Clockwork Orange

UPC: 012569806726

Studio: Warner Home Video

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:[Graphic Violence, Rape & Sexual Abuse, Not For Children]

Summary: Stanley Kubrick dissects the nature of violence in this darkly ironic, near-future satire, adapted from Anthony Burgess's 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 gang raping his wife (who later dies as a result). 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 scathing 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. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Category: Science Fiction

Awards: Best Picture – British Academy of Film and Television Arts 100 Greatest American Movies – American Film Institute Best Director – Directors Guild of America Best Picture - Drama – null Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama – null Best Director – null Best Adapted Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Director – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Editing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – New York Film Critics Circle Best Director – New York Film Critics Circle Best Picture - Drama – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Director – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama – Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Features: Disc 1:
Commentary by Malcolm McDowell and historian Nick Redman
Theatrical trailer
Languages: English & Fran?ais
Subtitles: English, Fran?ais, & Espa?ol
(Main feature. Bonus material/trailer may not be subtitled).

Disc 2:
Channel Four documentary Still Tickin': The Return of Clockwork Orange
New featurette Great Bolshy Yarblockos!: Making A Clockwork Orange
Career profile O Lucky Malcolm! produced/directed by Jan Harlan, edited by Katia de Vidas

Clockwork Orange

Format: DVD

Release Date: 10/23/2007

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Alternate Wide Screen

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1

Runtime: 137 Minutes

Sides: 2

Number of Discs: 2

Language(s) English,French

Subtitles: English,French,Spanish

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- A Clockwork Orange: Feature Presentation
1. Alex and His Droogs [2:15]
2. The Old Ultraviolence on a Tramp [2:10]
3. Battling Billy Boy [3:04]
4. Through the Real Country Dark [1:26]
5. Country House [4:23]
6. Disciplining Dim [3:24]
7. At Home With Ludwig Van [3:15]
8. Home Ill; Mr. Deltoid [5:45]
9. The Music Shop [2:17]
10. Two Ladies [:58]
11. Dissent Among Droogs [4:14]
12. A Real Leader [3:11]
13. The Cat Lady's House [7:01]
14. Now a Murderer [3:48]
15. Prisoner #655321 [5:35]
16. The Chaplain's Remarks [2:33]
17. Big Book Fantasies [5:48]
18. The Minister's Visit [6:00]
19. Arrival at Ludovico [3:53]
20. "And Vidi Films I Would." [4:19]
21. "I'm Cured. Praise God!" [3:42]
22. On Display [4:44]
23. The Sickness [2:17]
24. Your True Christian [1:50]
25. Family Reunion [3:44]
26. No Room for Alex [4:01]
27. Three Familiar Faces [3:35]
28. Droogs With Badges [2:52]
29. Return to the Country House [7:12]
30. Mr. Alexander's Hospitality [11:33]
31. The Hospital [2:53]
32. A Slide Show [3:34]
33. A Very Special Visitor [4:56]
34. "I Was Cured, All Right." [1:22]
35. End Credits [2:40]
Disc #2 -- A Clockwork Orange: Special Features
1. Opening Montage [2:49]
2. Come on, Come On [4:11]
3. If.... [5:35]
4. A Clockwork Orange [7:40]
5. Weird Effect [8:14]
6. O Lucky Man! [7:11]
7. Caligula [1:58]
8. Time After Time [5:20]
9. McDowell Generations [5:46]
10. Gangster No. I, Between Strangers [6:12]
11. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead [5:20]
12. Diabolical Storyteller [4:56]
13. The Company [3:19]
14. Red Roses and Petrol [4:08]
15. As Great As Film Acting Gets [1:52]
16. Evilenko [8:05]
17. Summing up; End Credits [3:21]

Mark Deming

After the visionary journey through space and time of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick offered a very different look at the future (which seemed uncomfortably close to the present) in A Clockwork Orange. But if one has to compare A Clockwork Orange to any of Kubrick's other films, it comes closest to Dr. Strangelove: for all its horrific violence and troubling moral ambiguity, it is ultimately a satire, and, like Dr. Strangelove, it wrings a shocking amount of humor from situations that few people would think of as funny. With the notable exception of Alex (Malcolm McDowell in the best performance of his career), most of the characters are little more than cartoons (with dialogue to match), while a great deal of the violence walks a fine line between Looney Tunes absurdity and crushingly vivid brutality. Kubrick's future state is often garish and ugly, veering between an amusingly hideous riot of color and texture gone wrong and the decaying remnants of a cinder-block nation (remarkably, Kubrick and production designer John Barry built only one set for the entire film, with everything else shot on existing locations that were dressed in "futuristic" style). And Kubrick throws in plenty of crude comic relief that suggests some degenerate variation on a Carry On film; from the overexcited school representative to the doctor and nurse enjoying recreational sex as Alex regains consciousness, Kubrick places his grim vision in an England where foolish absurdity is the order of the day. And while Alex seems one of the few characters capable of making a complex moral choice (never mind how sinister his choices happen to be), he also takes his choice more seriously than anyone else in the film. Alex has adopted violent hedonism not out of profit, politics, or pragmatism, but because he likes it, and, while this makes him difficult to admire, he's still the smartest and freest man in the film's moral universe. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Steven Berkoff  Actor 
Carol Drinkwater  Actor 
Anthony Sharp  Actor 
Lee Fox  Actor 
Shirley Jaffe  Actor 
Peter Burton  Actor 
Paul Farrell  Actor 
David Prowse  Actor 
Pauline Taylor  Actor 
Richard Connaught  Actor 
John Clive  Actor 
Miriam Karlin  Actor 
John Savident  Actor 
Katya Wyeth  Actor 
Cheryl Grunwald  Actor 
John Carney  Actor 
Michael Gover  Actor 
Sheila Raynor  Actor 
Virginia Wetherell  Actor 
Barrie Cookson  Actor 
Barbara Scott  Actor 
Vivienne Chandler  Actor 
Craig Hunter  Actor 
Gaye Brown  Actor 
Carl Duering  Actor 
Philip Stone  Actor 
James Marcus  Actor 
Michael Tarn  Actor 
Gillian Hills  Actor 
Madge Ryan  Actor 
Neil Wilson  Actor 
Prudence Drage  Actor 
Lindsay Campbell  Actor 
Clive Francis  Actor 
Godfrey Quigley  Actor 
Margaret Tyzack  Actor 
Jan Adair  Actor 
Walter Carlos  Composer (Music Score) 
Stanley Kubrick  Director 
Stanley Kubrick  Producer 
Stanley Kubrick  Screenwriter 
Max Raab  Executive Producer 
Si Litvinoff  Executive Producer 
Malcolm McDowell  Actor 
Patrick Magee  Actor 
Michael Bates  Actor 
Adrienne Corri  Actor 
Warren Clarke  Actor 
Aubrey Morris  Actor 

Country: UK