A Clockwork Dilemma

Rating: 10/10 (18 March 2002)

It's a proven fact that when you read a book, and then watch a movie based on it, you'll often feel disappointed of the result. This is a fairly general rule, and I've experienced those results many times. But there's something definitely different about this one. I'm not saying that the general rule applies here, but I'm not saying it doesn't either. I think that the best way to understand this is to consider both the movie and the book as two separate entities, and not one being the result of the other.
In this case, the movie was excellent. The disorientation, the violence, the anguish, the existential void were all displayed beautifully and almost poetically by Kubrick. Burgess achieved the same level of greatness with the book, but we have to understand as a group of somewhat intelligent people that books and films are two completely different means of expressing art. Books are interpretative, films are almost absolute. Books require more imaginative drive from the reader than movies from the spectator. With books you have to look within yourself and find an image of how you think the main character (in this case, Alex) would look like, in the movie, the director already made that decision for you.
There are also substantial differences as to how the message will get across. Burgess relies on direct language and action driven chapters, Kubrick lets the photography and the imagery speak for itself. I'm an admirer of Kubrick's films, and I can't say that I've ever been disappointed in his interpretations. In this case, I haven't really resolved the whole "which one is better: the film or the book" dilemma, mostly because even though the film is based on the book, and has the same characters, the same lines of dialogue, and the same setting, they both say two different things. Certainly the exclusion of that last chapter of the book from the movie created a new message to say, and reflected a new society to which the message was addressed to. Furthermore, it generated two different perspectives to read the book or watch the movie from: an optimistic one, and a decadent one.
Again, I have not yet solved this internal dilemma. But for whatever's worth, you should definitely watch the movie first, and then read the book. Just in case you don't think like me.