| | | "Being the Adventures of a Young Man Whose Principal Interests Are Rape, Ultra-Violence and Beethoven."
Features: DVD, Widescreen, English, French, Spanish, Subtitled
Stomping, whomping, stealing, singing, tap-dancing, violating. Derby-topped teddy-boy hooligan Alex (Malcolm McDowell) has his own way of having a good time. He has it at the tragic expense of others. Alex's journey from amoral punk to brainwashed proper citizen forms the dynamic arc of Stanley Kubrick's future-shock vision of Anthony Burgess' novel. Unforgettable images, startling musical counterpoints, the fascinating language used by Alex and his pals -- Kubrick shapes them into a shattering whole. Hugely controversial when first released, A Clockwork Orange won the New York Film Critics Best Picture and Director honors and earned four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. The power of its art is such that it still entices, shocks and holds us in its grasp.
"A much-maligned and misunderstood classic, this is one of Kubrick's finest movies." Kim Newman, Empire
"...a scathing satire...with an excellent performance by McDowell..." Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide
"A chilling classic...a scabrous satire about human deviance, brutality, and social conditioning..." Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle
"Brilliant. A tour de force of extraordinary images, music, words and feelings." The New York Times
"...tremendously powerful...No serious moviegoer can afford to ignore it." TV Guide
Editor's Note
From its opening shot of Malcolm McDowell staring with evil intent directly into the camera (which pulls back to reveal him drinking a glass of milk), Stanley Kubrick's brilliant A CLOCKWORK ORANGE announces itself as a completely new kind of viewing experience. The film, set in an unidentified future, overwhelms the senses with its almost comic depictions of rape and violence set to an upbeat classical and pop music score. Kubrick based his chilling masterpiece on Anthony Burgess's culture-shaking novel about a young man growing into adulthood, but unable to shake his huge problem with authority figures. The first part of the film shows Alex (a career-defining performance by McDowell) and his "droogs" (his cohorts) indulging in what they refer to as "a little bit of the old ultraviolence." After establishing Alex and co. as unremitting psychopaths, Kubrick's movie changes tact, and shows Alex getting caught and forced to undergo controversial treatment that will make it impossible for him to commit violent acts, leading to a fascinating ending to the film. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE purposely confuses crime and punishment, cause and effect, hero and villain, irony and satire, and many other concepts, creating a truly unique work of art in the process. Its magnificent, colorful, futuristic set designs and utter determination to shock, frighten, and thoroughly entertain left audiences reeling in the '70s. Kubrick even withdrew the film from distribution in the UK, after reading newspaper reports of people dressing up as Alex and his Droogs and meting out their own brand of ultraviolence (it was subsequently rereleased after his death). One thing is for sure: No one who has seen it has ever been able to hear "Singin' in the Rain" or Beethoven again in quite the same way.
Plot Summary
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, based on the prescient novel by Anthony Burgess, is director Stanley Kubrick's masterful satire on crime and punishment in an ultraviolent future.
| Features | Audio: English, French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Dubbed: French | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | A Clockwork Orange: Two-Disc Special Edition - DVD Review By: Felix Vasquez Jr. - Cinema Blend DVD Reviews Published on: 11/20/2007 3:54 AM | | Stanley Kubrick set forth a zeitgeist upon which all future gang warfare films would be based on. Which is surprising considering A Clockwork Orange is not about gang warfare at all. It's a science fiction thriller about a predator of humanity who gets a taste of his own medicine a hundred fold once he is rehabilitated into a docile animal of society. Alex DeLarge, almost like Scarface, has become a considerable icon for the neo-sixties chic society of pop culture that has embraced his image of a derby, cane, and accentuated lashes. ...read the full review |
| A Clockwork Orange - DVD Review By: James Brundage - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 5/8/2009 5:39 PM | |
Kubrick was a beatnik poet. His work was plagued with metaphors, and the disease of hidden meaning was always turned to his advantage. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, he had almost a precognisance about the worry of the future that the millennium has exhibited so well for us. In The Shining, he taught us that, to a degree, all fear came from oneself. In Full Metal Jacket, he said that war was the ultimate destructor of the psyche. In Eyes Wide Shut, his final opus, he told us that love, handled like revenge, can only have destructive consequences. The message, for those of you people who were not able to discern it past the violence in A Clockwork Orange, was the same of the Hindu construct known as Karma: what goes around, comes around....read the full review |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Warner |
| Release Date: 10/23/2007 |
| Running Time: 136 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1971 | | Catalog ID: 80672 | | UPC: 00012569806726 | | Number of Discs: 2 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 1.66:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Nominee (1972) | | | Golden Globe, Stanley Kubrick, Best Director - Motion Picture | | | Golden Globe, A Clockwork Orange, Best Motion Picture - Drama | | | Golden Globe, Malcolm McDowell, Best Motion Picture Actor - Drama | | | Oscar, Stanley Kubrick, Best Director | | | Oscar, Bill Butler, Best Film Editing | | | Oscar, Stanley Kubrick, Best Picture | | | Oscar, Stanley Kubrick, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium |
| Memorable Quotes| "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 razudoks what to do with the evening."----Alex (Malcolm McDowell), the "humble narrator" |
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| | Professional Reviews | Los Angeles Times
"...A CLOCKWORK ORANGE is still potent and though-provoking..." 07/15/1999 p.C17Entertainment Weekly
"...CLOCKWORK is a movie about movies -- and sex and power and music and Sovietism -- that works as a head trip by driving for the gut. Consider it Kubrick's most surrealistic feat..." 06/13/2003 p.63 Total Film
"...It still shocks....Provocative..." 12/01/2000 p.120 Sight and Sound
"...[The film] remains every bit as tantalising as it ever was..." 10/01/2000 p.64 Premiere
"[Featuring] the multiple charms of McDowell's performance." 04/01/2004 p.59 ReelViews 10 of 10
It is difficult to rank A Clockwork Orange in Kubrick's body of work. Its look and approach are unique, but not as visionary as 2001. It's tone is bitingly satirical, but it's not as corrosive as Dr. Strangelove. Few, however - even the movie's critics - would debate that it leaves a forceful impression, and, when you study the reason for that, you uncover the evidence of genius. A Clockwork Orange has a universal message. Admittedly, it's one that many would prefer not to hear, but to deny the importance of its central themes or to dismiss the movie as a descent into debauchery is to ignore both an artistic achievement and a cautionary tale. A Clockwork Orange is not a pretty or comfortable experience. It does not pander to the crowd-pleasing mentality that shapes the structure of many films...But it demands thought, compels the attention, and refuses to be dismissed. And, for that reason, A Clockwork Orange must be considered a landmark of modern cinema. - James Berardinelli
Reel.com 9 of 10
"Singin' in the Rain" would never sound quite the same after A Clockwork Orange. In a twist of kismet, director Stanley Kubrick asked his star, Malcolm McDowell, if he knew any songs. The actor happened to know all the words to the titular song of the great MGM musical. Kubrick liked it so much that not only did McDowell warble it in a pivotal scene, but it would be the song to prove his character's undoing later in the film...After 30 years, the savage social satire that is A Clockwork Orange still retains its ability to shock, due in no small part to McDowell's exuberant performance as the cheerful droog Alex and to scenes like the "Singin' in the Rain" rape. The story of a young sociopath's adventures at work (raping -- "the old in-out" -- and pillaging being his particular forte), at play (the hilariously pixilated three-way encounter scored to "William Tell's Overture"), at the hands of the government...and at the mercy of a former victim feels as up-to-date now as it did in 1971. - Pam Grady
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