, whatever,
01:06:53
Speaker
Brain rot that we're all coping with now that we're like, we don't know what the hell these kids are talking about.
01:06:59
Speaker
You know?
01:07:00
Speaker
Yep.
01:07:01
Speaker
So there's that timeless feature coming in.
01:07:03
Speaker
It spans generations.
01:07:07
Speaker
Jabberwocky was a delightful nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll.
01:07:12
Speaker
Well, let's, um, let's talk ratings a little bit.
01:07:15
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:16
Speaker
Yes.
01:07:16
Speaker
Tell me about the film.
01:07:20
Speaker
I gave it four stars on Letterboxd.
01:07:22
Speaker
I'm kind of waffling on bringing it down to a 3.5 just because I really do think that some of those ideas and thematic...
01:07:32
Speaker
pillars, I guess, of the story were not quite as well explored as I would have liked.
01:07:39
Speaker
It's also, I know it sounds silly, but it's a really big deal to me that they didn't address why the film is called that, called A Clockwork Orange.
01:07:48
Speaker
That to me is like so irritating.
01:07:52
Speaker
They could have even given us a subtle nod and they just didn't.
01:07:57
Speaker
And then also one thing that I found unsettling in
01:08:01
Speaker
later upon later reflection was that I take some issue with the fact that Alex becomes a sympathetic character throughout, especially at the end, there's this moment where you're like, Oh, is he realizing that he's getting played by the government right now?
01:08:14
Speaker
And, you know, maybe it's just like 2025 itis, but, but you tend, you, you feel a little bit bad for him in those moments.
01:08:24
Speaker
And considering how awful of a person he is, that makes me feel like the movie is just a little bit,
01:08:31
Speaker
confused in its ideology.
01:08:34
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:35
Speaker
So you find forgiveness and redemption unsettling.
01:08:38
Speaker
Yes, I see.
01:08:39
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:41
Speaker
If you're evil, you're evil.
01:08:42
Speaker
And that's that.
01:08:44
Speaker
No, I'm just kidding.
01:08:45
Speaker
But I just think that, I mean, he cut out that, that last chapter of complete redemption.
01:08:52
Speaker
So I don't know that that idea was, was,
01:08:55
Speaker
really there and the redemption is not genuine i guess you know it's it's manufactured because he went through this treatment he didn't really become a better person he was twisted and tortured into a better person no it is it is unquestionably very confused of itself yeah but especially as you said without that last chapter yeah i
01:09:18
Speaker
I think there really is a compelling and deeper point there that he nearly got to.
01:09:26
Speaker
And this was a perfect storm of leaving that chapter out, reinterpreting some of the middle work such that they, instead of pursuing a somewhat fleshed out idea, they kind of pursued two disparate ones and landed far short of both.
01:09:46
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:47
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:47
Speaker
Does that feel appropriate?
01:09:49
Speaker
Yes, totally.
01:09:50
Speaker
I will say, though, I really love that this movie's aesthetic.
01:09:54
Speaker
You know, it's dystopian, and it's sort of set in this, like, version of...
01:10:00
Speaker
Britain or Earth or whatever that doesn't exist.
01:10:02
Speaker
And it's very ambiguous.
01:10:04
Speaker
The movie, actually, there's a lot of debate about whether it is referencing whether they live in a conservative or liberal environment and whether the government is conservative or liberal and things like that.
01:10:17
Speaker
I actually really kind of jived with the lack of exposition, which is not something I find myself
01:10:24
Speaker
saying very often, but I thought here it helps keep it timeless.
01:10:27
Speaker
It helps keep the focus on the themes, which like I just finished saying is something, you know, the movie could, could use some help with.
01:10:36
Speaker
So just wanted to shout out that, that there were some really cool things about it too, despite the things I didn't like.
01:10:44
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's very interesting.
01:10:46
Speaker
I completely agree with you.
01:10:48
Speaker
What did you rate it on Goodreads?
01:10:52
Speaker
This one, and this is a known flaw in my system because it doesn't necessarily denote sheer quality, but this is right up there with our recent discussions, Orient Express and Remains of the Day.
01:11:04
Speaker
This is a five out of five Goodreads stars for me.
01:11:08
Speaker
Oh, five out of five.
01:11:11
Speaker
But again, that is due to my own self-imposed defined rules.
01:11:16
Speaker
There's so much going on here, these jerking twists.
01:11:21
Speaker
I think the text simply demands more than one sitting to fully digest.
01:11:25
Speaker
And I think it is worthy of that demand.
01:11:28
Speaker
I think it deserves it.
01:11:29
Speaker
And I think I will almost certainly make my way back to this.
01:11:34
Speaker
Maybe not imminently, but I will be making my way back.
01:11:40
Speaker
Eventually.
01:11:40
Speaker
This was your first read, correct?
01:11:43
Speaker
Correct.
01:11:44
Speaker
Yes.
01:11:44
Speaker
I've intended to for a long time.
01:11:47
Speaker
And I finally did.
01:11:49
Speaker
I had no idea what it was about.
01:11:51
Speaker
Have never seen the movie.
01:11:53
Speaker
And it was just terribly compelling.
01:11:56
Speaker
Again, I think publishers credits, the reprint, the 88, 84, whatever reprint that I got my hands on,
01:12:06
Speaker
did some heavy lifting.
01:12:08
Speaker
I think without Burgess's explanation of a number of contentious sticking points, this would have been a very different read for me.
01:12:21
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:21
Speaker
Interesting.
01:12:22
Speaker
And so I can see where people may not feel the same.
01:12:26
Speaker
I guess I didn't even check.
01:12:27
Speaker
I don't know what its average rating is.
01:12:29
Speaker
Average of four stars with three quarters of a million
01:12:34
Speaker
ratings.
01:12:35
Speaker
That is a high number of ratings and a high average for that number of ratings for this particular app.
01:12:41
Speaker
So actually it looks like a lot of people agree with me.
01:12:43
Speaker
I mean, there's just something there along the lines of our very recent anti-hero discussion.
01:12:54
Speaker
Yeah, he, in this brilliantly cutting and concise way, presents
01:13:03
Speaker
a bad dude that you do not like.
01:13:07
Speaker
Yep.
01:13:08
Speaker
And by the end, you're absolutely thinking, yeah, but look how they treated him.
01:13:13
Speaker
Look how they treated him.
01:13:15
Speaker
How did he feel at the end?
01:13:17
Speaker
It really makes you do some thinking.
01:13:19
Speaker
Yeah, it does.
01:13:21
Speaker
Who, uh, based on that thinking, who do you recommend this movie to, or do you, or I'm sorry, book, who do you recommend this book to?
01:13:29
Speaker
Yes.
01:13:30
Speaker
So that was a little more difficult.
01:13:31
Speaker
Um,
01:13:33
Speaker
Absolutely not everybody.
01:13:34
Speaker
You know, I'm not sending a copy to my nephew for Christmas.
01:13:39
Speaker
I did come up with, in my mind, a somewhat whimsical list, but it is sincere.
01:13:44
Speaker
I think your average police or crime novel fan, dark coming of age fan, lover of punk music, classical music, or Pink Floyd, and those who see the wrongdoing all around them and hope for better will enjoy this text.
01:14:02
Speaker
Wow.
01:14:02
Speaker
Wow.
01:14:04
Speaker
Cool.
01:14:05
Speaker
That's an optimistic list, I feel like.
01:14:08
Speaker
Well, there's the... He really does kind of key in on some redeeming qualities, some unexpected turns.
01:14:18
Speaker
It makes you think.
01:14:19
Speaker
It makes you think, and not in bad ways.
01:14:22
Speaker
Yeah, that's the part of this stuff, right?
01:14:25
Speaker
Exactly.
01:14:26
Speaker
Exactly, yes.
01:14:28
Speaker
What about the movie?
01:14:30
Speaker
I know we don't do this anymore, but would you recommend it for me?
01:14:34
Speaker
For you, I mean, I have a hard time saying no because I want to know your take on, you know, like both sides of the coin here.
01:14:44
Speaker
I think that you're going to find it incredibly uncomfortable, which is sort of my blanket statement for recommendations in general, is that most of the people that I would recommend it to are people that are interested in seeing these sort of history making movies, people like cinephiles or fans of Stanley Kubrick that are just trying to run the gamut of Kubrick movies.
01:15:06
Speaker
It's so uncomfortable to get through.
01:15:07
Speaker
It's really tough to tell anybody to sit down for almost two and a half hours and take this thing in.
01:15:13
Speaker
Two and a half hour runtime?
01:15:15
Speaker
Two, I believe it's just shy of two and a half hours.
01:15:19
Speaker
It could have been that I saw some extended cut or something because again, I saw it in theaters.
01:15:27
Speaker
It's possible that I saw a longer cut than what's available out there.
01:15:32
Speaker
But yeah,
01:15:33
Speaker
I mean, it's a tough, it's tough to sit there.
01:15:36
Speaker
And I think Burgess would take that as such a compliment.
01:15:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think so.
01:15:40
Speaker
I mean, this is supposed to be a story that really ruffles your feathers, chills your bones.
01:15:46
Speaker
Yep.
01:15:46
Speaker
But I did mention that fans of Tarantino