A Clockwork Orange...

[max_tranmere]

I watched about an hour of this film last night but changed channels a few times during the gruesome bits. I am not surprisded this film was banned for many years, I would have probably watched to the end had it not been for the disturbing violence and, also, the undercurrent of gay sex issues which has no appeal to me.

For those who have seen it, what did you think of the film? Also, does it really deserve to be called 'a cult classic' and be viewed as being 'ahead of its time' as some people say? The only thing that made it a 'cult 'classic' that I can see was the infamy that surrounded it being banned - ban something and people become a lot more interested in it. Also, rather like the film 'Performance' which was made around the same time, it was most likely only seen as being 'ahead of its time' because films in those days did not really contain extreme violence and quite graphic simulated sex.

For any fans of the band U2, I remember they wrote a song 20 years ago called 'Alex descends into hell for a bottle of milk' (rather odd song title) which was inspired by the film. The track appeared as a b-side to one of the songs from U2's 'Achtung Baby' album. I noticed in the film last night, and I was not aware of this before, that U2 seem to have got inspiration for another song on that album from another reference in the film too. 'Ultra Violet' is a song on that album, and 'ultra violet' was said by one of the mad droog people in the film early on. Had I watched the whole film there would probably have been other things in there that U2 got inspiration from for songs on that album. Any U2 boffins reading this who could shed some more light on this?

[andy at handiwork]

It was never banned. Kubrick removed it himself from distribution in the UK, but not elsewhere, after pressure was put on him following a couple of copycat crimes occurred. It was still possible to get it on VHS from France. An unauthorised showing at the Scala Cinema resulted in Warner Bros suing them and caused their closure.

[BRFOT]

Well it is taken pretty much verbatim from a novel.

[David Johnson]

Clockwork Orange, that's a fair, gloopy title.

Me and my three droogs, that is Argy, Charles, and Jim, are sitting in the Johnson Milkbar reading the Daily Mail gazetta, trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. Initiative comes to them that wait.

Me, I fancy some ultra-violence. We're going to crock a babouchka. One with nice groodys.

Horrorshow!

[pornoshop]

geek

[David Johnson]

Crack your yarbles, Pornoshop.

Horrorshow!

[Arginald Valleywater]

I was amazed at how poor a film it was. Great sets but overblown performances and no real involvement with the characters.

[Snow Patrol]

I have always enjoyed it, from years gone by... I had the video..

As I type, the sky+ box is just playing the recording from the other night...

1st time I've seen it in HD !


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