Clockwork orange ( has Clockwork Orange ) is a film Britannique realized and produced by Stanley Kubrick, left on the screens in 1971. This film is to be classified side of films of Anticipation. Here, it is a vision of an urban city where the young people seized the power which is imposed to us. The film is also a little futuristic, very violent one, with a funny and sometimes dramatic side.

Clockwork orange is adapted Romance of Anthony Burgess, the Clockwork orange ( has Clockwork Orange in its original edition British) published in 1962.

Note:: the novel and the film carry the same title ( has Clockwork Orange ) in their original version, but the French titles differ: the Clockwork orange for the novel and Clockwork orange for film.

Synopsis

The history occurs to England, in a near future. Alex DeLarge is a young person Délinquant impassioned by the Musique of Beethoven (“Ludwig van”), obsessed by the Sexe and follower of the Violence ( ultraviolence in its own jargon).

Alex and his band, the droogs or droogies , express in a slang anglo - Russian to which the author of the novel, Anthony Burgess, gave the name of Nadsat , the word droog thus referring to the “friendly” Russian word. Their preferred drink is the Moloko+ , a “doped” milk (speed, ace and synthetic mescaline). They wander in the city by making beatings up, Viol S and brawls between enemy bands.

One day, a burgling degenerates into murder and, betrayed by its “faithful droogs”, Alex is stopped by the police force and is condemned to 14 years of imprisonment. Two years later, to leave Prison, it goes voluntary to test a revolutionary therapy, financed by the government within the framework of an experimental programme of eradication of the delinquency. On a principle similar to that of the reflexes of Pavlov, it is a question of leading Alex to associate some stimuli (of the scenes of violence or sex projected on a screen that it is forced to look at) with the pains caused by drugs that one manages to him during this treatment.

At the time of one of the meetings a series of scenes of the Nazi Germany is projected whose band is the Symphonie n° 9 of Beethoven. After its handing-over in freedom, it appears completely unsuited and without defense vis-a-vis the remainder of the company. Driven out and attacked by all, it taken refuge at a man, who proves to be one as of his old victims. That Ci, by revenge and to weaken the government which had praised its success in the case of Alex, uses its sensitivity to the ninth symphony to lead it to try Suicide R. the suicide attempt of Alex is failed and it is finally saved death and taken charges with them by the Minister of Interior Department, eager of instrumentaliser the inclinations of the young man and to benefit from it.

Discusses

After the exit of film, several British delinquents having perpetrated acts of violence free stated to have taken example on film. The threatening letters then invade the letter-box of Stanley Kubrick (which had left the the United States for the England), which takes fear for his/her children. He asks Warner to withdraw film of the British cinemas in spite of the great success of film. Single fact, the production company obtempère and the film is withdrawn. It is only in 2000, i.e. after the death of Kubrick, that the film is again projected with the the United Kingdom.

Differences between film and the book

has Clockwork Orange was written by Anthony Burgess in 1962 and was adapted to the cinema by Stanley Kubrick nine years later, in 1971. Kubrick was based on the American version of the book, censured in the final chapter. Informed by the author during turning, Kubrick did not want to take that in account, considering it too different from what he wanted to show through film. In this chapter, Alex reforms a band with three droogs , then re-examines Pete one evening. This one, twenty years old, from now on is married, which strikes Alex. In there reflective, it decides to line up completely, sermonizes its droogs on their actions (“All that you made, it is you to take some with people without defense… ”) and finally dream to found a Family.

Except this important but very localized difference, the film is very close to the book. Certain counterparts are directly inspired by the dialogs of the book; the differences which remain are especially: the age of the two girls at the record dealer, the place of the aggression of the devotchka at the beginning. Certain details are entirely brought by Kubrick: the song I' m singin' in the rain , the phallic Sculpture of form which Alex uses to kill the woman, the scene where Alex arrives in prison… Certain elements of the book were also removed for the adaptation out of film, the such assassination made by Alex in prison or the aggression of the old man to the library.

Film analyzes

The “ultra Violence” of which it is question through all this film and the last counterpart of Alex, “I am cured”, whereas it is again able to act violently, can lead to a bad interpretation of film. It is also because it feared that too influenceable young people see there a Apologie for violence that Kubrick agreed to withdraw film of the British rooms.

In fact undoubtedly the words of the Aumônier make it possible to seize the direction of film as well as possible: “When a man ceases choosing, it ceases being a man”. What Kubrick wants to thus show, it is a company conditioned with the good, where people do not act well according to their clean ethical, but according to the law. The good is thus the direction to be borrowed but it should be wanted. An individual forced with acting well is not “good”. The film thus tends to criticize a totalitarian company , a company in which the man does not act according to his choices because the freedom of choice is abolished.

The final chapter of the book fits thus completely in this description of “the good deed”. At the end, Alex is not conditioned any more with the good; its aspiration with acting well passed by a reflection, it understands that the Hédonisme of which it made proof through its acts is not the good solution and thus decides, without any constraint, not to be violent more.

Alex is the only character of film and the book to be acted according to his own law. Its example is not advisable and it includes/understands it thereafter, but it was only the true human being, whereas the others appeared pure products of a totalitarian company, releasing all their violence as soon as the company allowed them. In the middle of all these characters, Alex becomes a Héros with the wire of the book, but is not fully one at the end of film.

This virulent criticism of the totalitarianism of the companies is found in many books and films. A comparison with 1984 of George Orwell seems rather relevant. In 1984 , tortured to have wanted to face the system (and Big Brother), Winston finally manages to overcome its “disease” and to like Big Brother. In Clockwork orange , the system Ludovico employed to make Alex non-violent falls under the same process: the right way must be shown; if it is not respected, the individual should not have the choice any more to refuse. That led to the humiliation undergone by Alex and the aberrations finally accepted by Winston: “2 and 2 make 5 or any other result decided by Big Brother”.

Thus, the film seeks to show a requirement to consider that a man is one: its Freedom of choice.

This film also lets pass a nonviolent morals, namely: “violence generates only violence”. Indeed, Alex, once become “good”, undergoes all violences of his old victims, like his friends or the writer.

Music in film

The original soundtrack of Clockwork orange is very particular, even “experimental” for the time.

Kubrick generally preferred to use existing Classical music rather than to call upon type-setters Hollywood iens, incompetents according to him to compete with the great classics (the partition planned for 2001: the odyssey of space , completed, for example had been finally refused and replaced by Richard and Johannes Strauss, Ligeti and Khatchatourian).

It reflected then, the film being in the course of assembly, with a means of adapting Beethoven, necessarily present in the original soundtrack because of the worship which dedicates to him the young hooligan protagonist, when it accepted a proposal of a sound engineer and type-setter, then haloed immense success of the one of the traditional productions boldest of the time: Walter Carlos and his Switched one Bach , the album of Baroque music played with an instrument then revolutionary, the modular Synthetizer of Robert Moog. Indeed, Carlos had had wind of what Kubrick worked on an adaptation of Clockwork Orange . It appeared obvious in Carlos whom the music of Beethoven could not, on such a project, being adapted that by him.

It thus forwarded some models in Kubrick, which was allured. At the end of the Years 1970, the Synthétiseur S are instruments of avant-garde, with the sounds new, new, which create a strange atmosphere. The great precedent being Forbidden planet , of which the band its was first “all-electronics”, carried out in 1956, year of the attempts more than convincing of Stockhausen in its studio of WDR to Cologne.

Wendy (Walter) Carlos adapts in particular the Symphonie n° 9 of Beethoven by using the first “Vocoder S”, the opening of Guillaume Tell of Rossini, the film opening on a particularly sinister piece, immediately putting the spectator in environment of a worrying future world: funeral music of the Mary queen of Henry Purcell, transformed by the recourse to Flanger S and other effects modern.

Data sheet

  • Entered France: 7.600.000

Distribution

Comments

Aesthetically, Clockwork orange is very marked by the Années 1970. The topics approached are always topicality. With the wire of the peregrinations of Alex and his band, one realizes that they are only of pure products of the company and that, when the varnish cracks, arranged citizens resemble to them more than what one could have believed.

On the bottom, Clockwork orange is a wild criticism of as can be behavioral psychotherapy, as well in its spirit as in its perverse effects, the delinquent thus “treated” finally finding himself in its turn without defense against the aggressions.

More generally, the film shows which abusive social use a capacity could make these methods of conditioning inherited Pavlov, debate very with the mode in the Années 1970.

With this film, the career of scenario writer except par of Kubrick is confirmed and its later creations will profit from a comparable reception. Kubrick does not need more to quote or to refer to other influences but his clean (autocitation); in the scene where Alex will cloud in the store of discs, a jacket of 33 turns of 2001 is visible with the case.

Many groups of ultra of Football took again like symbol the style of Alex and his droogs , as for example the Magics Fans of the ACE Saint-Etienne.

Paintings in erotic matter which one sees in the house of the “woman to the cats” are those of the woman of Stanley Kubrick, Christiane.

The red cassette that Alex withdraws his stereo chain to insert that of Beethoven there carries the inscription “ Gyorergi Ligetti ”. Ligetti composed certain musics of 2001: the Odyssey of Space and The Shining .

At the hospital, in the articles of newspapers dealing with the suicide attempt of Alex, his family name is Burgess as the name of the author of the book, Anthony Burgess.

At the time of the scene of the rape, Malcolm McDowell (Alex DeLarge) chose to sing Singin' In the Rain because it was about the only song of which he knew the words by heart.

The title Clockwork orange comes from an old expression Cockney , “odd like an clockwork orange”, i.e. very strange or unusual.

When Alex is coiled blows by the beggars and re-examines his former friends, Georgia and Dim who became police officers, Dim, on the left, has number 665, and Goergie on the right, carries has number 667. Alex, is to him in the center, therefore corresponds to 666, the figure of the evil.

David Prowse, (Dark Vador in Star Wars ), plays the part of the bodyguard.

In France, the film is definitively interdict of televisual diffusion before 22:00, and this on all the chains (even coded, even on the cable, the satellite or the TNT), under penalty of serious sanctions.

Theatrical adaptation

Clockwork orange was adapted to the theater with Paris (Circus of Bouglione winter) in February 2006 by Thierry Harcourt and produced by Philippe Hersent, with Isabelle Pasco in the role of the violated young woman, Sagamore Stévenin in the main role and DJ Philippe Corti in that of a prison warder. Marc Cerrone composed the music. The part Clockwork orange , announced like very raw, is prohibited with less than 16 years because of the character ultraviolent work.

It is the author of the novel of origin, Anthony Burgess, which adapted itself its novel in part, by composing at the same time a musical version for the scene, in 1986.

This adaptation of work to the theater is first world. In Great Britain, the novel inspired many adaptations for the radio or the scene, apart from the cinematographic version of Kubrick:

BBC carried out the first filmed adaptation of the novel - the first chapter only - for the emission Tonight , at the exit of the book in 1962. It also created in 1998 the first adaptation in the form of dramatic radio.

Theater companies proposed their own vision of work: the first known adaptation was assembled by John Godber to the festival of Edinburgh in 1980. In 1998, The Ensemble Theater from the North off England filmed a very contemporary interpretation of the novel, in which the drougs are Skinheads achieving their misdeeds on music Techno.

A scenic performance, Machinations off Choice , was presented by the troop of Craig Quintero at the time of a conference on Clockwork orange to Angers, the December 8th 2001.

Rewards and nominations

  • Price Hugo 1972

  • NYFCC Award of the best realizer
  • 4 nominations with the Oscars of the cinema: better film, better realizer, better scenario, better assembly
  • the film was elected better film of the year 1972 by the New York Film Critics Circle

Random links:Diaphragm (contraception) | Egilsstaðir | Géovreisset | Abéona | Kadosch knight