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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''

#141

Post by IshKebab »

miles wrote: post #137
IshKebab wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really suggesting that real gang violence was caused by a novel?

The article itself does much more than merely suggest it: > Kubrick himself, in response to a series of murder trials where the defendants explicitly mentioned his work, requested the withdrawal of A Clockwork Orange in the United Kingdom, where it could not be seen again until the director’s death in 1999.

That's silly. Just because a murderer mentions a book about murder doesn't mean it made them into a murderer. It just means murderers like books about murder.

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

#142

Post by almatabata »

Spivak wrote: post #93
pookha wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the weirdest and most interesting things I've ever seen was how this crazy book created gang violence by illustrating dystopian gang violence...And I can guarantee you that some of the youth ("hooligans") in England that were committing Droog gang violence -- inspired by this book -- have reformed as elderly adults. It's not unrealistic. When you remove people out of cults and gangs and they begin to self-refl…

This right here is the tension between "my work doesn't support the whole point is showing it's bad" while simultaneously portraying the bad thing in a positive light while the narrative does the condemning. The problem with demonizing things is that demons are cool. If you want your condemnation to be effective in fiction you have to make the characters doing it pathetic miserable losers. You can even have the narra…

It is always fascinating how sometimes authors think they are creating a loser in their work but somehow the public still likes the character despite the flaws. Reminds me of the case of Rorschach in Watchmen (https://screenrant.com/alan-moore-on-rorschach-fans-watchmen...).

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

#143

Post by miles »

IshKebab wrote: post #141
miles wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article itself does much more than merely suggest it: > Kubrick himself, in response to a series of murder trials where the defendants explicitly mentioned his work, requested the withdrawal of A Clockwork Orange in the United Kingdom, where it could not be seen again until the director’s death in 1999.

That's silly. Just because a murderer mentions a book about murder doesn't mean it made them into a murderer. It just means murderers like books about murder.

A Clockwork Orange has been cited in a murder case. It is not the first time[1] mentions a number of cases linked to the book or movie, including this one:

> Arguably the most notorious of all is Peter Foster, who the British press dubbed the ‘Clockwork Orange killer’.

> Foster would beat and torture women and was found guilty of murdering two of his former wives. A court heard how he would dress up as the film's protagonist, Alex, and become violent when he heard the film’s theme song.

[1] https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/a-clockwork-orange-ci...

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

#144

Post by saltcured »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #70
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unexpectedly? The whole point of publishing an idea or art piece is to influence people. Sure, some people will misinterpret it, but it should be pretty obvious that if you make a heroically brilliant protagonist dismissive of an opioid addiction that some people are going to think that's cool, especially if you're portraying that on TV. That's why Burgess wrote: > I should not have written the book because of this d…

> The whole point of publishing an idea or art piece is to influence people. As an author, I throughly disagree with this statement. Humans like to tell stories and entertain each other. My primary goal for publishing my stories is for people to find them enjoyable. Some of my stories have a secondary goal of showing less common perspectives for the purpose of introducing people to ideas they may not have considered.…

I would agree with you if one takes "influence" to mean something ulterior like propaganda or social programming.

But I also can't help but think of art and literature as a bit like a radio transmission. It depends on your being in tune enough to influence the receivers, or no signal comes across at all.

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

#145

Post by baerrie »

haspok wrote: post #113
AlexandrB wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Or take Tarkovsky: both Stalker and Solaris are based on books, but only loosely. Stalker, for example, was a short sci-fi / horror story, if I remember correctly, and in the movie this is just a remote backstory, setting the scene to more serious topics and mysticism.

Stalker is based on Roadside Picnic, basically a scifi novella. Tarkovsky heavily condenses the story to its most basic structure, the story itself is actually a masterpiece in understated commentary on society, class, individual will, and the human response to the unknown. All of this shows up in Tarkovsky’s film albeit in very sparse and intentional ways. As a filmmaker myself, I have realized that to adapt a story into a film it must be radically altered in order to fit the language of cinema because to merely transfer the plot, etc, starts to be more like theater than cinema

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

#146

Post by coliveira »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #101
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.

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

I'm serious, "Wall Street" with Michael Douglas was a big hit in the 80s. And these are not the only examples. Another is "Wolf of Wall Street", which depicts the life of a criminal stock operator. The real guy now makes a living as a "coach" and has inspired countless others to follow his steps (while hopefully avoiding jail).

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

#147

Post by TacticalCoder »

dsr_ wrote: post #75
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A book is not about some apology patchup line tacked onto the end. It's about everything between the covers. It was about disaffected youth acting out immorally because they were not given a functioning moral code? And that's what the movie showed.

Not "not given a functioning moral code". Not raised by capable parents, not educated, not offered a place in a society which abandoned them. And then society used them: authoritarians can't exist without an enemy to simultaneously fear and insult; if necessary, they will make their own enemy. Those who make progress impossible make revolt inevitable.

> Not raised by capable parents, not educated, not offered a place in a society which abandoned them.

The usual complete and utter disregard of the actual victims (the woman raped, for example) and the victimization of the actual criminals (the rapist, for example).

It's always been the signature of intellectuals and I believe it is the reason of many things that are wrong in society.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"

(encourage by intellectuals, who intellectualize everything, including murder and rape)

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

#148

Post by WorldMaker »

hnbad wrote: post #76
AlexandrB wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

> Stephen King is not a filmmaker.

Stephen King is a filmmaker because he does have one professional credit as a director. [0] The debate remains that Stephen King is probably not a good filmmaker.

[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091499/?ref_=nm_knf_t_1

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

#149

Post by polygotdomain »

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #135
polygotdomain wrote: post #118

I think the most important aspect of "A Clockwork Orange" is it's use of language as a literary tool. It's also key to its misunderstanding, as it tends to lead towards secondary interpretations (i.e. Kubrick's film) more than the text itself. In addition to freewill being a key theme in the book, the nadsat language is used to disassociate the reader from the actions and events partaken in by the narrator. Alex desc…

Kubrick played his own tricks to dissociate the viewer from the onscreen violence. For example, the way the gang fight is set to classical music, in an abandoned theater, with cartoonish violence. And that fight is preceded by a gang rape staged like a ballet. It's the same technique in a different medium.

I'm not entirely sure that those were all Kubrick's tricks though. Classical music is used throughout the book as a way to humanize Alex playing on stereotypes that someone who would've been more refined and upstanding than Alex's character was. While I can't remember what was in the book, it's entirely possible that Alex's narration of the the fight had mentions of music.

I also would argue that Kubrick's tricks weren't all that effective, in that they didn't really humanize Alex or pull the viewer into Alex's perspective, but rather just made the film into more of spectacle.

A lot of the visual elements of the movie struck me as very cartoonish in a way that wasn't conveyed at all in the book. The book is not all that descriptive of aesthetics and visuals in terms of fashion and architecture/decorations. I feel like those are some areas where Kubrick took the most liberties (because there wasn't as much to go off of) and I just found it distracting.

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

#150

Post by mock-possum »

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…

Oh read the book please, listen to an audiobook or something. It’s so good. It does such a better job of putting you inside the mind of Jack. The horror of a fundamentally broken man being absolutely devoured by the entity that is the hotel is just… it’s a gigantic story.
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