# How freaky was a Clockwork Orange? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 14, 2002, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-freaky-was-a-clockwork-orange/142797 "2002-12-14T22:34:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-freaky-was-a-clockwork-orange/142797/41 "2002-12-17T13:58:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bomzaway \* > \*\*A little trivia about **Clockwork Orange**. There was a synth-pop-funk band in the 80’s called **Heaven 17** that produced some minor hits like _Let me go_ and _We don’t need this fascist groove thang_. IIRC, the name of that band is taken from that movie. In the scene at the “milk plus” bar, the name appears on…something. I don’t remember exactly. \*\* The Band name was used in the scene where Alex meets the two girls in the Music bar. One asks him what he is buying and one of the names mentioned was Heaven 17. The ending of the book is not a cop out. Essentially Alex is sitting around as the leader of a bunch of 14 and 15 year olds (The Age he was in the start of the Novel) and he is coming iup to his twenties and is finding himself no longer connected with the others and contemplates getting married. I think it is quite realistic in that he is having a hard time relating to the younger and more vicious young ones. He has a run in with (I believe) Pete who has since got a proper job and starting his own family. Alex is in his new gang uniform and feeling a little foolish. It is called growing up. Sure he’ll still be a bastard and I feel for the poor woman he links up with. But that is life. Oh and the Movie, disturbing in its glorification of Alex’s Violence and harsh tone when the violence is directed against him. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-freaky-was-a-clockwork-orange/142797/42 "2002-12-17T17:08:55Z")
oh dear. i forgot to say that although it’s disturbing, i LOVED the film. really did. but i preferred the book as it gave more context and depth. read the book before i saw the film, so the ending was a surprise. i thought it worked well with the rest of the film though. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2003, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-freaky-was-a-clockwork-orange/142797/43 "2003-01-21T08:16:10Z")
I just saw this film for the first time, and I think this thread is not too old to resurrect… so… here’s what I thought. I’m all for a good anti-brainwashing plot, but all too often it seems that when somebody tries to make a point like this, they make it so ridiculous that it has no bearing on the real world! They wanted to say that destroying his free will put him in a bad fix. Fair enough. But that’s not what they showed. For instance, he gets beat up by his two ex-droogies; how did his brainwashing lead to this? Also, the old writer could have found some other way to torture and get back at Alex even if he didn’t have these Pavlovian associations. Aside from the pretty good speech made by the minister, they might as well have had him leave the jail and get struck by lightning. (“You see, if you brainwash people, they wind up dead!”) The thought that ran through my head the whole time was how slow it all was. The entire story could have been told in 60 minutes easily. Some scenes went way longer than they needed to in order to get the point (eg. checking into prison) and in many scenes, there were huge pauses wherein nothing happened. Come to think of it, I felt the same way about _2001: A Space Odyssey_ and _Eyes Wide Shut_. Also, was the acting supposed to be really really bad, as a sort of stylistic choice? I feel like I didn’t get something with respect to this. Well, I guess I was very unimpressed. But what do I know? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2003, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-freaky-was-a-clockwork-orange/142797/44 "2003-01-21T08:39:36Z")
There are a lot of interesting parallels between the themes, characters, events, and visual style of _A Clockwork Orange_ and _Trainspotting_. The latter movie even models the look of one of its nightclubs after the milk bar in the former. ---
**Author:** ![raygirvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@raygirvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raygirvan)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2003, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-freaky-was-a-clockwork-orange/142797/45 "2003-01-21T13:32:50Z")
_blowero My 2 cents: I don’t feel that the author ever intended for anyone to sympathize with Alex. To appreciate the movie, you really have to divorce yourself from the typical Hollywood hero/villain formula._ Or view the Hollywood formulae objectively. Movies with anti-heros, even presenting murderers in a sympathetic light, are fairly common even in Hollywood: for instance, Bonnie and Clyde. It’s just that these are part of a well-established mythos where we’ve stopped questioning the idea of a sympathetic villain. ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2003, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-freaky-was-a-clockwork-orange/142797/46 "2003-01-21T13:48:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Achernar \* > \*\*I just saw this film for the first time, and I think this thread is not too old to resurrect… so… here’s what I thought. > > I’m all for a good anti-brainwashing plot, but all too often it seems that when somebody tries to make a point like this, they make it so ridiculous that it has no bearing on the real world! They wanted to say that destroying his free will put him in a bad fix. Fair enough. But that’s not what they showed. For instance, he gets beat up by his two ex-droogies; how did his brainwashing lead to this? Well considering Alex would have normally beat the crap out of them as he had earlier in the film it was a demonstration how the technique had robbed Alex of any means to A) Protect himself, and B) Express himself (which he did with Violence) > [@](#): > > Also, the old writer could have found some other way to torture and get back at Alex even if he didn’t have these Pavlovian associations. Aside from the pretty good speech made by the minister, they might as well have had him leave the jail and get struck by lightning. (“You see, if you brainwash people, they wind up dead!”) The Writer was not getting back at Alex. Essentially we are supposed to sympathize with him and you really can’t do that if nothing happens. I mean if Alex left the prison went home got a good job and lived to a ripe old age then the point is not made. > [@](#): > > The thought that ran through my head the whole time was how slow it all was. The entire story could have been told in 60 minutes easily. Some scenes went way longer than they needed to in order to get the point (eg. checking into prison) and in many scenes, there were huge pauses wherein nothing happened. Get the feeling I’m a fan? Anyway this is a stylistic approach of Kubrick. You will find he generally will have uncomfortably long scenes and shots of actors making odd expressions. The story could be told in 60 minutes but what is the point. In its present form there is time to reflect and examine the scene. You even have the chance to see why a scene is shot the way it is. To be honest todays faster cut dumbed down films tend to generate the excitement but seem to have completely given up any pretense of having a brain. It is more like a magic act making you believe you saw something when you really haven’t seen anything. It is more annoying than clever and insulting to an audience because now they equate a long scene with being both boring and pointless. Sad Really. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2003, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-freaky-was-a-clockwork-orange/142797/47 "2003-01-21T14:07:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kingpengvin \* > Well considering Alex would have normally beat the crap out of them as he had earlier in the film it was a demonstration how the technique had robbed Alex of any means to A) Protect himself, and B) Express himself (which he did with Violence) Okay, fair enough point about him expressing himself, but what I’m saying is that if he had just normally chosen not to be violent, there would have been no difference. Any argument made in the film against forced rehabilitation was also an argument about self-sought rehabilitation. Except for the secondary musical association, which was sort of a clever tool, but not much of a philosophical argument. > [@](#): > > The Writer was not getting back at Alex. It certainly seemed like he was to me. I guess you’re saying that he was only using Alex as a political tool, which is also true, but if that were the case he would have just exposed him. No, he wanted Alex to suffer, I believe. > [@](#): > > To be honest todays faster cut dumbed down films tend to generate the excitement but seem to have completely given up any pretense of having a brain. It is more like a magic act making you believe you saw something when you really haven’t seen anything. You know what I do with a movie in which there’s more to it than you can get in one viewing? I watch it again. It makes these films worth rewatching. I’m not saying this film should have been 60 minutes. But if you’re making 130 minutes worth of film, I think it should have 130 minutes’ worth of story. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2003, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-freaky-was-a-clockwork-orange/142797/48 "2003-01-21T15:14:49Z")
I found the movie intreguing; the style of filmmaking, I liked; and the violence, graphic and disturbing - but not gratuitous (you the viewer are _supposed_ to be disturbed, and that disturbance is essential to the plot). Most importantly, it is one of that very rare sort of movie which _does not have an obvious message of any sort_, although it clearly _deals_ with important issues. Alex is not sympathetic - he is a sociopathic thug. The government uses behavioural conditioning on him, making him somewhat less than fully human - when my wife saw that, she essentially shrugged and said “so what? He deserved it” - as indeed he did. Others like myself felt that the government’s assumption of total power over the individual was even more disturbing than that individual’s crimes, however horrible … The point is, reasonable people can reasonably disagree about exactly _what_ the message of the movie was - it is not spoon-fed to the viewer. And _that_ is exactly what makes it great art. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-freaky-was-a-clockwork-orange/142797.md?page=2)