About Book Anthony Burgess reads chapters of his novel A Clockwork Orange with hair-raising drive and energy. Although it is a fantasy set in an Orwellian future, this is anything but a bedtime story." -The New York Times Told by the central character, Alex, this brilliant, hilarious, and disturbing novel creates an alarming futuristic vision of violence, high technology, and authoritarianism.Anthony Burgess' 1963 classic stands alongside Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World as a classic of twentieth century post-industrial alienation, often shocking us into a thoughtful exploration of the meaning of free will and the conflict between good and evil.In this recording, the author's voice lends an intoxicating lyrical dimension to the language he has so masterfully crafted. "I do not know of any other writer who has done as much with language as Mr. Burgess has done [in A Clockwork Orange]." -William S. Burroughs Recognized as one of the literary geniuses of our time, Anthony Burgess produced thirty-two novels, a volume of verse, sixteen works of nonfiction, and two plays. Originally a composer, his creative output also included countless musical compositions, including symphonies, operas, and jazz. The author's musicality is evident in the lyrical and dramatic reading he gives in this recording. Anthony Burgess died in 1993. --Amazon.ca (refers to the audio text version) Film 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. Stanley Kubrick dissects the nature of violence in this darkly ironic, near-future satire, adapted from Anthony Burgess' novel, complete with "Nadsat" slang. Classical music-loving proto-punk Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his "Droogs" spend their nights getting high at the Korova Milkbar before embarking on "a little of the old ultraviolence," such as terrorizing a writer, Mr. Alexander (Patrick Magee), and raping his wife while jauntily warbling "Singin' in the Rain." After Alex is jailed for bludgeoning the Cat Lady (Miriam Karlin) to death with one of her phallic sculptures, Alex submits to the Ludovico behavior modification technique to earn his freedom; he's conditioned to abhor violence through watching gory movies, and even his adored Beethoven is turned against him. Returned to the world defenseless, Alex becomes the victim of his prior victims, with Mr. Alexander using Beethoven's Ninth to inflict the greatest pain of all. When society sees what the state has done to Alex, however, the politically expedient move is made. Casting a coldly pessimistic view on the then-future of the late '70s-early '80s, Kubrick and production designer John Barry created a world of high-tech cultural decay, mixing old details like bowler hats with bizarrely alienating "new" environments like the Milkbar. Alex's violence is horrific, yet it is an aesthetically calculated fact of his existence; his charisma makes the icily clinical Ludovico treatment seem more negatively abusive than positively therapeutic. Alex may be a sadist, but the state's autocratic control is another violent act, rather than a solution. Released in late 1971 (within weeks of Sam Peckinpah's brutally violent Straw Dogs), the film sparked considerable controversy in the U.S. with its X-rated violence; after copycat crimes in England, Kubrick withdrew the film from British distribution until after his death. Opinion was divided on the meaning of Kubrick's detached view of this shocking future, but, whether the discord drew the curious or Kubrick's scathin diagnosis spoke to the chaotic cultural moment, A Clockwork Orange became a hit. On the heels of New York Film Critics Circle awards as Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, Kubrick received Oscar nominations in all three categories. --Amazon.ca Quotes Alex: Appy-polly-loggies. I had something of a pain in my gulliver so I had to sleep. I was not awakened when I gave orders for awakening. Alex: Welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, well. To what do I owe the extreme pleasure of this surprising visit? Minister: As I was saying, Alex, you can be instrumental in changing the public verdict. Do you understand, Alex? Have I made myself clear? Alex: As an unmuddied lake, Fred. As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. You can rely on me, Fred. Alex: Initiative comes to thems that wait. Alex: What we were after now was the old surprise visit. That was a real kick and good for laughs and lashings of the old ultraviolence. Alex: We were all feeling a bit shagged and fagged and fashed, it being a night of no small expenditure. Alex: Viddy well, little brother. Viddy well. [first lines] Alex: There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence. Alex: There was nothing I hated more than to see a filthy old drunkie, a-howling away at the filthy songs of his fathers and going blurp blurp in between as if it were a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. I could never stand to see anyone like that, especially when they were old like this one was. Alex: Well, well, well! Well if it isn't fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarble, ya eunuch jelly thou! Alex: And the first thing that flashed into my gulliver was that I'd like to have her right down there on the floor with the old in-out, real savage. Alex: It had been a wonderful evening and what I needed now, to give it the perfect ending, was a little of the Ludwig Von. Alex: Hi, hi, hi, Mr. Deltoid! [Alex has just struck Dim on the legs] Dim: What did you do that for? Alex: For being a bastard with no manners, you haven't a dook of an idea how to comport yourself public-wise, O my brother! Dim: I don't like you should do what you've done and I'm not your brother no more and wouldn't want to be. Alex: Watch that, do watch that O Dim, if to continue to be on live thou, dost wist? Dim: Yarbles! Great bolshy yarblockos to you. I'll meet you with chain or nozh or britva anytime. I'm not having you aiming tolchocks at me reasonless. It stands to reason, I won't have it. Alex: A nozh scrap anytime you say. Dim: Doobiedoob, a bit tired maybe, best not to say more. Bedways is rightways now, so best we go homeways and get a bit of spatchka. Right-right? [Listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony] Alex: Oh bliss! Bliss and heaven! Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures! Alex: What you got back home, little sister, to play your fuzzy warbles on? I bet you got, say, pitiful, portable picnic players. Come with uncle and hear all proper! Hear angels' trumpets and devils' trombones. You are invited! Alex: So now it was to be Georgie the General, saying what we should do and what not to do, with Dim as his mindless grinning bulldog. But then I viddied that thinking is for the gloopy ones and the oomny ones use, like, inspiration and what Bog sends. For now it was lovely music that came to my aid, there was a window open with the stereo on and I viddied right at once what to do. [Alex encounters his old friends, who are now police] Alex: It's impossible! I can't believe it! Georgie: Evidence of the ol' glassies! Nothing up our sleeves, no magic little Alex! A job for two who are now of job age! The police! Alex: Hi, hi, hi there! At last we meet. Our brief govoreet through the letter-hole was not, shall we say, satisfactory, yes? Alex: Naughty, naughty, naughty! You filthy old soomka! Frank Alexander: Food alright? Alex: Great sir, great! Frank Alexander: Try the wine! [about his wife] Frank Alexander: She was very badly raped, you see! We were assaulted by a gang of vicious, young, hoodlums in this house! In this very room you are sitting in now! I was left a helpless cripple, but for her the agony was too great! The doctor said it was pneumonia; because it happened some months later! During a flu epidemic! The doctors told me it was pneumonia, but I knew what it was! A VICTIM OF THE MODERN AGE! Poor, poor girl! Alex: The Durango '95 purred away a real horrowshow. A nice warm vibraty feeling all through your guttiwuts! P.R. Deltoid: I've just come from the hospital; your victim has died. Alex: You try to frighten me. Admit so, sir. This is some new form of torture. Say it, Brother Sir. P.R. Deltoid: It'll be your own torture. I hope to God it'll torture you to madness. Alex: No time for the old in-out, love, I've just come to read the meter. Alex: Eggiwegs! I would like... to smash them! Alex: You know what you can do with that watch? Stick it up your arse! [last lines] Alex: I was cured, all right! Alex: It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen. [Alex has the tramp pinned down] Tramp: Go on, do me in you bastard cowards! I don't want to live anyway,not in a stinking world like this one! Alex: Oh? And what's so stinking about it? Alex: I've suffered the tortures of the damned, sir [with innocent reinforcement] Alex: - tortures of the damned. Chief Guard Barnes: Are you able to see the white line painted on the floor directly behind you, Six-Double-Five-Three-Two-One? Alex: Yes, sir. Chief Guard Barnes: Then your pose belongs ON THE OTHER SIDE OF IT! [Alex chats up two girls sucking penis-shaped lollies] Alex: Enjoying that are you my darlin'? Bit cold and pointless isn't it my lovely? What's happened to yours my little sister? [Staring at Alex's penis] Chief Guard Barnes: Are you now, or have you ever been a homosexual? Prison Chaplain: What's it going to be, eh? Is it going to be in and out of institutions like this? Well, more in and out for most of ya! Or are you going to attend to the Divine Word and realise the punishments that await unrepentant sinners in the next world as well as this? A lot of idiots you are, selling your own birthright for a saucer of cold porridge! The thrill of theft! Of violence! The urge to live easy! Well, I ask you what is it worth when we have undeniable truth - yes! Incontrovertible evidence that Hell exists! I know! I know my friends! I have been informed in visions that there is a place darker than any prison, hotter than any flame of human fire, where souls of unrepentant criminal sinners like yourselves...! [an inmate belches, prompting the rest to laugh] Prison Chaplain: Don't you laugh, damn you! Don't you laugh! I say like yourselves scream in endless and unendurable agony! Their skin rotting and peeling! A fireball spinning in their screaming guts! I know! Oh yes, I know! [Another inmate makes a raspberry noise, prompting them to laugh again] Minister: What crime did you commit? Alex: The accidental killing of a person, sir. Chief Guard Barnes: He brutally murdered a woman, sir, in furtherance of theft. Fourteen years, sir! Minister: Excellent. He's enterprising, aggressive, outgoing, young, bold, vicious. He'll do. Governor: Well, fine, we could still look at C-block... Minister: No, no, no. That's enough. He's perfect. I want his records sent to me. This vicious young hoodlum will be transformed out of all recognition. Alex: Thank you very much for this chance, sir. Minister: Let's hope you make the most of it, my boy. Alex: No. No! NO! Stop it! Stop it, please! I beg you! This is sin! This is sin! This is sin! It's a sin, it's a sin, it's a sin! Dr. Brodsky: Sin? What's all this about sin? Alex: That! Using Ludwig van like that! He did no harm to anyone. Beethoven just wrote music! Dr. Branom: Are you referring to the background score? Alex: Yes. Dr. Branom: You've heard Beethoven before? Alex: Yes! Dr. Brodsky: So, you're keen on music? Alex: YES! Dr. Brodsky: Can't be helped. Here's the punishment element perhaps. Alex: You needn't take it any further, sir. You've proved to me that all this ultraviolence and killing is wrong, wrong, and terribly wrong. I've learned me lesson, sir. I've seen now what I've never seen before. I'm cured! Praise god! Dr. Brodsky: You're not cured yet, boy. Minister: Oh, yes. I understand you're fond of music. I have arranged a little surprise for you. Alex: Surprise? Minister: One that I hope that you will like. As a um... how shall we put it? As a symbol of our new understanding. An understanding between two friends. Alex: So I waited and, O my brothers, I got a lot better munching away at eggiwegs, and lomticks of toast and lovely steakiwegs and then, one day, they said I was going to have a very special visitor. [the Minister enters] Minister: Good evening, my boy. Minister: You seem to have a whole ward to yourself, my boy. Alex: Yes, sir, and a very lovely place it is too, sir, when I wake up in the middle of the night with my pain. Minister: Yes... well, good to see you on the mend! Minister: Punishment means nothing to them, you can see that. They enjoy their so-called punishment. Alex: You're absolutely right, sir. Psychiatrist: [reading slide] The boy you always quarrel with is seriously ill. Alex: My mind is a blank... uhh... and I'll smash your face! Source: imdb.com

Part of The Fanlistings A Papervixen.Net Production In Association with Sugar Spin