Getting It Wrong -- A Clockwork Orange

Photo: from the MSN article linked below. You've got to see this movie. A disturbing masterpiece.

I recently read an MSN photoslide article of 40 movies that critics got completely wrong. (Click that to read it.) Some made me so upset that I had to vent--I mean, blog--about them. For example:

“Stanley Kubrick's 'A Clockwork Orange' is an ideological mess, a paranoid right-wing fantasy masquerading as an Orwellian warning. It pretends to oppose the police state and forced mind control, but all it really does is celebrate the nastiness of its hero, Alex.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Of all the movie critics I've read over the years, I agreed with Roger Ebert most. (Though I am most frustrated with his review of Dead Poet's Society, but that wasn't one of MSN's 40 here, so that's a blog for another day.)

But he got this one wrong. (See the movie if you haven't.) A Clockwork Orange is not paranoid right-wing fantasy. That's Trump-land, a country that Kubrick would never consider visiting. Though he had his share of really out-there thoughts (and don't we all), Kubrick did not feel Britian's (which is where he lived, let's not forget) police force was in danger of dominating his country with a tight fist.

It is an Orwellian warning, in a way, but not as criticized here. Certainly Orwell's lesson of "beware of who you elect to control you," and, for that matter, "beware of those who you let control you" is in play here--but that's not what the movie is really about.

A Clockwork Orange says to beware of a totalitarian police state (with the emphasis on the police), but it also says that we do need a large and controlling police presence, because human nature sucks, and left to our own devices, chaos will reign. That's the irony Kubrick was trying to show. Kubrick was all about irony, all the time. And so it is here.

Alex isn't the criminal, the movie says. His society is criminalizing, and he is a criminal as a byproduct. Though Alex is individually responsible for his own actions, the bureaucracy that tries to "civilize" him just makes him worse. This movie is definitely an attack of that bureaucracy. Remember the scenes of the guard transferring Alex? Remember the bureaucratic forms that had to be filled out? Remember how long that took, especially that ingenious shot of the guard separating the perforated portion after that's signed? Who wouldn't be driven to anger or mindlessness in that nihilistic setting of dominant mindlessness? When the bureaucracy is all that matters, we're all lost.

The insinuation here is that we are all Alex, or at least potentially so. So the movie doesn't pretend to oppose the police state. It does oppose the police state--as depicted as a mindless bureaucracy. It's not paranoid at all--often, human nature does suck, and at our core, no matter how much we think we're civilized, we're all still baseless and base. (That was the point of 2001, too. Remember the million-year flashforward bone-flip? Despite all our technology, all our civilizations--on Earth and on the moon--we're still just a base, bone-loving species. Some of us are okay with that, but some of us strive to be more than that, a new species, maybe, capable of so much more.) Burgess's novel somewhat says the same thing, and this movie beats it over our heads.

Since we're all capable of being Alex--some more so than others--we do need a heavy police presence. But too large a police presence (and it's mind control) is just as bad, if not worse, as having too many criminals. So it's bad to have, but we do need it, to some degree. What degree is that? Well, in the movie, it was too much. In the beginning of the movie, it wasn't enough. So where's the line? Kubrick didn't know, and he's saying we don't know, either. Recent events in America since Ferguson show we still don't know. (Art imitates life, right?)

And so the movie doesn't celebrate the nastiness of Alex as much as it uses that behavior to prove its point. In very broad strokes, written large, the movie showcases the all-too-human negative "celebration" of the nastiness in us all. Kubrick (and Burgess) say: We're all potentially that nasty. Which is why mind control and a police body politick aren't the answers. The answer has to come from within us, individually. In only that way can we create a "civilized society," which is a Nietzschean umbrella term that really doesn't exist--another point that Kubrick makes here. The movie is all about that irony, painted with very broad strokes to the point of satire and farce--but, let's face it: Isn't civilization, society, and other umbrella terms all a farce anyway?

Look around you. Look at American politics right now. Look at what we call our civilized society--a culture that actually does celebrate the dehumanization of women, minorities, LGBTs and, really, anyone else who is not a self-satisfied, arrogant, pompous, self-loving rich white male. (We don't seem to understand the difference between self-serving "facts" and actual facts, either.) And, by the way, our American society is still one of the best, most stable ones out there in the whole world.

That's the reality right now. It's that million-year bone flip in 2001: Despite our technology, despite what we call our civilized society, we're all still a bunch of bone-wielding, power-wielding, blood-loving savages. And no matter how we're trying to control ourselves--with prisons, politics or mind-control (and those last two are often the same thing, by the way) we're always going to be like that.

Because we're human, and that's our human nature.

That's not a very negative, twisted farce?

Stephen King's Bag of Bones--Book and Film

photo: Cover of Bag of Bones, from its Wikipedia page

Some quick thoughts after having seen Stephen King's Bag of Bones (or, Stephen King's Bag of Bones) on A&E last night, while I'm presently reading it (and had read it when it first came out):

--First, let's start off by saying that the movie was really bad, okay?  Especially as compared to the book, which, in some spots, is among his best.  I just finished the part now where he had the fever and the triple dream of being with Jo, Mattie and Sara Tidwell at the same time.  The feelings, the descriptions, the skeletons and corpses described, especially those in NYC with his agent...good, perhaps great, stuff, that nothing in the movie matched.  I know that books are better than movies for just this reason--because of the details, the images you can produce on paper that you can't produce on film (especially on a commercial channel like A&E)--but the huge difference in quality and image go beyond the normal book to movie difference here.

--Pierce Brosnan looked just plain creepy when he smiled, didn't he?  Didn't his smile look more like a carnival clown's grimace?  He didn't do it for me in this role.

--The movie didn't, or couldn't, go into the vagaries of small-town life or the internal thoughts and fears of Mike Noonan--both things that make up 90% of the book.

--When I first finished the book, I remember thinking, "That's Stephen King doing Peter Straub."  High praise.

--Stephen King's internal dialogue is perhaps the best in the business.  His vocal dialogue is, of course, excellent as well.  The movie took large helpings of dialogue straight from the book.  I'm talking verbatim.  Stanley Kubrick famously did the same with The Shining.

--Despite the violence and gore (excessive by my prudish standards for a commercial channel like A&E), the movie was not scary at all.  The book is.  The movie did do a good job, though, of the gory creepy.  (I'm still seeing the ugly woman's jaw-dropping dying silent scream after getting stabbed in the neck.)  But a pruny and green and grimy dead thing looks like a pruny and green and grimy dead thing, and there's only so many times you can see that before it's not scary anymore.  Stanley Kubrick didn't understand this for The Shining, either; nor did the makers of The Shining miniseries.

--The ending of the movie, I'll say again, was effective, but way too violent for A&E.  He even told the little girl to look away before he stabbed the woman in the neck with the thin scissors, before the gouts of dark blood sputtered out.  But the little girl had not looked away, as the viewer wouldn't, either.

--The beginning of the movie--not in the book--has Mike at a book signing.  A fan comes up and says "I'm your number one fan."  Before I could say, "Annie Wilkes," or "Misery," to someone I was watching it with, Mike's wife leans over and says "Have fun with Annie Wilkes."  This overt nod to Stephen King didn't work for me, and, loathe as I am to say it, newer (and younger) Stephen King fans won't know who Annie Wilkes is.

--The pickup truck blowing-up scene was an almost-hilarious sendup of every car-hits-something, however slowly, and blows up scene ever made for a parody.  When your film is an unintentional parody, that is not a good thing.

--I have to assume that if a Stephen King film isn't released in the theatres, then it isn't going to be good.  If the producers thought it would be great, they would've released it theatrically, where the big bucks are.  And who doesn't think of big bucks when they think of Stephen King?

--Some of the movie's dialogue (not taken from the book) and scenes were simply not realistic.  Some of them laughably so.  For example, the man in the senior facility at the end hadn't told a soul his dirty little secret for over 50 years, but it takes just 50 seconds for Mike to get it out of him.  The book does not contain one scene, or one piece of dialogue, like that.  Not one.  Garris just doesn't understand the genre.  The scene in the book, where Mike stands on the stairs in the dark, and communicates with one or more ghosts as they knock on the boards below his feet (once for yes, two for no), was eerily effective and could've easily been done in the film.

--The book, simply enough, was in the hands of a master.  And the movie wasn't.  Surprising, I think, as Mick Garris co-wrote, produced and directed it.  Hasn't he done good things before?  I've heard the name.  Be right back...

--Of course!  He directed The Sleepwalkers; The Stand; and the aforementioned Shining miniseries.  He wrote *batteries not included, which was very good, but the aforementioned tv fare, which was not.  And his The Fly II was simply awful, but a guilty pleasure if you like gory flicks.  He directed Psycho IV, which I actually liked. I haven't seen Hocus Pocus, but it's very popular and well-received.

--Whoever sang the songs Sara Tidwell sang did a very good job.  The song repeated throughout was well-done, jazzy, memorable and creepy, all at the same time.  The woman who played Sara Tidwell did a great job in an odd role.  (If she also sang the music, I doubly applaud her.)  Melissa George did a very good job, too, in a brief and thankless role.

--I hate it when the name-selling appears as part of the title, like Stephen King's Bag of Bones, as the movie is actually called.  I assure you, that mess was more Mick Garris' Bag of Bones.  John Carpenter does this for his movies, too.  Woody Allen doesn't.  Hate that.  The piece either stands on its own merit, or it doesn't.  If it doesn't, don't make it.  If it does, you don't need the name to sell it.

--Someone mentioned earlier that the writer must okay all material made from his written works.  He can't, and he doesn't.  Once you sell the copyrights, you're all done with it.  The moviemakers could include you in on things, but they don't have to, no matter how big a deal you are.  I think it's telling that Stephen King didn't make a cameo appearance in this film, as is his trademark.  Then again, he didn't in Shawshank Redemption, or The Shining, either, so never mind.

--That cabin in the woods was more like a mansion in the woods.

--Read the book and save your DVR space for something else, like American Pickers.