Few can say
that never heard of Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange. But I bet that many will say they never heard of Anthony Burgess’ Clockwork Orange. You will never hear
me say that Kubrick didn’t produce a masterpiece. He did. I love everything
there is to love about Kubrick’s work, and because of that, I almost feel sorry
for having read the book that inspired one of his greatest movie pictures. It’s
just that the book is so much more raw, so much more honest and real, and most
of all, it delivers the message in such a more brutal way.
The essence
of Alex is captured beautifully by Kubrick, but the surroundings, the victims,
the small details that make your stomach twist and ache, those cannot even be
compared when you read the book and you watch the movie. It may sound strange
when I say that Kubrick softened the whole thing, but believe me, he did. For
instance, in the movie Alex picks two teenagers about his age to go home,
listen to classical music and have endless consented sex, while in the book he
takes two ten year old girls to his place, gets them drunk and rapes them in
such a horrific way.
But that
really was not the point that made me consider the book far superior to the
movie. Even though all the themes addressed in the book are explored in the
movie, I would say that Kubrick fails to better portray the messages that underlie
the entire book. The huge gap between the young and the old (Alex seems much
more older in the movie), the lack of free choice, the society compliance with the
manipulation of human lives, the mind alienation, the controversial fight between
manipulated good and purest evil – all those themes are so much more overwhelmingly
explored when you get to read the book. First question that comes to mind when
you finish watching the movie is - where the hell is the final chapter of the
book? Seriously, how can you leave aside such an important chapter as the final
one, where everything ends up making sense and gives you that bit of optimistic
and hopeful feeling that you wait for during the entire plot? From what I
understood, Kubrick based his movie in the American version of the book, in
which the final chapter is omitted. Such a shame.
Can a masterpiece be turned into a bit of a letdown? Was Kubrick that great when he set himself to put the Clockwork Orange in the big screen? Mixed feelings, “Oh my brothers”.
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