As moviegoers, though, do we care so much about the flaws of a film having an irredeemably wicked protagonist or an ending devoid of moral hope? Going by a small handful of interviews, Burgess seemed to have admired several aspects of Kubrick’s film, particularly how the director and McDowell used “Singin’ in the Rain” as the aural link that tips off writer F. Alexander to Alex’s previous misdeeds. Chapter 21, by comparison, offers a far tamer cure. In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned. Likewise, the viewer cringes when a recently released Alex — now declawed, defanged, and entirely helpless — finds himself dragged to the countryside, tolchocked, and nearly drowned in a trough by former droogs-turned-millicents Dim and Georgie as Carlos’ merciless, metallic score gongs in unison with his beating. “It seems piggish or Pollyannaish to deny that my intention in writing the work was to titillate the nastier propensities of my readers,” he confessed. A Clockwork Orange is a novel by Anthony Burgess that was first published in 1962. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of A Clockwork Orange and what it means. It was more problematic for Burgess, though. Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" is an ideological mess, a paranoid right-wing fantasy masquerading As an Orwellian warning. It is set in a dismal dystopian England and presents a first-person account of a juvenile delinquent who undergoes state-sponsored psychological rehabilitation for his aberrant behavior. A Clockwork Orange, a 1962 novel by Anthony Burgess . The film strikes a small victory for the individual, repugnant as he may be, in a sterile, callous world that strives for order and uniformity, but it offers no hope for a more humane tomorrow. A Clockwork Orange, the film's official soundtrack; A Clockwork Orange: Wendy Carlos's Complete Original Score, a 1972 album by Wendy Carlos featuring music composed for the film; A Clockwork Orange: A Play with … A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 dystopian crime film adapted, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. It then belongs to others, who, if sales are strong, will reimagine those stories — those very intimate and specific ideas — a million times over in infinitely different ways. But all hope of that wish being respected had vanished the moment he let loose his little Alex “the Large” on unsuspecting readers in 1962. Also an alternative Ludoveco treatment scene if interested..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3Khnk-lRgU&lc=UgwQTGxOyqhvGwQBGK14AaABAg&ab_channel=ZiggyCoco Cast : Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Adrienne Corri Screenplay : Stanley Kubrick Release : December 18, 1971 Director : Stanley Kubrick Genre : Science Fiction, Drama Country : UK, USA Stream Now Tim's Rating : … The soundtrack of A Clockwork Orange comprises classical music and electronic synthetic music composed by Wendy Carlos.Some of the music is heard only as excerpts, e.g. Structurally, it balances out the other two parts of the book, each with seven chapters. © 2021 Shmoop University Inc | All Rights Reserved | Privacy | Legal. In the film, Kubrick, with the help of Carlos and, of course, McDowell, manages to make us sympathize with the beast to the point that we feel the urge to open its cage and free it, even though we’ve witnessed its predilection for destruction. Related: A Clockwork Orange: What The Movie's Title Really Means But what age is Alex intended to be in A Clockwork Orange, and why was this detail amended between page and screen?In the original novel from which Kubrick loosely adapted A Clockwork Orange, Alex is 15 years old at the beginning of the book’s action and 18 by the end.In the movie, in the hopes of lessening the … Everyone should use it. Without this epilogue, A Clockwork Orange ends on a truly black note. Anthony Burgess, 1962, A Clockwork Orange. What's even more interesting is that Stanley Kubrick's famous film adaptation of the book was modeled after the twenty-chapter version. Kubrick was able to create a movie where he left his personal seal. According to Burgess, it was a jeu d'… Surely, no crime we’ve witnessed could warrant this punishment – this invasion of mind, heart, and soul that has left him flesh and bone but morally mechanical. What's Up With the Ending? A Clockwork Orange may refer to: . “The twenty-first chapter gives the novel the quality of genuine fiction,” he noted, “an art founded on the principle that human beings change … The American or Kubrickian Orange is a fable; the British or world one is a novel.”, Burgess is right, of course. We find Alex three years older than when we first met him in the Korova Milkbar and now leading three new droogs. No doubt it says something about our society that we take more umbrage with the crimes against the individual than with Alex’s crimes against many individuals. It’s a demotion by any standard. More than anything, Burgess believed that “the freedomto choose is the big human attribute,” meaning that the presenceof moral choice ultimately distinguishes human beings from machinesor lower animals. A Clockwork Orange What's Up With the Ending? A Clockwork Orange (1971) - Movie Review : Alternate Ending. It is set in a near-future society that has a youth subculture of extreme violence. Continue Reading. In the film, we journey so far only to come full circle. JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. Kubrick’s film is based on the more dismal American version of the novel, and in a … Burgess’ wishes for letting A Clockwork Orange fade from public memory had less to do with Kubrick’s interpretation and more with the shortcomings he associated with the work, namely that the novella is “too didactic to be artistic.” He’s overly harsh in his self-critique, but there can be little argument that characters like the prison charlie, Dr. Branom, and at times even Alex are little more than mouthpieces for the story’s moral lesson. Page to Screen is a recurring column in which CoS Editorial Director Matt Melis explores how either a classic or contemporary work of literature made the sometimes triumphant, often disastrous leap from prose to film. While both endings are strong and pose questions to the reader long after they’ve finished the text. This belief provides the central argument of A ClockworkOrange, where Alex asserts his free will by choosing a courseof wickedness, only to be subsequently robbed of his self-determinationby the government. “My young hoodlum comes to the revelation of the need to get something done in life.” In short, little Alex begins to grow up. So, when the Minister of the Interior or Inferior, who approved Alex for conditioning and sat front row during that humiliating showcase, carves and forks steaky wakes into Alex’s sardonic rot, we viewers smile all over our litsos in delight at the tables having flipped. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. A Clockwork Orange is an art. Finally, we have the unintended side effect of the Ludovico Technique, which has conditioned Alex against the music he loves and causes him to try to leap to his death and snuff it when F. Alexander seeks revenge via surround sound. The book ends with Alex realising that youth has to make its own mistakes and find its own way (like a clockwork toy bumping off things until it finds a path). Hence, in the film, we get “I was cured alright,” slooshy Beethoven’s 9th blaring from speakers, and viddy Alex’s depraved fantasy of giving a devotchka with horrorshow groodies the old in-out in-out. The ambivalence Burgess felt about the ending of A Clockwork Orange appeared many times in interviews and articles. It pretends to oppose the police state and forced mind control, but all it really does is celebrate the nastiness of its hero, Alex. Perhaps it's because the twentieth chapter, with evil prancing all over the page, is sexier. As disturbing as Burgess’ prose is, his scene pales next to the gut-wrenching emasculation and dehumanization smugly witnessed by an audience as McDowell licks the sole of another man’s shoe and crumbles in the mere presence of a nude beauty. The original American publication of A Clockwork Orange also excluded this chapter, in which Alex is growing out of his taste for violence and looking forward to a future with a wife and son, whom he does not want to turn out like Alex himself. Probably the most important thing to understand is how Kubrick uses Beethoven’s 9th symphony throughout the film. Clockwork Orange is a satirical study of life as it was in 1960, when the tone of postwar England was socialistic, collectivist, and I was really trying to satirize that sort of world in which people had nothing to live for, had no energy--except for the young, who could do nothing with their energy but employ it to totally barbarous ends. Related: A Clockwork Orange Ending Explained As many critics have mentioned, Burgess's title is inspired by the Cockney expression "queer as a clockwork orange" ("queer" meaning "strange" or … And, although Kubrick attracts conspiracy theories like Beyonce attracts paparazzi, this isn't a theory perpetuated by A Clockwork Orange… but it's similar to what happens at the end of the movie. At this point, we recognize that there is truly no joy or purpose left for Alex in this life. During his visit to Leningrad, Burgess encountered the stilyagi, gangs of thuggish Russian teenagers. Recently, however, the usual mischief no longer excites him as it once did. Perhaps the optimism of the twenty-first chapter is at odds with the rest of the work. In the novella, Alex, despite being our “Humble Narrator,” feels more at a distance, like a curiosity or an exhibit at the zoo – the beast behind thick protective glass. After the somber execution scene in Kubrick’s anti-war masterpiece Paths of … Burgess penned A Clockwork Orange with the intention that it would run 21 chapters, a number significant in that it was the age of legal adulthood at the time. It employs disturbing, violent images to comment on psychiatry, juvenile delinquency, youth gangs, and other social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian near-future Britain. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. BUT THERE ARE ALSO SOME SETS. The colors, settings, music… everything in A Clockwork Orange is designed and measured to the very millimeter. In fact, we dare say that given his newfound discontent with violence and violent music, and interest in forging a family, Alex is all grown up. Novelists can’t choose how they’ll be remembered — that is, which of their creations will be favored after they’ve, to borrow a phrase, snuffed it. One concludes with Alex growing up and turning away from violence, while the second, darker version leaves out that final chapter. Perfect song for an ending credits run. There are only three specific scenes that were built as sets: The … Previous Next . In fact, this is the only chapter where our protagonist-narrator experiences growth, or more profoundly, personal transformation. A summary of Part X (Section16) in Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. He’d forever be associated with droogies, ultra-violence, and all that cal. Burgess has a stake in A Clockwork Orange as a novella. The teenage protagonist, Alex, narrates his violent exploits and his experiences with state authorities intent on reforming him. Pete Davidson to Play Joey Ramone in Netflix Biopic I Slept With Joey Ramone, R.I.P. There are three particular scenes in Kubrick’s film that situate us squarely in Alex’s corner, something the novella never particularly tries to achieve. When we talk about the missing chapter of A Clockwork Orange, it’s not a matter of the book or film being better. Helen McCrory, Peaky Blinders and Harry Potter Actress Dead at 52, Greta Van Fleet Perform "Heat Above" on Kimmel: Watch, Borat Laments Over "Stolen Election" in Trailer for Borat Supplemental Reportings: Watch, Fyre Festival Attendees Receive $2 Million Settlement in Class Action Lawsuit, Clueless Reimagines Jane Austen's Emma as Only Amy Heckerling Could, The 10 Best Adaptations of A Christmas Carol, A Hero's Ending: Why Robert Redford Didn't Strike Out in The Natural, Why a Harry Potter Non-Fan Found Fantastic Beasts Utterly Fantastic, The Real Cure: A Clockwork Orange's Missing Ending. The soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange was released to accompany the 1971 film of the same name.The music is a thematic extension of Alex's (and the viewer's) psychological conditioning. The first comes mid-film, when Alex the guinea pig is placed on exhibit to demonstrate the effects of Ludovico’s Technique for prisoner rehabilitation. The novel was … Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, made it known late in his life that he’d prefer not to be remembered for this dystopian novella. “My own healthy inheritance of original sin comes out in the book, and I enjoyed raping and ripping by proxy.” Without that morally redeeming ending, it’s as if Burgess suspects he’s played the role of pornographer more than novelist. In making Alex—a criminal guilty of violence,rape, and theft—the hero of the novel, Burges… “He grows bored with violence and recognizes that human energy is better expended on creation than destruction,” explained Burgess. The ending of A Clockwork Orange is very cut and dry for Kubrick, with the use of music and final shots bringing everything to an easy to understand close. A Clockwork Orange, a 1971 film directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel . Visually, you’ll be fascinated and captivated from the beginning. Ending: Paths Of Glory. However, something else quite strange is at work here. A Clockwork Orange may be seen in part as an attack on communism, given the novel’s extremely negative portrayal of a government that seeks to solve social problems by removing freedom of choice. By Anthony Burgess. The ending, or the twenty-first chapter of the book, provides closure to the book for some readers. Once the glassy-eyed, diabolical incarnation embodied by Malcolm McDowell stared the camera down and delivered that first voiceover in the Korova Milkbar atop Wendy Carlos’ humanity-stripping synths in Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film adaptation, Burgess’ fate was fixed. Without that final chapter, we’re left with a hopeless, deeply pessimistic story where, as Burgess described it, “evil prances on the page and, up to the very last line, sneers in the face of all inherited beliefs.”. A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian satirical black comedy novel by English writer Anthony Burgess, published in 1962. Well, that’s not how the novella ends. Each ends as it must. We have both book and film and Bog or God’s gift of choice when it comes to which to read or viddy. The author’s complaint? The ending, or the twenty-first chapter of the book, provides closure to the book for some readers. This masterful, dystopian film, based on the groundbreaking novel of the same name by Anthony Burgess, deals with some extremely difficult and graphic material. The allure that Kubrick taps into is the fascinating playfulness of Burgess’ Nadsat (the hybrid English-Russian slang sprinkled here in italics); the timeless appeal, however perverted and twisted here, of brotherhood and a night out on the town; a Huxleian distrust of authority; and the chance to vicariously indulge in the very dark, but also very real, human desire to have whatever and whoever we want whenever we want. The novella leaves us with the hope that man, though burdened by original sin and animalistic tendencies, will naturally veer towards decency as youth fades. Here, Ku. Different endings leave Stanley Kubrick's film with a different meaning than the novel. The final scene also involves Beethoven. Edward Elgar's Pomp … And as Gene Kelly lightheartedly croons “Singin’ in the Rain” over the closing credits, we sincerely feel that Justice, in some sick, twisted way, has been served. A Clockwork Orange, novel by Anthony Burgess, published in 1962. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans. The novella leaves us with the hope that man, though burdened by original sin and animalistic tendencies, will … Below Her Mouth Movie (2016) - Erika Linder, Natalie Krill, Sebastian Pigott Even more important, though, is the change in tone that occurs by dropping the novella’s intended ending. In fact, this is the only chapter where our protagonist-narrator experiences growth, or more profoundly, personal transformation. Burgess wasn’t ignorant of that last appeal. Each ends as it must. But we aren’t clockwork oranges. So: why is the twenty-first chapter even necessary?Burgess hints at the answer to this, suggesting that politics or different regional aesthetics had something to do with leaving out the twenty-first chapter. When he bumps into his former droog Pete, who is now married, working, and settling down, Alex begins imagining that kind of life for himself. The book is partially written in a Russian-influenced argot called "Nadsat", which takes its name from the Russian suffix that is equivalent to '-teen' in English. Kubrick’s film ends with true victims discarded and forgotten, political cockroaches surviving the fallout, and our Humble Narrator free to resume life as his terrible self. Not really. There’s no doubt that A Clockwork Orange is a cinematic work of art. The film owes nothing to those particular conventions of literary fiction. In the US publication, this twenty-first chapter was left out of all published versions of A Clockwork Orange. Thematically, it comes full-circle, starting off with the same question and description combination as chapter one in part one of the book, but closing the loop with Alex rejecting the person he was at the commencement of his journey and looking forward to a new kind of life.That would be the easy interpretation. The writer goes from being a de facto Bog or God to, in extreme cases, a slave to press clippings and public reception. His American publishers, however, deemed the final chapter to be, as Burgess put it, “a sellout, bland, and veddy veddy British.” So until 1986, when the book was first published in the States in its entirety, Americans, Stanley Kubrick included, had been reading only 20 chapters. Each ends as it must. The display is made all the more unbearable when the man and woman, both actors, take bows for applause before exiting the stage, Alex left slumped in agony each time. It’s this desire, I suspect, that makes viewers agreeable to the film’s ending — that would make them shrug off or altogether reject Burgess’ intended conclusion had it appeared on screen. Burgess’ only real gripe with the film — one that seemed to fester over the years — came over the final scene in which Alex, now deconditioned, recoups in a hospital, cuts a cushy deal with the Minister of the Inferior, and declares, “I was cured alright.”. In 1962, two versions of Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange were published. When we talk about the missing chapter of A Clockwork Orange, it’s not a matter of the book or film being better. Alex is as Alex was, and we are given no reason to suspect he’ll ever cease to be a menace. Kubrick based his film on this second version. Or maybe, it's that the twenty-first chapter isn't optimistic at all—perhaps the society that's forcing Alex to grow up and settle down is, in fact, just a more pervasive kind of Ludovico technique? Speaking to the Paris Review in 1973, he said that he ‘gave in a little too weakly’ to the suggestion that his final chapter should be removed. To some readers and filmgoers, the choice between endings may seem merely a matter of preference. It’s one of Kubrick’s great mozg-fucks. It also helps that the pace is quick, that Burgess (in Alex) gives us an engaging narrator, the Nadsat is easy to pick up on and the philosophical arguments remain terrifyingly potent today. Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange accomplishes something that Burgess’ does not: the film version actually leads us to root for Alex the thug, Alex the rapist, Alex the murderer, who performs all his wicked misdeeds with unabashed alacrity and zeal. Summary Read a Plot Overview of the entire book or a chapter by chapter Summary and Analysis. The 1971 movie A Clockwork Orange is one of Stanley Kubrick’s most impressive and controversial cinematic works. Once wielding autocratic control over every thought, action, and detail attributed to their characters, they cede that unique monopoly upon publication. By entering your email address you agree to receive emails from Shmoop and verify that you are over the age of 13. So Much For His Happy Ending One of our all-time favorite conspiracy theories states that Avril Lavigne died and was replaced by a doppleganger .