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Show Kubrick's latest... projectile (phaluc) nose. It tends to be humorous. It all does. All like clowns pouncing upon each other, crushing heads and beating on each other from behind the masks. The audience squeamishly laughed. There is a language used as a kind of American slang extension, ex-tension, that uses several adjunct pieces as present lingo, Russian numerals, and just plain "gypsy talk" called "nadsat," invented Before he has dw' f sexually fulfilled by BePtl : Ninth-now he wiU at hearing it again. ' Violence is . universal. Kubrick coulXT more timely. We are in the . impatience, being thrown m a tme machine that Z moments irreconciS,65 irreplacable; "the great ' tomy." Kubrick SJt been aware that we too, even Z By GAYLAN NIELSON Chronicle Staff Never before have I seen a more organic film, nor have I ever seen a story depicting something so inorganic as Stanley Kubrick's "Clockwork Orange." Well if finally arrived and I am rolling in 10 months literary echoes that have congested my objectivism about this film. I stood stringent: it would be nice to be a loner along with John Simon. But I won't be, because Stanley Kubrick is a genius and is only co-starring in this amazing feat of "Clockwork Orange," by directing and writing the screenplay, behind Anthony Burgess, who wrote the novel. The critics, the promoters, etc. have spoken of Burgess' futuristic world. I have to wonder how futuristic it was in Burgess' mind since he wrote the novel in 1962 and it comes too close to right now. However, Kubrick plays no second fiddle. His very choice gives him the spark of applause he receives. He has also directed "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Dr. Strangelove," "Spartacus" and many others. Kubrick has his tools. He understands purity in direction from lighting to sound, from juxtaposition to pauses. He understands the viewer who needs space, needs time, needs energy and needs release. It would be very easy to say too much about this movie; however, it needs to be seen. But, I suppose the time is in the not- so-distant future, somewhere in Orwellian London. The story is told by Alex, played by Malcolm McDowell, a young hoodlum and leader of his three droogs; Georgie, Dim and Pete. The story is simplistic in structure told like an Edgar Allan Poe lyric poem. The characters, the scenes, the expressions and especially the dialogue is constantly satirical. In the "Korova Milkbar" Alex and the three droogs drink milk plus synthemesc or drencrom which "would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the ultra-violence." I hadn't drank my milk, I guess I wasn't ready for the ultra-violence. But in that aspect the film was really a horrorshow ("khorosho"); told like a fairytale. In fact there is never a point in which Kubrick was willing to compromise. He made the viewers bleed with the victims, vic-tims, scream inside with the pangs of horror on the screen. And yet it was so simple. During one particular scene the four hoodlums are beating up a writer and raping his wife and Alex is singing "I'm singing in the rain, Just singing in the rain, What a glorious feeling, and I'm happy again." One hardly remembers Gene Kelly dancing through the rain toe-tapping across a gutter, but if you do, it's then hard not to feel the satire grinding at you. The song continues, however, through the whole sequence. At no time during the scene do we have a quaint drum roll or that old eye-to-eye dramatization. At one point, however, Alex does get down on the floor where the writer's head is crushed against it and stare at him and say, "Viddy well, little brother, viddy well." The man is screaming in horror at watching his wife being raped and molested and Alex stares at him wearing his mask with a long J J by Burgess. Many of the words are rhythmical or poetic as "luscious glory" (for hair) that rhymes with upper story; pretty polly ( for money) that rhymes with lolly of current slang. of us, must go through the therapy and realize something about ourselves. Dr. Branom says to Alex after one of his sessions, "You see, when we are healthy, we respond to the presence of the hateful with fear and nausea." From the language to the make-up, the decor of the sets to the unfiltered lights, the film expresses automation, industrialization; in-dustrialization; "the plastic world." One theme ineptly blurted out in a line by the minister is "When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man." This makes me wonder if in the plastic jungle, if anyone has choice if we aren't always going through the cycle of brainwashing. brain-washing. What choices do you have?? The "Milkbar Korova" has pure white plastic sculptures of women hunched in yoga position 26; on all fours in reverse position with stomach up and organs protruding. In another scene Alex attacks a lady who runs a health farm with a huge plastic sculpture of the male organs, and in fact, kills her with it. The make-up, the droogs and many other characters (like Alex' mother Mum) wears is a white face powder that makes them appear plastic. The milk they drink is safely assumed to have a drug-like effect. In yet another scene Alex looks at some albums and to the right of the screen the top 10 flash on and off: there is "Mass in G" by Goggly Gogol, "Really Play" by Johny Znivago, "Sweaty Club" by the Humpers, etc. More pieces of the plastic brainwashing. The film isn't an oratory on the inevitable forces against change, but more about the hope o controlled (self-controlled) change. It is not about the effect of the world on us, but that we would affect the world. Sometimes I believe we make too much about tomorrow. We have no sense of now, no respect lor now. We deal with after-life anu future dreams and maybe, J":t maybe Kubrick and Burgess are trying to say "deal with your--(continued on page The language too, is whimsical, quaint, humorous. It too is whacky and mechanical. Alex speaks of sexual intercourse as the "old in-out, in-out." The question is "why" of course. Why the joke about violence and sexuality. Why do we empathize at times with Alex and even feel sorry for him at times? There is, I am sure, an element of stylization, but probably more so the element of "black humor" pervades. Laughing at honest and painful happenings tends to turn and haunt in time. Part, too, must be the satirizing of westerns and the like, where the audience is relieved of all guilt for pulling for the hero as he slaughters his foes or the euphoria and glee of the violence and mayhem of war. . It would seem that Kubrick also wants to keep a distance from his audience. He calls it "a state very similar to dreaming." The essence of the film could be too close to reality. Maybe he is avoiding that. The violent and sexual involvement that every viewer somehow plays along with, laughs at and indeed gruels upon must be kept Freudian, dreamlike, unreal. Except for one thing, this holds true; when the movie was over, the audience had not awakened. They were suspended sus-pended in space. They too were questioning themselves as assailants as well as victims (even if just by ignorance). I think Kubrick must have been asking those questions. Who is the victim? Who is to blame? During one scene Alex is going through a therapy where he is exposed, without release, to violent acts. One session of the therapy they played Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and showed Hitler and his forces, airplanes dropping bombs and the violence of war juxtaposed with the celebration of war by the Nazis. Alex is a sadistic murderer and yet now he seems victimized. I a masterpiece T kniehtmare will come cW it is possible L: JBBlv tomorrow will : 0tL will be defunct J wm bombard no- ' ive ' veo right to go on 'fiS distant that wdl star you can place m it our child. "Clock-oi "Clock-oi 4 a mastered piece Sone any cliche-type 'ieeffecUdo beheve, :I0 be commercial, but a matter of sincere integrity The crafts cannot be ignored Malcolm McDowell is not only a respected English actor of a new breed but one of the finest actors I have seen. But if any of the other actors m this film had been seen in any other films with the same roles I would have had to single them all out. I have never seen a film where every piece of the puzzle fit so well, and most of all that includes those actors None of the parts were straight and undemanding, but all took concentration, poise professionalism and creative interpretdu'on! Patrick M n " ft Mr- Mexantfan d'i?: Tony Award A,wd d Prance as the Marquis ue aade m pefpr r,,. 7 , "MaratSade " H? i -iter who oteHos rHtet6 Seedrogshorwewasra rnyserpOneoft, ''Deltoid tl Wh0 incredi i he socia worker, v, as mcredMe; some of the best fa- expressions 1 have eJer encountered." en-countered." Michael Bates is one ne P'a.vs the chief guard at the prison and is also now an-Peanng an-Peanng b uniform in P Hitchcok s "Frenzy." He is extraordinary ex-traordinary in both. It should be mentioned that all or most of the cast ls made up of Enlish actors and I beheve that makes a marked difference. They seem superior su-perior when it comes to integrity o their work and art. The English En-glish have a fairly good acting Playground, but most of all are not nearly as worried about who they are as what they do. I assume there is not too much that could be said about an extraordinary work of art. But Kubrick has shown such a mastery of his craft this film shouldn't be missed if just for that reason. The cinematography is stupendous. The lighting and T 1 the angles are unique and visonary.lt is a movie about a lot ol things like politics, science and thirsty greed and manv other things that need talking about. There are parts of pure sensitivity. sen-sitivity. After Alex has orgasm from Beethoven's Ninth he says, "Oh bliss .bliss and heaven.' Oh, it was gorgeous and gorgeosity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest spun heaven metal, or like silvery wine flowing in a space ship, gravity all nonsense now." Buckminster Fuller calls the earth this spaceship space-ship earth; where do you lit? Who is the sensitive oiie? Alex says, "The devotchka was smocking smock-ing away and not caring about the wicked world one bit." Such satire keeps me asking; who am I fooling, which mask should I wear? See the movie. But though it is rated X, don't let that stun you a bit. There is nothing that you shouldn't see unless you aren't mature enough to be dazzled by it. A l'KAST FOR EVERY SENSE. |