Monday, January 22, 2007

"A clockwork orange" part 1

The evenings and nights are cold now in Ciudad Constitucion, Mexico, with the temperature dropping to 6 degrees centigrade (42,8 degrees Fahrenheit).The two sisters and brother had put themselves under blankets on the floor in front of the TV last evening to watch a film. Ivan, Alma’s youngest, had bought the DVD of the movie “A clockwork orange” made in 1971 by Stanley Kubrick. A film based on the 1962 book of Anthony Burgess who wrote this story as a reaction to the robbing and violating of his pregnant wife by 4 American soldiers in London in 1944. His wife lost the child…
It is the story of Alexander DeLarge, played by Malcolm McDowell, coming from an average working class family, he gets completely out of control. He forms a gang with its own rituals and performs what seems useless and excessive violence, including rape. This results in the killing of a woman, with a huge object representing a phallus. However, his fellow gang members trick him and the police catch him. Gets 40 years in jail where he becomes a model prisoner. After two years he is selected to get a special treatment that makes him unable to perform any violence or sex anymore. Unfortunately for him, by accident they make him also unable to listen to the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven anymore. When the treatment is successfully completed he is released but gets into trouble nevertheless. His parents refuse him back into their home and eventually public opinion is outraged that science has created a human being with no more free will and inability to choose. He gets a new treatment and everybody is happy, especially the police, the prison guards and the politicians, when he is back to be a violent person again.
This film, and the book, are razor-sharp observations of society even as it is today. No wonder that the film was released in the USA heavily censored.
Young people today, like Alma’s children, are interested in this film and it will be important to learn what is their opinion.
For this purpose 22-year-old Yuriria will be interviewed today to understand what “A clockwork orange” is doing in the mind of a young woman in 2007.
The result of the interview will be published in tomorrow’s blog.
Stand by.

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