The Return of a Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange was one of my favorite novels back in college, and I loved the movie as well. I was sad to learn that Anthony Burgess had wished to disown the novel considered one of the 100 all-time best English-language works of fiction.

The film by Stanley Kubrick has achieved much greater fame than the novel ever did. Kubrick banned public showings of the film in the UK after he received death threats surrounding the controversy of the film.

In this video, FilmFour looks at the furor that surrounded the film's initial release and offers a re-appraisal through the eyes of Alexander Walker, Mark Kermode, Camille Paglia, Tony Kaye and Steven Soderbergh.

Personally, I think the film is a brilliant meditation on free will and the perils of attempting to curtail that innate right through medicine and science. In the present day, one might wonder if the wide-spread use of anti-depressants is a more subtle mirror of the same ideas Burgess and Kubrick were examining in their work.


via videosift.com

Tags: A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess, Stanley Kubrick, Alexander Walker, Mark Kermode, Camille Paglia, Tony Kaye, Steven Soderbergh, film, literature, culture, re-appraisal