The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

A Clockwork Orange
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commentary on the fact that this procedure was taking something that
was organic and full of life and color and making it clockwork, making
it mechanical. Alex is the clockwork orange—or they attempt to make
him such. Does that fit?
Dahl: Sure. I guess what I thought was clever about it was that I recognized
that one politician was trying to manipulate the situation to make himself
look good and solve a criminal problem. Then the writer in the movie was
in opposition to whatever that party represented.
Does Alex win at the end? I don’t know how Anthony Burgess felt about
it, but I feel like a terrible compromise has been made. This man’s going to
go out and commit more crimes, and I’m in no way gleeful about it. That’s
a very powerful juxtaposition with the use of an incredibly happy song, you
know, “Singin’ in the Rain.” You have this incredibly chipper, bright song
leading you to this dark, terrible moment. There’s the music, and the press
is there, and he goes back into his zone. In that very last image, he’s in snow
with these Victorians surrounding him. And then you’re out. I don’t know
what Anthony Burgess’s politics are, or what he was so greatly offended
about. If the idea was that there are no quick fixes to the ills of the world,
yes, his book is always going to be more pure in his mind. To bring that idea
to the cinema and have millions and millions of people see it and continue
to watch it . . . I can understand where he’s coming from. I think the movie
accomplished what he was hoping to accomplish.
The only thing that I thought was a wrong turn was the murder scene
because, in the book, he’s much younger. But how are you going to get
a child to do that level of acting? That’s a necessary fix. In the book, the
woman whom he murders is, in fact, an elderly woman, and he smashes
her head in with a statue of Ludwig van Beethoven. I thought they lost
a lot of symbolism there. The instrument of his destruction is what he
loves most, but he has to give that up—he’s repulsed by Beethoven after
his “treatment.” Instead, what is his murder weapon? A giant ceramic
penis. His libido.
Dahl: I would argue that it’s his libido and his lust that gets him into
trouble. It’s ironic that it’s Beethoven that ultimately gets him caught in
the book.