A CLOCKWORK ORANGE AND BLACK

Anthony Burgess has bookshelves which sag under what looks like a story of blistering success: more than thirty novels, many published to international critical acclaim; dozens of non-fiction titles, from a discursive study of beds to a two-volume, 1,200-page history of English literature, written in Italian; the long entry for the Novel in the Encyclopaedia Britannica; librettos and musical scores: symphonies, song settings, sonatas; translations into and out of English; screenplays, documentaries and lectures; and countless reviews, thousands and thousands of them, a sample to be found in two collections, Urgent Copy (1968) and Homage to Qwert Yuiop (1986). Penguin have awarded modern classic status to Earthly Powers (1980) and A Clockwork Orange (1962). The latter owes its fame to Stanley Kubrick's brutal, stylish film. The musical score of this film insinuated itself into my psyche quite unbeknownst to my waking self. -Ron Price with thanks to Roger Lewis, Anthony Burgess: A Life, 2004.

As I come to my late adulthood
I look back to 1962
as the year of great beginnings,
not that I knew it at the time.
I did not know much then, at 18
as the world came close to the edge
of giving it all to the cockroaches.
Was it Kennedy who saved us in October?

Was Clockwork Orange a wake-up call
to a new anti-utopian world
of violence and state control
emerging, then, as I struggled
to control a embryonically massive id
that was exercising its own control?

I did not know, then, busy as I was
trying to pass nine grade 13 subjects
in my last months of freedom before
a bi-polar disorder rushed into my life
with its own controlling factor,
its own clockwork orange and black,
its own violence, emotional disarray
and a fear and confusion as deep as
the one you portrayed Anthony/Stanley.

I hardly see this as conversation topic.

quote:

Originally posted by Nickel-Z:
I hardly see this as conversation topic.

It looks like you’re making it into one… ;-)

quote:

Originally posted by Nickel-Z:
I hardly see this as conversation topic.

I dont see at all "A Clockwork Orange" being a Sci-fi movie.

Can someone explain me please, why the hell some strange people are trying continuously to link this goddmaned absurd movie to the Sci-Fi genre ?

I mean I can even understand why people respect even the infamous "Zardoz" as a Sci-fi movie, despite horrible production that even Connery was unable to save with his presence.

Anyway, I hate all those pseudo Sci-Fi movies form th e70s, that were all produced by mentally insane people and lacked way too much rational fundaments for being called seriously Science fiction.

I dunno, maybe someone still doesnt know that Sci-Fi menas exactly Science Fiction ?

quote:

ALPHAKNIGHT
Participant
Posted 03 October 2009 03:04 PM Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Nickel-Z:
I hardly see this as conversation topic.


I dont see at all "A Clockwork Orange" being a Sci-fi movie.

Can someone explain me please, why the hell some strange people are trying continuously to link this goddmaned absurd movie to the Sci-Fi genre ?

I mean I can even understand why people respect even the infamous "Zardoz" as a Sci-fi movie, despite horrible production that even Connery was unable to save with his presence.

Anyway, I hate all those pseudo Sci-Fi movies form th e70s, that were all produced by mentally insane people and lacked way too much rational fundaments for being called seriously Science fiction.

I dunno, maybe someone still doesnt know that Sci-Fi menas exactly Science Fiction ?

CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) considered the 46th top American movies of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute has been listed a science fiction movie by AFI. Science Fiction as the name implies is both "fictional" as supposedly there is and has never been a society that was characterized in CLOCKWORK ORANGE and is based on "science" not fantasy or magic, or some other realistically impossible scenario that CLOCKWORK ORANGE is able to be conceptually and physically, hypothetically a real-alternate reality universe. The hypothetical or even perhaps reality of brainwashing and set in a supposedly alternate futuristic society much like George Orwell's 1984, appears to strongly set CLOCKWORK ORANGE into the science fiction genre. CLOCKWORK ORANGE has been judged a classic sci fi movie perhaps for its willingness to cross the boundaries of propriety and reveal an extreme graphic, rape, violent society that became one of the few movies that received a "X" rating and necessitated a re-edit to an "R" before it come be widely circulated, though my mother was able to get me in the "X" rated version when I was under 18 years old. Nevertheless, this starkly dystopian sci fi movie allowed society to experience the beyond the boundaries of the extreme of medical science and power on the individual at the height of what was then the Vietnam War and the aftermath of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, Kent State shootings by the National Guard, and the Chicago riots during the Democratic National Convention not to mentioned the other ghetto riots around the Country.

A Clockwork Orange is a speculative work of fiction; not exactly science fiction.

And this is the big problem. Harlan Ellison, the ever wonderful writer of weird tales, coined the term, speculative fiction a very long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, to describe those imaginative works that really, really struggle to be called s/f; but to the eternal discredit of the critical mainstream, this perfect appelation for so many stories has not taken on.

Call Kubrick's movie speculative and it works beautifully. No need for science to be shoehorned into said film.

The forthcoming movie, The Road is an excellent contemporary example of what the genre speculative could do, given employment.
Yes, the man and his son walk through a distant future...but it's not s/f, and it's not horror...it's not fantasy...

Guess what? It's speculation on the part of Cormac MacCarthy as to what a future may hold for us.

quote:

Gooptz
Jedi
Posted 20 October 2009 03:07 AM Hide Post
A Clockwork Orange is a speculative work of fiction; not exactly science fiction.

And this is the big problem. Harlan Ellison, the ever wonderful writer of weird tales, coined the term, speculative fiction a very long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, to describe those imaginative works that really, really struggle to be called s/f; but to the eternal discredit of the critical mainstream, this perfect appelation for so many stories has not taken on.

Call Kubrick's movie speculative and it works beautifully. No need for science to be shoehorned into said film.

The forthcoming movie, The Road is an excellent contemporary example of what the genre speculative could do, given employment.
Yes, the man and his son walk through a distant future...but it's not s/f, and it's not horror...it's not fantasy...

Guess what? It's speculation on the part of Cormac MacCarthy as to what a future may hold for us.

We are on a perilous margin when we begin to look passively at our future selves, and see our own figures led with dull consent into insipid misdoing and shabby achievement.
George Eliot.

I'm supposedly a conservative when it comes to literary/film genre terms and the phrase "speculative fiction" is too general and not widely recognized and in some ways detracts from the discussion of film as one gets bogged down defintions and categories. And the phrase "speculative fiction" can mean anything...fiction by its very nature is speculative and in some ways redundant. Any crime genre has "speculation," any thriller or horror movie has "speculation" as to what people or scenario or plot might occur, "science fiction" is speculative. "Inglorious Basterds" is an great example of a war thriller fantasy movie that is very "speculative." Most cartoons, the Jetsons, the Flinstones, Bewitched, even Mickey House and Snow White could be conceived as "speculative" as a "what if..." scenario. Personally, the term doesn't mean anything more than "fiction" to me. Fiction by its very nature is an imaginary tale that presupposes something that doesn't exist in reality, but is a dramatized, comedic, horrific, scientific, war, science "fiction," speculation of somebody's version of an interesting story.

quote:

Personally, the term doesn't mean anything more than "fiction" to me.

Oh Tabuno! You frustrate a soul dontcha?

Speculative has a definition. Words have definitions. You can't just make a word mean what your feelings want you to make it mean.

To speculate in genre fiction is to imagine alternative worlds.
Not a crime movie, set in contemporary L.A; not a thriller where the girl runs from the killer down the real streets of Sydney.

Speculative fiction is actually a rather precise term which not only delineates an alternative to our actual universe but crucially goes on to explore the ethical/social/technological ramifications of that alternative.

So it's therefore wrong to include Flinstones, Snow White et al because they don't do anything more than tell a contemporary tale with a mere veneer of an exceptional landscape.

On the other hand; Tarantino's movie is indeed speculative.

quote:

Fiction by its very nature is an imaginary tale that presupposes something that doesn't exist in reality, but is a dramatized, comedic, horrific, scientific, war, science "fiction," speculation of somebody's version of an interesting story.

This is a really poor definition mate. All standard drama, comedy, war films do indeed operate in our reality. The details are imagined, but the basics are meant to be our streets, our universe.

Speculative fiction takes us away into something that has never existed anywhere at any time, and remains recognisable primarily due to it unavoidably being a story about humanity.

Rebut this you charmer.

quote:

Speculative fiction is actually a rather precise term which not only delineates an alternative to our actual universe but crucially goes on to explore the ethical/social/technological ramifications of that alternative.

Nice comment.

I selected the above "definition" from the comment.

This description sounds more like a subset or subgenre of science fiction to me rather than a separate category by itself. Star Trek, a science fiction series had a number of alternative universe episodes but all within the context of science fiction. There are parallel worlds, multi-dimensions... Charmed, the television series as well as Buffy, both horror series had alternative universe, speculative fiction scripts, again a subset of another genre. X-Files also had the same theme, considered a science fiction/horror series. Good science fiction is based on the premise of looking at the ramifications of alternative fictional scientifically based themes - Planet of the Apes, Gattaca, 1984, THX 1138. To mean these are feeling-ladened observations are factual, objective ways in which science fiction has been used and how alternative universes (speculative fiction) have been portrayed in reality.

Actually mate, you've just made me realise that I didn't put my whole rant on speculative vs. s/f nomenclature in a proper context.

The reason I (and lots of other nerdy science fiction fans) like to use the term speculative is down to the bad rep S F has as a genre.

Mr. Ellison and others of his ilk, writing intelligent and challenging fiction constantly saw (and see) their work dismissed as merely robots and rubber aliens.

To avoid meatheads who can't tell the diff between Space Sluts From Vageena 7 and The Demolished Man, the genre speculative was introduced.

It is a crying shame that S/F remains a ghettoised genre.
But if we started using speculative to describe stuff like...say, Dr. Parnassus, rather than fantasy or science fiction, truly avant-garde art might not get shafted so much.

What do you reckon my friend?

quote:

Ninny Gooptz
Jedi
Posted 20 October 2009 08:07 PM Hide Post
Actually mate, you've just made me realise that I didn't put my whole rant on speculative vs. s/f nomenclature in a proper context.

The reason I (and lots of other nerdy science fiction fans) like to use the term speculative is down to the bad rep S F has as a genre.

Mr. Ellison and others of his ilk, writing intelligent and challenging fiction constantly saw (and see) their work dismissed as merely robots and rubber aliens.

To avoid meatheads who can't tell the diff between Space Sluts From Vageena 7 and The Demolished Man, the genre speculative was introduced.

It is a crying shame that S/F remains a ghettoised genre.
But if we started using speculative to describe stuff like...say, Dr. Parnassus, rather than fantasy or science fiction, truly avant-garde art might not get shafted so much.

What do you reckon my friend?

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

Oh

I feel a paradigm shift.

Yep, yep, it all kicks off here ha ha.

The power of m/c.