Based on following commentsectiom, please give me an opinion of the article about clockwork orange: 	
Hacker News
new | threads | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit
artninja1988 (313) | logout
'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange'' (elpais.com)
79 points by pallas_athena 2 hours ago | flag | hide | past | favorite | 94 comments




	
zer00eyz 1 hour ago | next [–]

https://archive.is/5Owom

	
blindriver 1 hour ago | prev | next [–]

Kubrick’s version was a failure because he missed the most important part and the last few pages of the book.
In the book at the very end Alex decides out of his own free will to stop being violent. Which is the entire point of the book: free will vs being forced to do something. It’s so powerful, I don’t think any book affected as much as that did at the time.

Kubrick focused on the violence and the rapes and by leaving out the most important part, it was more soft core porn than anything else and an abject failure in my opinion.

reply

	
Hasu 1 hour ago | parent | next [–]

> Kubrick’s version was a failure because he missed the most important part and the last few pages of the book.
The American version of the book doesn't have the final chapter, and was the basis for Kubrick's film. He was aware of the final chapter but never considered using it, as he didn't agree with Burgess and thought it didn't make sense (this was also the opinion of the American editor who had the final chapter removed).

The movie does include the Ludovico technique and all the themes about free will and goodness vs the choice of goodness, it just leaves out the very unrealistic ending where Alex reforms.

I think the film is a masterpiece and the book's original ending is unrealistic nonsense. I hardly think it's the "most important part".

reply

	
awkwardpotato 31 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

Modern American printings do now include the final chapter. Described on the back cover as "includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition, and Burgess's introduction, "A Clockwork Orange Resucked"".
The "A Clockwork Orange Resucked" introduction is from November 1986. It covers the reasoning behind the shortened American edition[0], Kubrick's film, and his own feelings on the 21st chapter[1]. I think the final paragraph summarizes it well "Readers of the twenty-first chapter must decide for themselves whether it enhances the book they presumably know or is really a discardable limb. I meant the book to end in this way, but my aesthetic judgement may have been faulty" (Burgess xv).

[0] "I needed money back in 1962, even the pittance I was being offered as an advance, and if the condition of the book's acceptance was also it's truncation - well, so be it" (Burgess x-xi)

[1] "There is no hint of this change of intention in the twentieth chapter. The boy is conditioned, then deconditioned, and he foresees with glee a resumption of the operation of free and violent will. [...] The twenty-first chapter gives the novel the quality of genuine fiction, an art founded on the principle that human beings change. There is, in fact, not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation [...] The American version or Kubrickian Orange is a fable; the British or world one is a novel" (xii)

reply

	
pookha 42 minutes ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

One of the weirdest and most interesting things I've ever seen was how this crazy book created gang violence by illustrating dystopian gang violence...And I can guarantee you that some of the youth ("hooligans") in England that were committing Droog gang violence -- inspired by this book -- have reformed as elderly adults. It's not unrealistic. When you remove people out of cults and gangs and they begin to self-reflect -- away from their tribe -- their morals and behavior reintegrate with society at large...Not at all unrealistic as the book showed.
reply

	
IshKebab 19 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

Are you really suggesting that real gang violence was caused by a novel?
reply

	
tacoooooooo 16 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

i think pookha is saying their reformation was possibly inspired by the book
reply

	
Spivak 22 minutes ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

This right here is the tension between "my work doesn't support <bad thing> the whole point is showing it's bad" while simultaneously portraying the bad thing in a positive light while the narrative does the condemning.
The problem with demonizing things is that demons are cool.

If you want your condemnation to be effective in fiction you have to make the characters doing it pathetic miserable losers. You can even have the narrative support them, they win in the end, and set it up so they were right and people will still come away with that they're bad.

reply

	
rand846633 45 minutes ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Super interesting detail and kind wild and questionable that an authors work would be substantially changed by an editor.
reply

	
drewcoo 35 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

That's what editors are supposed to do.
And authors gaining editorial control is why so many books later in a popular author's career are worse and worse - no one able to trim them.

As examples I'll pick Neal Stephenson and J.K. Rowling. Even the fans have to notice how their work has gotten bigger and sloppier.

reply

	
charles_f 26 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

Trimming the book is one thing, and I agree with you 100% on both examples. Removing the conclusion in a way that completely alters the message is another.
reply

	
gwbas1c 18 minutes ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Honestly, Neal Stephenson's later writings are awesome. I don't think he's gotten sloppier at all.
reply

	
ta988 12 minutes ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Talking about a mangled ending from the book, Fight Club is the same, they removed what I think was the critical part of the story. It was filmed and you can see find it on some dvd editions.
reply

	
AlexandrB 59 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [–]

This take reminds me of how Stephen King considers Kubrick's The Shining a terrible film[1]. I had the misfortune of accidentally renting the Stephen King approved The Shining miniseries[2], and I have to say - it's worse in every way: slow, plodding, and forgettable. I can't comment how either compares to the book - I've never read it - but the Kubrick version is the superior film.
This is all a long way of saying that faithfulness to the source material is overrated in film. Some written works just don't work well when closely adapted to the screen. A few notable movies even manage to twist the original to express a completely different idea or theme (e.g. Starship Troopers). The original author is not some ultimate authority regarding the meaning of a work.

[1] https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/why-stephen-king-hated-stanley-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shining_(miniseries)

reply

	
hnbad 46 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

Stephen King is not a filmmaker. There used to be a running joke that you can judge the quality of a Stephen King adoptation by whether he liked it: if he liked it, it was likely trash; if he didn't, it was likely good.
The problem is that films are not books (shocking, I know) and what works in one medium of storytelling doesn't necessarily work in the other. As in actual translation, there has to be some liberty in how something is adapted from one form into another or else it will be very accurate but not very good.

reply

	
Arisaka1 40 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

I see this with anime and manga adaptations all the time, where the studio is trying to capture the inner monologue and action scene that works fine in the manga because it's about how many panels can you use to depict a simple sword dodge. Then the anime adaptation tries to stay so faithful that you end up seeing panels with slight movement, which results in running gags such as "talking is a free action", and Namek's 5 minutes.
reply

	
jncfhnb 1 minute ago | root | parent | next [–]

I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with “talking is a free action” in anime versions of manga. I agree it doesn’t work in live action unless they commit to being stylized in a way that most directors aren’t comfortable.

	
charles_f 13 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [–]

I don't think it's fair to judge how good a movie is based on how faithful it is to a book. They're different media entirely and you don't have time in a movie to get into the substance of a book. Movies usually leave fans of the original work disappointed, series are much better at that cause they can take the time to develop characters and go into multiple arcs. On a less philosophical example, Reacher is a good example to me of a movie that has nothing in common with the book apart from some names, and a series that is spot on.
On top of that, it's another piece of art. Directors should be allowed to provide an opinion. Take Verhoeven's adaptation of Starship troopers as an example, which is widely a critic of the source material. They're both different stories in their own right. I enjoy both of them differently, and I'm glad Verhoeven didn't go out of his way to relay the message that militaristic dictature is the way to go.

reply

	
javier123454321 57 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [–]

I actually believe that it was the right decision from an artistic perspective. The last chapter of the book removes all moral ambiguity or provocation, and is instead leaving you with the moral of the story as explicit. Without it, you are left to ponder the question of morality.
reply

	
JoeAltmaier 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

A book is not about some apology patchup line tacked onto the end. It's about everything between the covers.
It was about disaffected youth acting out immorally because they were not given a functioning moral code? And that's what the movie showed.

reply

	
dsr_ 48 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

Not "not given a functioning moral code". Not raised by capable parents, not educated, not offered a place in a society which abandoned them. And then society used them: authoritarians can't exist without an enemy to simultaneously fear and insult; if necessary, they will make their own enemy.
Those who make progress impossible make revolt inevitable.

reply

	
ryandamm 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

I strongly disagree, having read the book and seen the movie.
The “point” of the book is irrelevant; chapter 21 is disconnected from the main text, set at some remove from the events in the previous chapters, and utterly banal. It’s an extended internal monologue of the most boring sort where the author states his moral.

But the best works of literature, in my opinion, transcend simple morality tales and touch something a bit more universal and hard to define in language. If your point can be summarized in a short essay, all you’ve done is illustrate an essay at length. “This novel could’ve been an email.”

What is captivating about _Clockwork_ is precisely its depiction of violence, its almost sympathetic glorification of the id. The protagonist’s unapologetic thirst for violence is what makes the novel (and movie) interesting. It’s reminding us that violence and aggression are part of the human condition, and part of the reader, too: you may recoil, but you also identify with Alex — it’s a first person account so that’s natural.

The last chapter ruins it though with petty moralizing. The voice of Alex the psychopath is far better than that of Burgess the moralist, and the novel is better for having its terminal essay removed.

reply

	
mordymoop 28 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

To hear Burgess talk about his book, one would never realize that it is a comedy.
The book is extremely funny, darkly funny obviously, but still uproariously absurd and filled with set pieces that possess the structure of comedy. The subject of humor is usually Alex’s misfortunes and the consequences he reaps from his terrible choices. He is a sort of George Costanza figure painted in shades of ultraviolence.

Burgess behaves as though he thinks he has written a very serious book. Of course it is possible to create a humorous satire that also has a message, e.g. Veerhoven’s Starship Troopers, but whenever I read Burgess’ commentary on Clockwork I am left with the sense that this isn’t what he was trying to do. Which leaves me thinking that he, like many creators, doesn’t actually understand why his creation was good.

reply

	
javier123454321 54 minutes ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Yeah, 100% agreed. It felt like art for all the chapters until the end, then it turns to propaganda for the final pages.
reply

	
robertlagrant 51 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [–]

> Which is the entire point of the book: free will vs being forced to do something
And the film. He's conditioned one way, but reverts to himself.

reply

	
zoky 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

I’m gonna hard disagree with you here. Having read the novel and seen the movie, Kubrick was 100% right to leave the last chapter out.
With the last chapter intact, the story is no longer about Alex. It’s about some hypothetical futuristic society where ultraviolence is the norm and is just considered to be some coming of age rite of passage, that you eventually grow out of. It takes the violence in the story and makes it mundane and pedestrian, to the point where we have to come up with insane torturous methods like the Ludivico Technique, just as we prescribe kids Ritalin or Adderall, only we would do so just to attempt to keep things under control. It’s a story that is, frankly, ridiculous in its hyperbole, to the point that it bears little resemblance to anything but science fiction.

Kubrick and Burgess’s American editor were absolutely right to leave off the last chapter, thereby transforming the novel into the portrait of an irredeemable sociopath. A sociopath who has been enabled to a far greater extent by a simultaneously far more lenient and vindictive society than our own, yes, but therein lies the warning. While we want to redeem those criminals who are victims of circumstance, what happens when we take it too far?

By apologizing for Alex as a victim of society and circumstance, who only owes his psychopathic tendencies to said circumstances, Burgess’s novel falls flat as a criticism of society at Large (get it?)

Don’t get me wrong—I greatly enjoyed the novel, and recommend it to anyone who liked the movie. But I honestly believe the last chapter would have been best left unwritten.

reply

	
FranOntanaya 1 hour ago | root | parent | next [–]

I disagree with the disagreements. We look naturally at the shock value of the violence but harshly reject the shock of a character turning around out of the blue. We never give "good" the privilege of irrationality.
reply

	
zoky 1 hour ago | root | parent | next [–]

Because it’s not that interesting. Bad guy decides being bad is boring, and starts being good? Like, okay, but… why?
reply

	
HeatrayEnjoyer 42 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

How is that any more boring than the opposite?
reply

	
mzs 58 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Whoa I read it in the US and it omitted that chapter!
reply

	
hnbad 49 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [–]

For all of Kubrick's talent he was always more interested in the villains than their victims and this manifests in a lens that gives sympathy to the villains while portraying the victims as mere two-dimensional canvases. The Shining is another perfect example for this and from what we know about his treatment of the actors/actresses this sentiment seems to have also influenced his direction on set: he felt the lead actress would need to feel abused and exhausted and terrified to play the part but the actor just got to be a natural menace.
Morally, I'd say it's fair to call many of his great works failures: even Full Metal Jacket failed at being an anti-war movie even though it is still referenced as such. But artistically they're interesting and, if you ignore the supposed intentions and the moral implications of his failure, indeed very good.

reply

	
lkdfjlkdfjlg 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [4 more]

	
mc32 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

They made me watch it in Highschool. So, "they" were right, schools subversively expose pupils to porn.
According to the votes, on the one hand it's not pornography, but on the other hand it is. It just isn't when you want to point it out as being soft porn, but if you want to critique the movie vs the book, it's okay to critique it as soft porn... hrrrm

reply

	
simmerup 1 hour ago | prev | next [–]

I feel like the moment you put any idea out there you have the potential to influence people unexpectedly, and be at peace with that.
I saw a youtube interview of an addict who said he started taking painkillers regularly because he saw House doing it. Surely the writers didn’t know they were setting up some kid in suburban America up for addiction by giving him that mannerism

reply

	
coliveira 1 hour ago | parent | next [–]

Not only that, House was the inspiration for a whole generation of drug addicts by providing a character that they could empathize with. The same way that Wall Street created a whole generation that wanted to become crooked stock operators.
reply

	
SideburnsOfDoom 15 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

You might not be serious, but see also Liar's Poker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker#Reception
Despite the book's quite unflattering depiction of Wall Street firms and many of the people who worked there, many younger readers were fascinated by the life depicted. Many read it as a "how-to manual" and asked the author for additional "secrets" that he might care to share

reply

	
elf25 1 hour ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

My what a boring media landscape it would be if all characters were goodie little “Mary Poppins” types.
Just because a minority wrongly take inspiration from an ill behaved character is no reason to temper a fictional character actions. Did Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid lead to an increase in bank and train robberies?

reply

	
fellowniusmonk 10 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

I think that arguably Mary Poppins was so popular because she was incredibly mean and acerbic in the books (if memory serves from reading them as a kid.)
The movie Disnified the character just like so many Grimms tales.

reply

	
LeifCarrotson 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Unexpectedly?
The whole point of publishing an idea or art piece is to influence people. Sure, some people will misinterpret it, but it should be pretty obvious that if you make a heroically brilliant protagonist dismissive of an opioid addiction that some people are going to think that's cool, especially if you're portraying that on TV. That's why Burgess wrote:

> I should not have written the book because of this danger of misinterpretation...

Kubrick's film (disclaimer: I've only read the book, I've never seen the movie) has apparently made this problem worse for Burgess. Similarly, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes was a deeply flawed protagonist, which readers of his books would see, but I believe that the way the character was portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. in the recent film/series adaptations similarly disguised those flaws and had a strong potential for some misinterpretation and more negative impacts.

reply

	
pallas_athena 21 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

>The whole point of publishing an idea or art piece is to influence people
One of the topics constantly running in my mind is Alan Moore saying that writing a comic, novel, movie, is an act of magic.

You write, or say, something. Other people hear, and their brain is forever changed. They will think and/or act differently.

So he truly is a wizard.

reply

	
kayodelycaon 55 minutes ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

> The whole point of publishing an idea or art piece is to influence people.
As an author, I throughly disagree with this statement. Humans like to tell stories and entertain each other.

My primary goal for publishing my stories is for people to find them enjoyable. Some of my stories have a secondary goal of showing less common perspectives for the purpose of introducing people to ideas they may not have considered.

Any idea can influence someone, but does not mean all ideas are published to influence.

reply

	
dylan604 44 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [–]

> Surely the writers didn’t know they were setting up some kid
I'm going to disagree with this. Music, movies, and TV have been proven to be very effective at influencing. While the writers may not have intended to promote drug use, they had to expect that the wrong idea might be taken away from it. Is their fault, hell no. Does it mean that a writer should take pause before writing something? Maybe, but now we're on the verge of recommending pre-censoring content. My contention is that someone putting something out for mass consumption should not be surprised by anyone coming back later and saying they were influenced by that work as it has been demonstrated time and time again. You think Salinger thought his work was going to influence serial killers?

reply

	
looknee 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

I think about this topic regularly, the question of how responsible a person should be for the unintentional effects of their actions.
In general society agrees that people are responsible for unintentional effects to their actions when they're obvious and predictable, such as involuntary manslaughter for killing someone while driving drunk. A reasonable person should understand the risk of that and take it into account before deciding to drive after having a number of drinks.

Where it gets more complicated and divisive is when the unintentional effects become less obvious or easily attributable.

I feel there are lots of behaviors that we're able to show empirically have negative impacts on the world yet aren't immediately obvious or unavoidably attributable, and because they're not intuitably, at-first-glance attributable there begin to be people who dismiss them despite empirical evidence proving their cause. Things like chemical dumping into rivers as an externality of an industrial process causing health impacts to surrounding communities come to mind as an example.

Where it gets even fuzzier is when impacts are social and diffuse.

A place I see a lot of discussion related to this topic is in the comedy world. You regularly see people criticize comedians for their jokes being harmful or hurtful. In my opinion these criticisms are sometimes accurate, and sometimes are inaccurate due to mistaking the topic of a joke as being the butt of it (a good example highlighting the difference I feel is Shane Gillis' jokes about autism from his standup https://youtu.be/ly14Pr2RLys, vs him calling out Andrew Shultz for jokes on the same topic but done in a derogatory manner: https://youtu.be/ENpTQ6ws3P8?t=954).

The general retort from comedians to people criticizing them is that "The intent of the joke isn't bad, it's all about the intent." I feel this is partially true, but it completely ignores the potential unintended consequences of the things they say, and the potential responsibility people have for the them.

I think this area and ones like it, involving the question of to what degree people with cultural influence should be held accountable for the unintentional impacts of their influence is really interesting and complex. I don't have much more to say beyond that I find it interesting and nuanced.

reply

	
wintermutestwin 26 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

It is indeed all about the intent and like a dog knows the difference between being kicked and tripped over, we instinctively know the intent. If in our social outrage, we decide to ignore our instinct, then we are essentially just looking for excuses to grandstand our outrage. This grandstanding has the unintended consequence of polarizing a social debate to the point of demonizing and arbitrary adherence on both sides.
It seems that the desire to grandstand our outrage has exploded as we all now have access to our "15 minutes of fame" via our new global social platforms. Like children finding their ability to speak, society as a whole is still in a dadaistic phase. I hope that, with much time and troubles, we eventually learn to speak in a more mature way.

>I think this area and ones like it, involving the question of to what degree people with cultural influence should be held accountable for the unintentional impacts of their influence is really interesting and complex. I don't have much more to say beyond that I find it interesting and nuanced.

Well said and agreed. In our complex social web, the unintended consequences of every nuanced thing we do makes it very hard for the wise to be sure of the societal value of our beliefs and resultant actions. There are very few topics where I am comfortable fully embracing a side.

reply

	
kayodelycaon 29 minutes ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

> How responsible a person should be for the unintentional effects of their actions.
This is already enshrined in law as "negligence" and "reasonable person". It's not helpful to hold people responsible for not considering every possible outcome of what they say, including perspectives that aren't well known.

For example, I'm bipolar. Almost every media representation of bipolar individuals is reinforcing a stereotype that is actively harmful to me. I don't think the average reasonable person would be aware of this.

Bipolar is not limited to mania and depression. I call it the grab bag of issues. My brain went to the grocery store of mental illness, stuck out an arm across a shelf on aisle 3, and swept everything into the cart, like a snow plow clearing a highway.

reply

	
bonton89 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Always seemed odd to me that House was even able to think clearly while high all the time, much less do his job at such a high level.
reply

	
StableAlkyne 1 hour ago | root | parent | next [–]

House drew a lot of inspiration from Sherlock Holmes - both get cases nobody else can solve, Wilson / Watson are their close companion who are essential to solving many cases, etc. It's something acknowledged in interviews by people involved in the show.
The drug use is another thing - Sherlock used cocaine and morphine. House used Vicodin. Morphine and Vicodin are both opioids.

If they had him abuse cocaine, it would be too unrealistic. If they had him abuse Adderall, it might not be obvious to audiences that he has a substance abuse problem - people could write it off as him using it to focus. A prescription opioid is something audiences understood were abused at the time, and maintains the Sherlock connections the writers were going for.

Plus it gives plenty of plot hooks to explore the effects and consequences of addiction to someone we believe to be very successful (success is happiness, right?) in season 1

reply

	
nineplay 30 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

Sherlock Holmes did not use opium. Watson once described him as appearing as someone under the influence of opium, but discarded the suggestion. In another story ( The Man with the Twisted Lip ) Watson discovers Holmes in an Opium den, but Holmes is on a case and in disguised.
The cocaine habit is probably exaggerated. Watson does not give a frequency of his usage and reports Holmes as saying that he only uses it when he doesn't have a case to occupy his mind. Whether this means he uses it a few times a week or a few times a year is not stated.

reply

	
boxed 1 hour ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Like it's said in Star Trek: First you take the drugs to feel good, then you take them to not feel bad.
You get used to the effects. House wasn't high. He was just addicted.

reply

	
nradov 1 hour ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

There are a lot of highly functional opioid addicts out there. You would be surprised to find out what some of the people you work with are taking.
reply

	
TheOtherHobbes 1 hour ago | root | parent | next [–]

There are also a lot of addicts who believe they're high functioning and really aren't.
I strongly suspect mandatory opioid and cocaine testing in politics - never mind finance and law - would be a very good thing.

reply

	
dgfitz 1 hour ago | root | parent | next [–]

"Your teeth look good, have you made any diet changes?" - Dentist "Yeah, I don't eat poppy seed bagels anymore, don't want to lose my job. Oh, and no novacaine, same reason. Just get started until I pass out from the pain."
C'mon.

reply

	
dylan604 40 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

C'mon?
There's a huge difference between popping pills and having a local anesthetic. To even attempt to compare the two is being disingenuous at best. It's not even something prescribed to take home.

reply

	
kennethrc 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

... or, ya know, convenient excuse?
reply

	
h2odragon 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

> Surely the writers didn’t know they were setting up some kid in suburban America up for addiction
Ya think? I disagree. It was product placement at the time. Now, it's hard not to call it outright drug pushing.

reply

	
dwringer 1 hour ago | root | parent | next [–]

I think it was primarily an homage to Sherlock Holmes on whom the character is largely based, modern cultural context aside.
reply

	
xivzgrev 1 hour ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

To me it was character development. His whole persona is this independent persona - his genius puts him above normal people, rules, and his team is merely there to execute his ideas and bounce ideas off of (like his ball).
Despite all of that, he has crippling pain and a painkiller addiction that he’s utterly dependent on. It brings him back down to earth.

reply

	
dageshi 1 hour ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

House was at least in part based on Sherlock Holmes who infamously had his 7% Cocaine solution. It's not entirely unreasonable to think the writers of House would update that to be pills.
Not everything is some vast conspiracy...

reply

	
coliveira 1 hour ago | root | parent | next [–]

Except that this was such a small detail on Sherlock Holmes novels that few people remember it.
reply

	
h2odragon 1 hour ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

"vast conspiracy"?
How would "hey we can include your product in our TV show" be a "vast conspiracy"? It's done all the time, with no one hiding any aspect of the business.

reply

	
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1 hour ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

I hadn’t heard this point of view before but it doesn’t seem too unlikely. The homage to Holmes is an effective way to hide it. That’s some good plausible deniability.
reply

	
golergka 1 hour ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

What? It was clear right from the series start that he has problem with the drug.
reply

	
h2odragon 1 hour ago | root | parent | next [–]

His problem is that others disapprove. He goes cold turkey a couple times and proves that he's in actual pain.
I ain't watched much of the show for a while, my wife is fond of it.

reply

	
donatj 1 hour ago | prev | next [–]

> The 2023 documentary Orange mécanique, les rouages de la violence (in English, A clockwork orange: the prophecy)
I don't speak French, and yet something leads me to believe that's not a direct translation.

reply

	
jyunwai 1 hour ago | parent | next [–]

A direct translation is: "A Clockwork Orange, the workings (machinery pieces [1]) of violence."
An even more literal alternative is: "A mechanical orange, the machinery pieces of violence."

[1] https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/rouage/69972

reply

	
stavros 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

It's not, it's the English title of the documentary.
reply

	
mycodendral 1 hour ago | prev | next [–]

I've never met anyone who has interpreted either the novel or film to glorify violence.
reply

	
spillguard 4 minutes ago | parent | next [–]

> I've never met anyone who has interpreted either the novel or film to glorify violence.
From the article:

"Kubrick himself, in response to a series of murder trials where the defendants explicitly mentioned his work..."

reply

	
zabzonk 30 minutes ago | prev | next [–]

my dad bought ACO when it first came out (we sold that first ed. for a reasonable amount of money after his death) and i read it at the time, i was about 10, and thought it was brilliant.
reply

	
BlueTemplar 1 hour ago | prev | next [–]

Oof, I didn't know that the sexual violence bit was autobiographical...
reply

	
throwaway98797 1 hour ago | prev | next [–]

say one thing once and they will create a narrative out of 40 years later
we are but beasts!

reply

	
at_a_remove 21 minutes ago | prev | next [–]

To me, really, the novel spent a great deal of time pointing out the fickleness of the UK Government, the idea that it was prone to fads, and that people simply went along with it. Only a handful swim against the tide. Even Alex's parents are reprogrammed more or less at will by the media. Burgess has touched this material before in The Wanting Seed, with what was acceptable lashes back and forth.
That came through sufficiently in the movie that I feel like this delivery was fine.

Similarly, the free will issue came through fine. Alex lacks the capacity to dwell on the subject. It falls to a prison chaplain to even ask. Nobody cares, of course, this is about results, not reformation. If Alex and other recipients of the Technique must stagger through society wearing invisible chains, that's fine as far as Government is concerned. Again, well-conveyed.

These two themes collide at the end, wherein the Government changes its mind and finds it politically expedient to restore (or just re-re-program) him to his original and savage state. ("I was cured alright.") Twenty-one, incidentally, is the terminal age in the novel for Logan's Run; youth violence and an age divide was certainly on the minds of some.

I felt like Alex himself was almost, well, not irrelevant, but simply a ball upon which multiple dogs had set their sights.

reply

	
schwartzworld 1 hour ago | prev | next [–]

Eh, it's one of the rare cases where the movie is better than the book anyway.
reply

	
teekert 1 hour ago | prev | next [–]

I can understand how he feels. But haters gonna hate, criminals gonna crime. He threw some new thoughts into the world, he made people think. surely he did not demagnetize people's moral compasses.
It reeks of illusions of grandeur. Sure it is a nice piece, but he overestimates the influence imho. Similar to William Gibson thinking he is the father of things Steam Punk ever.

Edit: Indeed I meant cyber punk.

reply

	
drakenot 1 hour ago | parent | next [–]

William Gibson is the father of Cyberpunk, not Steam Punk.
Though if Gibson is the father, I might say Bester is the grandfather.

reply

	
bediger4000 1 hour ago | root | parent | next [–]

Alfred Bester has fallen into obscurity for sure. How do you figure Bester and not Lem as the grandfather?
reply

	
TheOtherHobbes 1 hour ago | root | parent | next [–]

Bester and Lem are amazing in their different ways, and it's tragic that both aren't better known.
I wouldn't put one over the other, but I think Bester gets the call because his view was classic mid-century US, and was an obvious influence on Cyberpunk.

Lem had a different more subtle aesthetic.

reply

	
zer00eyz 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

>> Similar to William Gibson thinking he is the father of things Steam Punk ever.
Great observation! Being a popular part of a zeitgeist is not the same as defining it.

I have to wonder if, and the article does hint at, "if the movie was never made..."

FTA: Burgess introduced a character “with a beard like Stanley Kubrick’s” who played Singin’ in the Rain with a trumpet — before being kicked off the stage.

reply

	
vsnf 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

> Steam Punk
Cyber Punk?

reply

	
flohofwoe 1 hour ago | root | parent | next [–]

Probably a typo, but Gibson also co-authored The Difference Engine, which is as Steam Punk as it gets :)
(and according to Wikipedia "...is widely regarded as a book that helped establish the genre conventions of steampunk.")

reply

	
jjkaczor 1 hour ago | root | parent | next [–]

... Well, I think many of the genre conventions were established enough that there was even one tabletop Steam Punk RPG that predated the publication of "The Difference Engine" (1990):
Space 1889 - (first published in 1988/89)

However - I think it was essentially just a convergence of cultural zeitgeist within about an 8-year period.

(Myself, I preferred "Castle Falkenstein" (1994) - but that was because I liked just about anything Mike Pondsmith/Talsorian released)

reply

	
danjoredd 1 hour ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Im going to have to read that now. Loved Neuromancer, and Steam Punk is one of my favorite genres
reply

	
flohofwoe 4 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

Difference Engine starts great but then towards the end kind of fizzles out (IIRC, maybe I should read it again).
reply

	
justsomehnguy 1 hour ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

Another one of today's lucky 10000.
It's a hard piece but overall I enjoyed reading it.

reply

	
sevagh 1 hour ago | prev [–]

Tangential: I remember reading a criticism about the South Park ginger episode leading to redheads getting bullied. I was curious (and still haven't wrapped my head around) what blame can be placed, if any.
1. Shitty people had latent bullying and cruelty instincts and South Park gave them the idea of diverting that to redheads

2. People were just chilling until South Park taught them to be cruel and bully gingers

reply

	
llm_nerd 1 hour ago | parent | next [–]

The world has loads of shitty, stupid people who will embrace something without understanding nuance or "good humor". South Park deserved blame for that because they operated as if everyone was in on the joke, when there are loads of people who took it literally as a message that it was "fair game" and targeting people was socially acceptable. Another reply notes that kids are cruel, and this simply isn't generally true: Kids are cruel in an environment where cruelty is their "in", or where they think cruelty will save themselves from cruelty. Having an easy, socially prevalent way to target some subgroup is a lazy option to be cruel, and South Park helpfully served one up.
There are loads of situations like this where people have an over the top rhetoric that is based upon the notion that everyone is in on the joke, when some subsection of the population simply isn't.

reply

	
ljf 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

It is hard to know. My old work colleague took great efforts to keep his son from watching any TV, films or cartoons - they did loads of art, listened to music and went to the theatre a little. He was a pretty chill kid when I met him.
One day his son played at a friend's house when he was 3, nearly 4, and ended up watching a hulk cartoon. He spent the next 3 weeks running around the house screaming 'hulk smash' and hitting things with pillows.

Did the cartoon make him that way, or just tell him it was OK to act that way?

reply

	
no_wizard 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Tagging on to this, behavior wise.
We have been a household without TV ads for a little over a decade. My wife and I have not seen an ad really at all - certainly not within our home - during this time. Maybe one or two at a dentist visit or something when they play the TV, but nothing on a regular basis. Not even YouTube ads (yay adblockers and pihole!)

To save some money, we decided to go to an ad supported tier of Peacock, and within 2 weeks my wife noticed she was spending more money than usual on shopping (I don't watch Peacock shows, so I had little to no exposure).

Despite both of us trying to inoculate ourselves to marketing, some subliminal thing worked, at least in her case. We both decided that it was worth going to the ad free tier again. We haven't bought anything on Amazon for 3 months since.

Neither of us are 100% certain what to make of this experience.

reply

	
TheOtherHobbes 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Humans are monkey-see monkey-do. We all believe we're rational independent actors but we really aren't.
That's the whole point of the ad industry.

Media are experienced as authoritative and high status. If they normalise behaviours and beliefs at least some humans will copy them unthinkingly.

There aren't any moral limits to this. If media normalise mass murder, you get mass murder.

Some people are more resistant than others, but everyone has weak spots.

reply

	
danjoredd 1 hour ago | parent | prev | next [–]

I wouldn't place the blame on South Park. Kids are cruel. If they didn't pick up on the ginger joke, they would latch on to somebody else for some other innocuous reason.
reply

	
senectus1 42 minutes ago | root | parent | next [–]

lol gingers/redheads/carrot tops etc etc have been picked on for at least as long as I remember... well over 40 years.
kids are brutal

reply

	
justsomehnguy 1 hour ago | parent | prev [–]

Redheads were bullied long before the South Park even existed.
reply





Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: