Seeing as we discussed which of Stanley Kubrick's movies is the best in a previous post, I realised I hadn't seen A Clockwork Orange, so, made crious by all you guys (and gals ), I went out and rented it...
At first glance, I had the impression that it was a disguisting movie, filled with completely pointless violence and rape. But I forced myself to watch on, hoping that it would pick up and get better later on.
And I wasn't dissapointed.
As the story unravelled, I began feeling myself becoming more and more drawn into it, and there was no escape. The violence and rape of course didn't end, but I began feeling more appreciative of the significance behind it all. For those of you who haven't seen it, the movie deals with a society where all laws and morals have broken down, and groups of hooligans terrorize the streets. But when the leader of one of them is arrested and sent to prison to be *reformed*, things start to change...
Kubrick's technique is flawless in conveying the gruesome realites of a fictional world. Slow close-ups/zoom-outs coupled with the eerie music very effectively portray a society gone wrong. Seeing as I share a love of Beethoven's 9th with the main character, I found myself actually beginning to sympathise with him from early on, and this was firmly cemented in by the time the movie draws to a close with the hunter becoming the hunted, so to speak.
This movie really got me thinking. Such a scenario isn't all too impossible to imagine, which is what really makes it such a masterpiece. It shows the dark side of human nature which exists in all of us, just beneith the surface, waiting for the right opportunity to burst out. Perhaps this is the reason why it was so controversial when it was released, in that people just didn't want to accept it as being a possibility. That everything we call society, civilization and humanity is just a thin veil covering the surface is perhaps the scariest part of it all.
At first glance, I had the impression that it was a disguisting movie, filled with completely pointless violence and rape. But I forced myself to watch on, hoping that it would pick up and get better later on.
And I wasn't dissapointed.
As the story unravelled, I began feeling myself becoming more and more drawn into it, and there was no escape. The violence and rape of course didn't end, but I began feeling more appreciative of the significance behind it all. For those of you who haven't seen it, the movie deals with a society where all laws and morals have broken down, and groups of hooligans terrorize the streets. But when the leader of one of them is arrested and sent to prison to be *reformed*, things start to change...
Kubrick's technique is flawless in conveying the gruesome realites of a fictional world. Slow close-ups/zoom-outs coupled with the eerie music very effectively portray a society gone wrong. Seeing as I share a love of Beethoven's 9th with the main character, I found myself actually beginning to sympathise with him from early on, and this was firmly cemented in by the time the movie draws to a close with the hunter becoming the hunted, so to speak.
This movie really got me thinking. Such a scenario isn't all too impossible to imagine, which is what really makes it such a masterpiece. It shows the dark side of human nature which exists in all of us, just beneith the surface, waiting for the right opportunity to burst out. Perhaps this is the reason why it was so controversial when it was released, in that people just didn't want to accept it as being a possibility. That everything we call society, civilization and humanity is just a thin veil covering the surface is perhaps the scariest part of it all.
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Black Holes Suck!
Black Holes Suck!