A Clockwork Orange Limited Edition Collector's Set 1972 Starring Malcolm McDowell Patrick Magee

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A Clockwork Orange

DVD
Format: Widescreen
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Release Date: June 2001
UPC: 085392115020

Average Customer Rating:

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Summary:
Stanley Kubrick's striking visual interpretation of Anthony Burgess's famous novel is a masterpiece. Malcolm McDowell delivers a clever, tongue-in-cheek performance as Alex, the leader of a quartet of droogs, a vicious group of young hoodlums who spend their nights stealing cars, fighting rival gangs, breaking into people's homes, and raping women. While other directors would simply exploit the violent elements of such a film without subtext, Kubrick maintains Burgess's dark, satirical social commentary. We watch Alex transform from a free-roaming miscreant into a convict used in a government experiment that attempts to reform criminals through an unorthodox new medical treatment. The catch, of course, is that this therapy may be nothing better than a quick cure-all for a society plagued by rampant crime. A Clockwork Orange works on many levels--visual, social, political, and sexual--and is one of the few films that hold up under repeated viewings. Kubrick not only presents colorfully arresting images, he also stylizes the film by utilizing classical music (and Wendy Carlos's electronic classical work) to underscore the violent scenes, which even today are disturbing in their display of sheer nihilism. Ironically, many fans of the film have missed that point, sadly being entertained by its brutality rather than being repulsed by it.

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Rating:

Malcolm McDowell certainly does have acting chops.

Customer Rating:

A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)

I am probably the last person on Earth who should be watching A Clockwork Orange; I have the combination of having never been a great Stanley Kubrick fan (save Lolita and The Killing) while being a very, very big fan of Anthony Burgess, especially the novel upon which this film is based. That said, it was a much better film that I had ever hoped it would be, though I still think it's quite overrated, in the general scheme of things.

The movie turns almost entirely on the performance of Malcolm McDowell. McDowell is, of course, an absolutely brilliant actor when he's in the right role (fantastic in If..., not so much in Cat People, for example), and there are a number of times during this movie that it seems, absurd as the idea may be, that Anthony Burgess originally wrote the character of Alex with McDowell in mind, he's such a perfect fit. McDowell takes what would otherwise be a rather mundane (and hard to understand; the nadsat flows much more easily in the book, and is more understandable) film and lifts it into the realm of the sublime. It's possible to attach the "virtuoso" adjective with a straight face, even. McDowell, here anyway, is the brightest of lights.

That said, the rest of the film is, in fact, rather mundane. Some of this can be attributed to cuts Kubrick had to make to get the film the R rating it finally ended up with (tales told out of school convey that one particular scene in the film-- you'll recognize it because it's so sped up-- was originally twenty-eight minutes long and reminiscent of the infamous ten-minute shot in Haneke's Funny Games), but-- and I can't believe I'm saying this-- I'm wondering if part of it doesn't have to do with the film's obsessive faithfulness to the book. And, yes, me saying something like this seems the height of folly, but it's the only thing I can come up with to explain why else it might have left me cold.

It's impossible to turn a novel, even a slim one, into a two-hour film without making some sacrifices. (Don't believe me? Try it sometime. Adapt your favorite novel into a screenplay, then recruit some friends and give it a read.) Kubrick's screenplay of Burgess' novel is about the most triumphant attempt at sacrificing nothing I've seen, and the movie does play very close to the book's vest. Where the difference lies, as it does in every case where an adaptation is not both written and directed by the author of the original novel (a situation I'm not sure has ever actually occurred), is in the variations, however slight they may be, in the visions of the author, the screenwriter, and the director. There's a level of complexity removed here given that Kubrick both adapted and directed, leaving a consistency of vision in that part of the equation. But it often seemed to me while I was watching the movie that Burgess' subtlety was often undermined by Kubrick's vision. Which is saying something given that sometimes Burgess has all the subtlety of a pile of mouse droppings in the middle of your kitchen table. But he does squash a lot of his social commentary into places where you might not otherwise look for it (and then does something like invent nadsat to give it a nice polish); Kubrick seems to've hunted it all down and brought it to the forefront. Why is Alex's "Singin' in the Rain" so memorable? Because it doesn't fit. Why doesn't it fit? Because Kubrick had nothing to do with it, save approve it. McDowell improvised the whole scene. There's no social commentary to be found in Alex's choice of song; it would, in fact, be hard to find a song that can be imbued with less social commentary. And it's that dichotomy that makes the scene so brilliant. When Kubrick is left to his own devices, however, social commentary tends to ooze from the celluloid. Or drop as if from the hind end of a mouse, as it were.

None of this, I hasten to add, is to say I don't like the movie. I ended up liking it quite a bit, in spite of myself. It just seems that, as good as it ended up being, it could have been a great deal more, given a director with a somewhat lighter touch at the helm. As it is, however, it's a visual feast with a manic McDowell as your tourguide, and that will do nicely. ***

Real horror show	Customer Rating:
What can be said about this movie that hasn't been said already? This has to be one of the most controversial films ever made. I like to see the reactions that people get from watching this movie for the first time. This movie is STILL far ahead of its time. There will never be another movie like this, ever.

Better than 2001.	Customer Rating:
This is Stanley Kubrick's greatest work; it is one of the most technically inventive and impressive films ever shot, while at the same time exposing the repulsive hypocrisies of the world which has changed very little (if not gotten worse) since 1971.

Blu-ray much better than DVD

Customer Rating:

My comments only concern the DVD versus Blu-ray issue.

I have an older version of the DVD (Stanley Kubrick Collection, white box) and the Blu-ray version. My experience has been that DVDs mastered in high definition look identical to the Blu-ray version (either on a Blu-ray player or an upconvert DVD player). In this case, the Blu-ray version is MUCH better. The differece is much like the samples used in stores to show the difference betwee regular and high definition--you know, grainy on one side sharp on the other.

Although my DVD version is widescreen, it is old enough that it is not enhanced for widescreen TVs. As a result, it is only as wide as a full screen version and with widescreen aspect ratio it looks like a postage stamp in the middle of the screen. Even worse, the transer is not very good. In general, the colors are brighter and the details sharper on the Blu-ray version. This may not matter as much as it does for 2001 (where, again, the Blu-ray version is much better), but the better picture using the whole screen is so much better!

That would be enough to recommend the Blu-ray version, but it also has several special features, including a commentary track, a documentary, and a featurette. The only extra on the DVD version is the trailer (which I don't even consider a special feature anymore).

In this case, the Blu-ray is definitely worth it, even if you already have the DVD version.

An iconoclastic look at the dark side of life.

Customer Rating:

This is a very difficult movie to watch. The cruelty of the gang is horrible but I think necessary for the rest of the movie to work. Malcolm Mcdowell gives, in my opinion, the best performance of his career and wasn't even recognized with an academy award nomination. The social commentary in this movie about violence and the establishment approach to a "cure" is disturbing and thought provoking. The use of of "Singing in the Rain" in the most violent scene and the use of the music of Beethoven throughout was brilliant and horrible at the same time. This is one of the best examples of a very unpleasant subject being shown with brilliance and genius.