Resolutions 2014: A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Thanks again to Cara for giving me this opportunity to guest blog on her site

Posted on January 15, 2014 by caragale

The ambitious Mr. MovieRob enjoyed Resolutions 2014 so much that he came back for seconds! After a lovely review of Gone With the Wind, Rob decided to take on an entirely different film–a film that I actually considered adding to my own resolutions. So once again, I give you the stellar MovieRob and his take on A Clockwork Orange!

Once again, I want to thank Cara for allowing me to Guest Blog for her Resolutions 2014 Series. Much appreciated especially given the fact that you are helping me force myself to watch movies I have avoided for years.

“It’s funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen.” – Alex

Number of Times Seen – 1  (12 Jan 2014)

Brief Synopsis – An allegorical tale of a teenage deviant and how a futurist society tries to save him from himself and save society from people like him at the same time.

My Take on it – I have always enjoyed watching Kubrick’s film’s. He is such a diverse director that of the 11 movies that he directed over his close to 50 years in the business he never dabbled twice in the same genre.

Every movie was so different that he could never be accused of being a director like say Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese whose films run within similar themes most of the time.

I think the closest example of a Director nowadays whose resume is similar to Kubrick’s constant change of genre’s is probably Quentin Tarantino. QT tries to give us different views of different genres from his amazingly warped mind. The best part about it is that most people would agree that QT is a genius filmmaker and knows how to show us new and intriguing viewpoints on each and every one of his genre pics.

I loved Kubrick’s early movies – The Killing (1956), Paths of Glory (1957) and Spartacus (1960) were done so well that Kubrick was somewhat seen as an outcast because of his unusual way of filmmaking.

He was known as an eccentric genius once his movies Lolita (1962) and Dr. Strangelove (1964) came out. Once 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) came out, most viewers finally knew how great a film maker he really was.

This movie was his followup to Odyssey and he attempts to show here how a futuristic society tries to deal with perverse and sadistic criminals; they just need to find a way to reform them…chemically and visually.

I don’t want to explain too much about this movie because of spoilers, but this movie discusses the idea of free will and what would happen if we lost it in order to benifit society as a whole. It also delves into questions that many governments must ask themselves when it comes to finding a way to curtail crime.

This movie is full of ultra graphic violence and nudity; it isn’t pornographic, but rather done in a way to try and show artistic genius.

Like in Odyssey, Kubrick’s use of music here is truly spectacular. (I will never think of ‘Singing in the Rain’ in the same way again)

The problem I had with this movie is the fact that the characters aren’t developed well enough and we don’t care one bit about any of them or what will happen to them.

The plot is very thin because it wants to make us think about the situations on an existentialist level instead of spoon feeding us with its message.

To me these are big drawbacks in a movie. I DO want a movie that will make me think, but not too much. This movie wants us to try and guess what is really happening to the characters and to society as a whole and it just takes away most of the enjoyment away by doing so.

I’m glad I finally saw this movie, but I’m even gladder now that I  know that I can ‘check it off my list’ and never come back to try and see it ever again.

Bottom Line – A movie that needs too much to be deciphered to even attempt to enjoy. Kubrick was a genius, but he tried here to leave too much for the viewer to guess. When you watch a movie, you want to be drawn in, but here I only felt that it was trying to repulse me the whole time.

Rating – BAFTA Worthy

Thank you soooo much, Rob, for contributing to this series two times! I’m thrilled that so many people have expressed interest in participating, and I think all our resolutions are turning out quite well so far! I’ll have another guest review up tomorrow, and I will happily accept more. With so many guest bloggers, I feel like I’ve hardly had to lift a finger! But I’ll probably try to post a review of my own on Friday…probably. Lol. Thanks for being awesome, my friends! 😀

Silver Screen Serenade

The ambitious Mr. MovieRob enjoyed Resolutions 2014 so much that he came back for seconds! After a lovely review of Gone With the Wind, Rob decided to take on an entirely different film–a film that I actually considered adding to my own resolutions.

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