Tonight at the ArcLight Hollywood I caught a showing of the 1971 picture A Clockwork Orange, directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Malcolm McDowell and all of his droogs. Now why would a first-run house like the ArcLight be showing Clockwork? Same reason they showed Metropolis last week. If you haven't read my 
Metropolis post, you'll see that both that flick as well as this one were shown as part of a music festival put on by the Los Angeles Philharmonic called Concrete Frequency. Concrete Frequency is, as the brochure puts it, a "multi-disciplinary series of events designed to examine and celebrate the elements that define a city, and how they are affected by, and reflected in, music." Most of this constituted concerts at Disney Hall, the L.A. Phil's home base, but they also had three films tying into it at the ArcLight: Metropolis, Taxi Driver, and A Clockwork Orange. Since I saw Taxi Driver on the big screen a couple years ago, I opted to skip it so I could see Callie Khouri in person for a sneak preview of Mad Money.
As with Metropolis, A Clockwork Orange was followed by a Q&A with Variety film critic Jon Burlingame. This time he interviewed English documentarian Nick Redman. Nick's significance to this event was that he was the one to interview Malcolm McDowell on the commentary track of the A Clockwork Orange DVD. His other credentials include a lot of documentaries about Westerns. For the John Ford DVD set Ford at Fox, he did a documentary called Becoming John Ford. Back in the nineties he did another Ford doc called A Turning of the Earth: John Ford, John Wayne and The Searchers. He's also done a few pieces about Sam Peckinpah. Back in 1996 he scored on Oscar nomination in the Best Documentary, Short Subjects category for The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage. Since then he's done A Simple Adventure Story: Sam Peckinpah, Mexico and The Wild Bunch and Main Title 1M1: Jerry Fielding, Sam Peckinpah and The Getaway.
When he made A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick was in his forties. Most of his work was behind him, stuff like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Spartacus, Lolita, and tons more. After
Clockwork he made all of four films in the 28 years before he died: Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut. Do you know what A Clockwork Orange is about? If you've seen this mind trip, the answer wouldn't necessarily be yes. Those English accents can be quite thick from a Yank's point of view. Even though it stretches north of two hours, though, the story's fairly straightforward. It takes place in near-future England. Malcolm McDowell plays a chap called de Large, Alex de Large. We first meet him at a milkbar during the film's very memorable beginning. He's not alone. You see, Alex is the head of a gang. The other three in the gang are called his droogs. Their names are Dim, Georgie, and Pete. They don't really do much except, as Alex says in the narration, indulge in a little bit of the old ultraviolence.
Metropolis post, you'll see that both that flick as well as this one were shown as part of a music festival put on by the Los Angeles Philharmonic called Concrete Frequency. Concrete Frequency is, as the brochure puts it, a "multi-disciplinary series of events designed to examine and celebrate the elements that define a city, and how they are affected by, and reflected in, music." Most of this constituted concerts at Disney Hall, the L.A. Phil's home base, but they also had three films tying into it at the ArcLight: Metropolis, Taxi Driver, and A Clockwork Orange. Since I saw Taxi Driver on the big screen a couple years ago, I opted to skip it so I could see Callie Khouri in person for a sneak preview of Mad Money.As with Metropolis, A Clockwork Orange was followed by a Q&A with Variety film critic Jon Burlingame. This time he interviewed English documentarian Nick Redman. Nick's significance to this event was that he was the one to interview Malcolm McDowell on the commentary track of the A Clockwork Orange DVD. His other credentials include a lot of documentaries about Westerns. For the John Ford DVD set Ford at Fox, he did a documentary called Becoming John Ford. Back in the nineties he did another Ford doc called A Turning of the Earth: John Ford, John Wayne and The Searchers. He's also done a few pieces about Sam Peckinpah. Back in 1996 he scored on Oscar nomination in the Best Documentary, Short Subjects category for The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage. Since then he's done A Simple Adventure Story: Sam Peckinpah, Mexico and The Wild Bunch and Main Title 1M1: Jerry Fielding, Sam Peckinpah and The Getaway.
When he made A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick was in his forties. Most of his work was behind him, stuff like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Spartacus, Lolita, and tons more. After
Clockwork he made all of four films in the 28 years before he died: Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut. Do you know what A Clockwork Orange is about? If you've seen this mind trip, the answer wouldn't necessarily be yes. Those English accents can be quite thick from a Yank's point of view. Even though it stretches north of two hours, though, the story's fairly straightforward. It takes place in near-future England. Malcolm McDowell plays a chap called de Large, Alex de Large. We first meet him at a milkbar during the film's very memorable beginning. He's not alone. You see, Alex is the head of a gang. The other three in the gang are called his droogs. Their names are Dim, Georgie, and Pete. They don't really do much except, as Alex says in the narration, indulge in a little bit of the old ultraviolence.After we watch them in action for a bit and get introduced to Alex's home life--he lives with Mum and Dad, who have no idea what he's up to--Alex and his droogs have a bit of a falling out. The end of the first act sees them ambush Alex at the Catlady's house and leave him for the police. He gets caught and does a two-year stint in jail. The only reason he gets out that soon is because he submits himself as a guinea pig in some government experiment designed to reform ultraviolent criminals. I won't spill where the film goes from there, but suffice it to say that Alex finds himself pushed and pulled both by the government and by some resistance group trying to expose the government as criminal. In typical Stanley Kubrick fashion, the ending isn't satisfying in the mainstream three-act Hollywood sense, but somehow it fits perfectly with the rest of the film.
But you already know about Stanley Kubrick. If you've seen even one of the films I mentioned above, especially the later ones, you know that you'll always get something different and that it may not go down so smoothly the first time. So enough about Stan. Do you know anything about 
Anthony Burgess? The Manchester native who wrote the novel on which the film was based? Now there was an interesting chap. By the time he penned A Clockwork Orange in '62, he was already in his mid forties. Nick Redman described him as "a newspaper critic and eccentric," but he was more than that. He didn't even turn to writing until his early forties, after teaching stints in Malaysia and Borneo. Yeah, he was on the weird side. He said things like "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Snore and you sleep alone." When asked to describe his writing methodology, he said, "I start at the beginning, go to the end, then stop." But he had the most depressing childhood that the fact he could keep it together at all is a real testament to the man's mental stamina. Both his ma and his sister died during the 1918 flu pandemic, when Anthony was all of a year old. As for Dad? He was mostly an absentee drunk. Anthony, in other words, had a Grade A shitty upbringing. Then along came World War II.
Anthony Burgess? The Manchester native who wrote the novel on which the film was based? Now there was an interesting chap. By the time he penned A Clockwork Orange in '62, he was already in his mid forties. Nick Redman described him as "a newspaper critic and eccentric," but he was more than that. He didn't even turn to writing until his early forties, after teaching stints in Malaysia and Borneo. Yeah, he was on the weird side. He said things like "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Snore and you sleep alone." When asked to describe his writing methodology, he said, "I start at the beginning, go to the end, then stop." But he had the most depressing childhood that the fact he could keep it together at all is a real testament to the man's mental stamina. Both his ma and his sister died during the 1918 flu pandemic, when Anthony was all of a year old. As for Dad? He was mostly an absentee drunk. Anthony, in other words, had a Grade A shitty upbringing. Then along came World War II.It was an incident during the war, in fact, that planted the seed in Anthony's brain to write A Clockwork Orange nearly 20 years later. During a blackout in London, U.S. Army deserters mugged and beat up his wife. Remember that scene in Clockwork when Alex and his droogs just walk into that writer's house, and Alex rapes his wife right in front of him while singing "Singin' in the Rain"? Apparently that scene was "inspired" by Anthony's wife's assault, and then he wrote the rest of the novel around that scene. Another interesting little tidbit about the novel is that, while he was writing it, Anthony was convinced he was dying of a brain tumor. He churned through the sucker in a hurry so it could be published and earn his wife enough dough after he kicked the bucket. After he finished it, though, he found out that his noodle was fit as a fiddle.
Now in case you're wondering who to blame for those thick accents, don't blame Anthony, or Stan, or the English. Blame the Russians. Sometime before he wrote A Clockwork Orange, Anthony and his wife took a cruise to St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad). A lover--and quick learner--of languages, Anthony used the Russian he learned on that trip to create a sort of Anglo-Russian dialect for the novel, and by extension the movie. That's why it's so damned difficult to discern what in hell Alex is saying sometimes. He and his droogs are talking in a slang that's sort of English and sort of Russian. Speaking of language, the novel is the first time anyone used the word "ultraviolence." Since then, it's been added to the dictionary.
Oh, and on a side note, Anthony was drinking buddies with William S. Burroughs. How cool is that?!
Now in case you're wondering who to blame for those thick accents, don't blame Anthony, or Stan, or the English. Blame the Russians. Sometime before he wrote A Clockwork Orange, Anthony and his wife took a cruise to St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad). A lover--and quick learner--of languages, Anthony used the Russian he learned on that trip to create a sort of Anglo-Russian dialect for the novel, and by extension the movie. That's why it's so damned difficult to discern what in hell Alex is saying sometimes. He and his droogs are talking in a slang that's sort of English and sort of Russian. Speaking of language, the novel is the first time anyone used the word "ultraviolence." Since then, it's been added to the dictionary.
Oh, and on a side note, Anthony was drinking buddies with William S. Burroughs. How cool is that?!
Nick told us a funny story behind that "Singin' in the Rain" scene. When it came time to shoot that scene, the script didn't specify what song Alex was supposed to sing while he beat up the 
writer and raped his wife. So Stanley Kubrick told Malcolm McDowell to sing whatever song came to mind. Malcolm said he didn't know any songs by heart. Stanley was like, "Oh come on. You must know at least one song. How could you not know any songs?" So when the cameras started rolling, Malcolm sang the first tune that popped into his noggin. You guessed it: "Singin' in the Rain". But it gets even better. A few years later, at a party in the Hollywood Hills, Malcolm McDowell was standing around drinking with one of his buddies. At one point his buddy was like, "Dude! Gene Kelly's right behind you!" When Malcolm turned around to say hey, Gene turned away from him and stalked off. He never spoke to Malcolm the entire time, so irate was he about the use of that song during what's probably the most disturbing scene in the film.
writer and raped his wife. So Stanley Kubrick told Malcolm McDowell to sing whatever song came to mind. Malcolm said he didn't know any songs by heart. Stanley was like, "Oh come on. You must know at least one song. How could you not know any songs?" So when the cameras started rolling, Malcolm sang the first tune that popped into his noggin. You guessed it: "Singin' in the Rain". But it gets even better. A few years later, at a party in the Hollywood Hills, Malcolm McDowell was standing around drinking with one of his buddies. At one point his buddy was like, "Dude! Gene Kelly's right behind you!" When Malcolm turned around to say hey, Gene turned away from him and stalked off. He never spoke to Malcolm the entire time, so irate was he about the use of that song during what's probably the most disturbing scene in the film.Nick first saw A Clockwork Orange in January 1972, about a month after it opened, at the Warner West End cinemas in Leicester Square. What made the movie extra scary at the time was how real it was. Yeah, it was set in some unspecified near future, but it nonetheless reflected with a stark accuracy the way London's youth culture was at the time. That is, ultraviolent. Nick said it was funny how Americans tend to perceive English culture as very genteel. In the sixties and seventies, at least, that couldn't have been further from the truth. Youth gangs and hooliganism were rampant. Literally right outside the Warner West End, Nick said, you'd be wise to tread carefully. He essentially was watching a movie that reflected what was going on right outside the cinema doors.
A Clockwork Orange only exacerbated things. After a year and a half in the cinemas and innumerable reports of copycat violence, Stanley Kubrick himself spearheaded a campaign to banish his own baby from all screens in Britain. The ban remained in effect until shortly after his death in 1999. Still, though, despite that tempestuous relationship with the public, this flick was positively critic proof. Its Oscar nomination for Best Picture made it the second X-rated film ever to get that nomination. It also scored noms for Best Director, Best Screenplay Adaptation, and Best Editing. In Britain, despite its eventual ban, it scored no less than seven BAFTA nominations (the British equivalent of the Oscar).
Since this was being shown as part of the L.A. Philharmonic's Concrete Frequency program, Nick eventually talked about the music in the film, and more specifically about the person who composed the music. I tell ya, even if this wasn't part of a music event, it would still be worth talking about this cat. The soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange was composed by a 32-year-old from Rhode Island named Walter Carlos. Never heard of 'im? This is the guy who basically pioneered the use of synthesized and electronic music. In the late sixties he put the Moo
g synthesizer on the map with his album Switched-on Bach, the very first ever album of completely synthesized classical music and which scored Carlos three Grammys. Surely he had a ball with A Clockwork Orange. That opening piece alone was terrific and is repeated throughout the film. I couldn't get enough of it. He also got to do for Beethoven what he did for Bach, whenever Alex de Large in the film pops in, as he calls it, a "little of the Ludwig van." About a year or so after the film, Walter Carlos underwent a sex change operation and became Wendy Carlos. The music didn't stop. She did an album called Switched-on Brandenburgs and contributed to the soundtracks of The Shining and Tron. As a side note, Wendy's got a thing for solar eclipses. If you go to her site (wendycarlos.com), she's got a page chockfull of information and images of solar eclipses she's been documenting since 1963.
g synthesizer on the map with his album Switched-on Bach, the very first ever album of completely synthesized classical music and which scored Carlos three Grammys. Surely he had a ball with A Clockwork Orange. That opening piece alone was terrific and is repeated throughout the film. I couldn't get enough of it. He also got to do for Beethoven what he did for Bach, whenever Alex de Large in the film pops in, as he calls it, a "little of the Ludwig van." About a year or so after the film, Walter Carlos underwent a sex change operation and became Wendy Carlos. The music didn't stop. She did an album called Switched-on Brandenburgs and contributed to the soundtracks of The Shining and Tron. As a side note, Wendy's got a thing for solar eclipses. If you go to her site (wendycarlos.com), she's got a page chockfull of information and images of solar eclipses she's been documenting since 1963.Nick also talked a bit about Stanley's background and character. Born in New York, he made England his permanent home in his mid thirties, around the time he made Lolita. If you're wondering why A Clockwork Orange is such a "wholly English film," as Nick put it, it's because Stan had already been living in England for about a decade at that point. Stan was very reactionary when picking his projects. In other words, he sort of let them find him. He'd never heard of Anthony Burgess or his novel A Clockwork Orange until a friend passed it along to him. But if you're wondering why Stan only turned out four more films in the 28 years still left to him, 
it wasn't because he was reactionary or that he fell out of love with movie making. It's because he became ever more obsessive compulsive to the point that directing a film became a chore more daunting and consuming than it already is in general. Before releasing The Shining for instance, Stan literally watched all 800 prints of the final cut. Yes, I mean that literally. Dude sat and watched The Shining 800 times, not because he adored it so much, but because he wanted to make sure the sound was all right. In his perfect world, all theaters would have mono sound. That way, there was no chance of a speaker crapping out and compromising the film's soundtrack. Since that just wasn't realistic, he decided to make sure himself, print by print, that if there were any sound issues, the fault wouldn't lie on his end. Eventually Stan minimized his use of original scores. The more inflamed his OCD became, the greater the chance he wouldn't like whatever original music the composer came up with. So he just started using old songs he knew he liked. That's too bad. It would've been really cool to see what kind of music Wendy Carlos could've come up with for a flick like Eyes Wide Shut.
it wasn't because he was reactionary or that he fell out of love with movie making. It's because he became ever more obsessive compulsive to the point that directing a film became a chore more daunting and consuming than it already is in general. Before releasing The Shining for instance, Stan literally watched all 800 prints of the final cut. Yes, I mean that literally. Dude sat and watched The Shining 800 times, not because he adored it so much, but because he wanted to make sure the sound was all right. In his perfect world, all theaters would have mono sound. That way, there was no chance of a speaker crapping out and compromising the film's soundtrack. Since that just wasn't realistic, he decided to make sure himself, print by print, that if there were any sound issues, the fault wouldn't lie on his end. Eventually Stan minimized his use of original scores. The more inflamed his OCD became, the greater the chance he wouldn't like whatever original music the composer came up with. So he just started using old songs he knew he liked. That's too bad. It would've been really cool to see what kind of music Wendy Carlos could've come up with for a flick like Eyes Wide Shut.
