I’m reminded of an interview with Malcome Mcdowell talking about watching “ACO” at home one night. Later that night he caught a glimps of his reflection in a widow plane and scared himself :D.
window pane, that is.
If I hadn’t known that The Killing was made by Kubrick, I couldn’t have guessed. It was such standard thriller fare except may be the anti-climactic ending. Having watched all his films, it is MHO that Kubrick’s personality started to influence his films starting only with Lolita. It may not be a co-incidence that it was the first film he made after the Spartacus debacle. I believe it was also the first film he made after leaving the US for UK. Does anyone find it strange that almost all of Kubrick’s films (except for 2001?) were made from books? One would think a man with a vision could pen his own film… Kubrick may have had a strong cinematic vision but it makes me wonder where he stood as an individual…
gobear
We seem to have a similar taste in film. I remember a Kurosawa thread you started a while before. Keep up the watching!
A nice tall glass of moloko vellocet… viddy well little brother, viddy well.
There are small elements that are apparent (chess, some of the camera work) that have his fingerprints on them. As far as it being a standard thriller, I don’t recall who, but someone pointed out that “The Killing” invented many of the cliches that we see in thrillers now. You KNOW that Tarantino has seen it several times, and really likes the fragmented chronology.
I’d say that “Dr. Strangelove” is far enough removed from its source material to be considered a completely independent work. But, yeah, I’ve kind of wondered that myself. Never really bothered me, however. Look at Spielberg – the only movies he’s had screenplay credits on were, IIRC, “Close Encounters” and “A.I.” Coppola’s “big” movies were based on books. Lots of Scorsese, too.
Technically, “2001” is based on the Clarke short-story “The Sentinel”. Clarke and Kubrick collaborated on the screenplay and the novel. (Screenplay by Kubrick and Clarke, novel by Clarke, based on the screenplay)
Judgiong form the perspective of having seen his later work, once can say the The Killing was standard thriller fare because Kubrick had not yet devloped his distinctive style. However, at the time of the film’s release, it created enough stir among the critics and the public that it made Kubrick a director to look out for.
And thanks for the kind words, Litost.
Me droogy, you’ve missed your plenny’s chance to recommend a malenky bit of synthemesc while viddying your sinny.
You’ll need a shlapa, a cap that is, roundish and make it black. Some big black saboggy shoes to go on your tozy wozies. And let us not forget the cut throat britva to razrez a little bit of the ultra violence.
Seriously Speaker for the Dead (great name btw), I can’t believe that you didn’t pony me brother’s bolshy luck. He was cured alright. It was gorgeosity and yumyumyum. He could viddy himself very clear carving the whole litso of the creeching world with his cut-throat brivta.*
You DID viddy it in widescreen, correct? If not, BACK to the video store with you!
*paraphrased from A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, p 179.
I’m just going to have to laugh at that right now because I finally asw Taxi Driver for the first time today in my film class (it’s about violent films). If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know what I’m referring too.
Speaker,
they did an operation on him to turn him back to normal. In that last scene, Alex talks about a funny dream he had that people were messing around in his head. (of course he describes it in Alexese, so maybe it’s easy to miss)
I think after living at both extremes, a slave to violent-sexual instincts & a slave against violent-sexual instincts, his “death & resurrrection” frees him to live normally.
The movie end differs from the book in two ways- the movie ends one chapter earlier (the last chapter in the US 1960s-70s edition, but the real last chapter was restored in the 1980s). The next-to-last chapter has him fantasizing about slitting throats while listening to B’s 9th, while the movie gives him a relatively passive sexual fantasy. Also, the real last chapter occurs a few years later with him holding down a job, having new droogs & looking at adulthood. (He’s age 16 in the book.)
Play some Beethovan music in the background, softly. Put a pair of scissors on the coffee table… & you’re all set.
This actually one film I bought in order to see the captions.
Diogenies, the language is called NADSAT. It was created by the author, Anthony Burgess for his novel. Lots of information on the web about it. It’s a mix of Russian, Cockney, Malay, Dutch, Gypsy, French and Polish.
A couple of cool NADSAT websites:
Speaker? uh, Speaker? - you there?
Judging by this last post of yours, you did see the movie, and haven’t come back to offer further thoughts, comment on other folks’ questions to you, etc. - shame on you! 
Now this thread has devolved into ACO appreciation and comment on when you saw it thread (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
Before I comment further, I guess I will as - you do know how the name came about - a comment on the need for humans to be humans, even with all of their faults and foibles - Alex, even while being a bad seed, is better than a clockwork…Alex. And that the movie is satire/commentary on attempts at social engineering - Burgess created a most unlovable character (which McDowell made very charming) and showed how the alternative (i.e., forcing him to be good) wasn’t any better, and even…worse.
So - did you like it? Do you get it more now that some time has past? Comments!
Once, Mr. Pug and I were once in Ojai, California, and after we parked our car we were walking to the local coffee roastery. Parked in front of the coffee place was a magnificent antique Jaguar. We admired it, and then we noticed that the license plate said “Viddy”. We looked at each other and said, “I wonder . . .”
Yep. We went into the coffee shop, and there sat Malcolm McDowell with a bunch of his buds. Mr. Pug went up to him and said, “I like your car, man.” MM said, “Oh, thanks - you guessed from the plates, I’m assuming.” He was a classy guy, but he still gave me the chills.