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'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

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Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#101

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

coliveira wrote: post #35
simmerup wrote: post #8

I feel like the moment you put any idea out there you have the potential to influence people unexpectedly, and be at peace with that. I saw a youtube interview of an addict who said he started taking painkillers regularly because he saw House doing it. Surely the writers didn’t know they were setting up some kid in suburban America up for addiction by giving him that mannerism

Not only that, House was the inspiration for a whole generation of drug addicts by providing a character that they could empathize with. The same way that Wall Street created a whole generation that wanted to become crooked stock operators.

You might not be serious, but see also Liar's Poker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker#Reception

Despite the book's quite unflattering depiction of Wall Street firms and many of the people who worked there, many younger readers were fascinated by the life depicted. Many read it as a "how-to manual" and asked the author for additional "secrets" that he might care to share

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#102

Post by charles_f »

blindriver wrote: post #20

Kubrick’s version was a failure because he missed the most important part and the last few pages of the book. In the book at the very end Alex decides out of his own free will to stop being violent. Which is the entire point of the book: free will vs being forced to do something. It’s so powerful, I don’t think any book affected as much as that did at the time. Kubrick focused on the violence and the rapes and by lea…

I don't think it's fair to judge how good a movie is based on how faithful it is to a book. They're different media entirely and you don't have time in a movie to get into the substance of a book. Movies usually leave fans of the original work disappointed, series are much better at that cause they can take the time to develop characters and go into multiple arcs. On a less philosophical example, Reacher is a good example to me of a movie that has nothing in common with the book apart from some names, and a series that is spot on.

On top of that, it's another piece of art. Directors should be allowed to provide an opinion. Take Verhoeven's adaptation of Starship troopers as an example, which is widely a critic of the source material. They're both different stories in their own right. I enjoy both of them differently, and I'm glad Verhoeven didn't go out of his way to relay the message that militaristic dictature is the way to go.

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#103

Post by ta988 »

Hasu wrote: post #52
blindriver wrote: post #20

Kubrick’s version was a failure because he missed the most important part and the last few pages of the book. In the book at the very end Alex decides out of his own free will to stop being violent. Which is the entire point of the book: free will vs being forced to do something. It’s so powerful, I don’t think any book affected as much as that did at the time. Kubrick focused on the violence and the rapes and by lea…

> Kubrick’s version was a failure because he missed the most important part and the last few pages of the book. The American version of the book doesn't have the final chapter, and was the basis for Kubrick's film. He was aware of the final chapter but never considered using it, as he didn't agree with Burgess and thought it didn't make sense (this was also the opinion of the American editor who had the final chapter…

Talking about a mangled ending from the book, Fight Club is the same, they removed what I think was the critical part of the story. It was filmed and you can see find it on some dvd editions.

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#104

Post by fellowniusmonk »

elf25 wrote: post #59
coliveira wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, House was the inspiration for a whole generation of drug addicts by providing a character that they could empathize with. The same way that Wall Street created a whole generation that wanted to become crooked stock operators.

My what a boring media landscape it would be if all characters were goodie little “Mary Poppins” types. Just because a minority wrongly take inspiration from an ill behaved character is no reason to temper a fictional character actions. Did Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid lead to an increase in bank and train robberies?

I think that arguably Mary Poppins was so popular because she was incredibly mean and acerbic in the books (if memory serves from reading them as a kid.)

The movie Disnified the character just like so many Grimms tales.

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#105

Post by flohofwoe »

danjoredd wrote: post #34
flohofwoe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably a typo, but Gibson also co-authored The Difference Engine, which is as Steam Punk as it gets :) (and according to Wikipedia "...is widely regarded as a book that helped establish the genre conventions of steampunk.")

Im going to have to read that now. Loved Neuromancer, and Steam Punk is one of my favorite genres

Difference Engine starts great but then towards the end kind of fizzles out (IIRC, maybe I should read it again).

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#106

Post by spillguard »

mycodendral wrote: post #29

I've never met anyone who has interpreted either the novel or film to glorify violence.

> I've never met anyone who has interpreted either the novel or film to glorify violence.

From the article:

"Kubrick himself, in response to a series of murder trials where the defendants explicitly mentioned his work..."

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#107

Post by jncfhnb »

Arisaka1 wrote: post #83
hnbad wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stephen King is not a filmmaker. There used to be a running joke that you can judge the quality of a Stephen King adoptation by whether he liked it: if he liked it, it was likely trash; if he didn't, it was likely good. The problem is that films are not books (shocking, I know) and what works in one medium of storytelling doesn't necessarily work in the other. As in actual translation, there has to be some liberty in…

I see this with anime and manga adaptations all the time, where the studio is trying to capture the inner monologue and action scene that works fine in the manga because it's about how many panels can you use to depict a simple sword dodge. Then the anime adaptation tries to stay so faithful that you end up seeing panels with slight movement, which results in running gags such as "talking is a free action", and Namek…

I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with “talking is a free action” in anime versions of manga. I agree it doesn’t work in live action unless they commit to being stylized in a way that most directors aren’t comfortable.

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#108

Post by flohofwoe »

bediger4000 wrote: post #33
drakenot wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

William Gibson is the father of Cyberpunk, not Steam Punk. Though if Gibson is the father, I might say Bester is the grandfather.

Alfred Bester has fallen into obscurity for sure. How do you figure Bester and not Lem as the grandfather?

IMHO Lem's work has a lot of "cyber" but no "punk" in it ;)

E.g. while Lem's future (in his science fiction books) isn't exactly a happy utopia, it's also not the depressing dystopia I would associate with "cyberpunk" - but maybe... "Peace on Earth" might qualify as "robopunk"? :)

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#109

Post by nonrandomstring »

Here's a quote from one of the greats that comes to my mind whenever an author says "I regret creating that" (and that includes you Sir Tim Berners-Lee)

   "You know, Nietzsche didn’t, you know, from his drawing room give
    birth to a century of cannonade, slaughter, concentration camps,
    CIA subterfuge, the raping and the murdering of nuns, the bombing
    of continents, the despoiling of beaches and the ruin of a planet!
    Four or five pedants do not have that much power, and never have."
    - R. Roderick
Clockwork Orange (and the lesser Kubrick film) was what it was. It's still powerful and relevant today.

In fact I watched it recently to steal a sample for a track I'm working on... "When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man"

Still potent stuff.

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#110

Post by Tangurena2 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #67
blindriver wrote: post #20

Kubrick’s version was a failure because he missed the most important part and the last few pages of the book. In the book at the very end Alex decides out of his own free will to stop being violent. Which is the entire point of the book: free will vs being forced to do something. It’s so powerful, I don’t think any book affected as much as that did at the time. Kubrick focused on the violence and the rapes and by lea…

This take reminds me of how Stephen King considers Kubrick's The Shining a terrible film[1]. I had the misfortune of accidentally renting the Stephen King approved The Shining miniseries[2], and I have to say - it's worse in every way: slow, plodding, and forgettable. I can't comment how either compares to the book - I've never read it - but the Kubrick version is the superior film. This is all a long way of saying t…

Books and films have different pacing. They each tell slightly different things in different ways. It isn't really possible for a movie to be faithful to the book because one uses images and the other uses words, with every reader making different images inside themselves. It took Dune to get that through to me. I loved the book, but realized it would take a 100 hour long movie to cover what the book covered. Some people hate that movie because it left out so much, or it had to compress things.

I find that I'm less disappointed if I watch the film before I read the book. Frequently because if I read it first, then I always dislike the director's choice of actors. Or their choice of locations. I'm such an annoying critic.

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