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Friday, 17 March, 2000, 17:28 GMT
The droogs don't work
![]() Is Clockwork Orange past its sell-by date as social satire?
By BBC News Online's Ryan Dilley
Thanks to the demise of director Stanley Kubrick, hardened film buffs in the UK are about to have their favourite one-upmanship wheeze blown wide open. For 25 years A Clockwork Orange has gone unseen in Britain at Kubrick's behest. Those wishing to watch a film which prompted national hysteria in the early 70s had to endure hopelessly grainy pirate videos or search out screenings while on their holidays abroad.
Warner Brothers and the director's widow, Christiane, are putting this all to an end by allowing it to go back on general release. With the clandestine thrill gone, audiences will be free to judge A Clockwork Orange on its artistic merits alone. Made in 1971, it undoubtedly caught the zeitgeist of its day. Tapping into generational tensions of the time, the story of a band of thugs on the rampage in a mid-1990s Britain was blamed - perhaps unfairly - for inciting real life youth violence. Viewed almost 30 years on, will the film - described as "flawed" by several critics - now seem as anachronistic as the Bay City Rollers or a British car industry?
"All films set in the future date really badly. Bladerunner is about the only one that hasn't and even that looks really clunky." Sight and Sound's Leslie Felperin agrees: "The art direction stuff in A Clockwork Orange looks really dated. You can't blame them for not predicting future technology, but it raises a laugh to watch characters sitting down in front of high-tech typewriters or playing music on dictaphones rather than CDs or MP3s." Future shock Although a distraction, the look of the film is surely not important if the story still resonates with today's audiences. "It has unfortunately missed out a lot of social changes in Britain. The country predicted in the film is far less ethnically diverse than our reality, especially the Thamesmead estate where it was shot," says Ms Felperin.
"There are no strong female characters. Its women are all victims. Even the mother of the film's violent anti-hero Alex is battered down and subservient." Although based on the Anthony Burgess novel, Kubrick's film omits the book's redemptive ending, where Alex voluntarily turns away from his vicious youth and looks forward to adult life. While Burgess's story was one of free will triumphing, the state had already tried to stop Alex's evil ways with a disturbing form of aversion therapy, the Kubrick film shifts the accent to the youth's taste for carnage. Dressed to kill Sporting bowler hats, white overalls and bother boots, spouting their own distinct youth argot "nadsat", Alex and his "droogs" wreak a terrible revenge on their mortal enemies - adults. Burgess, who was reputedly spurred on to write his 1962 novel by a vicious wartime attack on his wife by a gang of deserters, based his droogs on Britain's surly "teddy boys".
Dr Katie Milestone of the Manchester Institute for Popular Culture, thinks such groups are largely a thing of the past. "Youth culture has changed dramatically since the 1970s. These tribes and gang formations have largely subsided." Violence, as depicted in A Clockwork Orange, is also less a part of youth culture and certainly not a part of defining group identity in the UK. Teen rage "Youth culture used to be played out on the streets, where it was easier to spot your enemies - those who didn't wear the same clothes as you. "Today it has moved inside, into the clubs, where violence and confrontation are less relevant."
"The idea of youth as an alienated group pitched against the rest of society is outdated," says Dr Milestone. Given this, it seems the generation and a half who have missed out on seeing this "dangerous" film will leave cinemas puzzled by 25 years of hype rather than desperate to find an old tramp to "tolchock" to death. |
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