In <[log in to unmask]> Molly Olsen <[log in to unmask]> writes: >wlt4 @ ix.netcom.com (lang thompson) replied: > >>***** Clockwork Orange came out in 1971. The "message" in the film >>seems to me more like an excuse to show the violence rather than a >>critique of it. A similar strategy is used in Bad Lieutenant and the >>various "mondo" documentaries modelled after Mondo Cane. > >I agree with your assessment of Bad Lieutenant -- maybe I missed the point but >the violence seemed to be the message. On the other hand, I think A Clockwork >Orange has a clearer message, which is not exactly that violence is bad (it's >glorified by Alex's glee in his violent acts at first, and the audience can see >the humor in it as he does, but then when Alex is punished with institutional >violence any humor disappears and the violence seems oppressive rather than >liberating -- there's a lot more to this). I see the message more as a look at >crime and punishment, with violence as the medium for both. If you don't see, >or aren't moved by, the shifting portrayals of violence in the film, I suppose >it might seem like the violence was just gratuitous, but certainly you can see >the provocative moral ambiguity of Alex's crimes and his punishment, a >dimension that was missing in Bad Lieutenant and similar films. > >Another consideration is that A Clockwork Orange was originally a book; do you >also think that the book was also an excuse to write about violence rather than >a means of conveying a message about violence, crime and punishment? > >Molly Olsen >[log in to unmask] ***** The novel A Clockwork Orange is much more ambiguous and distanced (despite being a first person narrative) than the film. Partly this is inherent in reading but also because Burgess used a fairly dense, Joyce-inspired idiom based on Russian and invented slang. That's been a problem, i think, with the difference between Sade's 120 Days of Sodom and Pasolini's Salo; the social critique in the novel (which was deliberately difficult to read on several levels) is overwhelmed in the film by the images. That's a good idea about the film showing the violence involved in rehabilitation/punishment. And at the risk of losing all credibility, i have to confess that what bothered me about Bad Lieutenant was the dishonesty. Clip out all the stuff about redemption and i probably would have admired it. LT ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]