Movie #3

3: A Clockwork Orange

In a futuristic Britain, a gang of teenagers go on the rampage every night, beating and raping helpless victims. After one of the boys quells an uprising in the gang, they knock him out and leave him for the police to find. He agrees to try "aversion therapy" to shorten his jail sentence. When he is eventually let out, he hates violence, but the rest of his gang members are still after him.

Not to be confused with it's porno equivalent (Clockwork Orgy) this movie is brilliant. It's about how once a man ceases to be able to choose, he ceases to be a man. I never understood what the title meant, but apparently, it's because aversion therapy turns people into "Clockwork oranges" (Ourang being the Malay word for Man.) Also, hearing Beethoven's 9th Symphony has the same effect on Alex as the thought of violence, but then I realized that Stanley Kubrick does the same thing to the audience by showing really violent scene to light and easy songs. For example, now whenever I hear "The Thieving Magpie" by Rossini, I think of that rape scene in the Derelict Casino with Billy Boy and his gang. And anyone who has seen this movie knows that "Singin' in the Rain" is an *excellent* tune to stomp somebody's guts out to! If we are going to experience these scenes as we should, we have to do it consciously, by realising they are bad, and not because the director tells us so through the use of music and images. I think that's what Kubrick was trying to accomplish. I just like the way the movie messes with your mind like that, it's great.

Also, similar to Trainspotting, you pretty much need to use a dictionary to get through this one. I guess you don't if you can figure out what's being said in this scene:

Dim: Yarbles! Great bolshy yarblockos to you. I'll meet you with chain or nozh or britva anytime. I'm not having you aiming tolchocks at me reasonless. It stands to reason, I won't have it.
Alex: A nozh scrap anytime you say.
Dim: Doobiedoob, a bit tired maybe, best not to say more. Bedways is rightways now, so best we go homeways and get a bit of spatchka. Right-right?

The vernacular spoken by the characters is called "Nadsat" and is kind of a Russian spin on the English language. You can read all about it here. In fact, the first edition of the novel by Anthony Burgess contained so much Nadsat that it was virtually indecipherable. A Nadsat glossary had to be added to all subsequent editions.

A Clockwork Orange was nominated for four Oscars including Best Picture but won sweet FA. It lost to The French Connection for all four.