A Clockwork Orange [4K Ultra HD Blu-ray/Blu-ray]

Director: Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick

Overview

Adapted from Anthony Burgess' acclaimed novel, A Clockwork Orange has been hailed as one of director Stanley Kubrick's finest works as often as it has been castigated for its brutal violence. Set in a bleak, sterile London in the near future, the story follows Alex (Malcolm McDowell), an intelligent, charismatic young hoodlum, as he leads his "droogs" (modeled after the skinheads who teemed throughout England at the time of filming) in their pursuit of sex, drugs, and "ultra-violence." Eventually the gang breaks into a home and commits a horrifying rape and murder for which Alex alone is caught and detained. Given the choice of prison or "experimental therapy," Alex chooses the rehabilitation program -- a choice he will soon regret, as he undergoes a harrowing regimen of reconditioning via physical and psychological torture. He reenters society a "changed" man with a physical aversion to sex and violence strong enough to induce nausea. He quickly learns, however, that he has not yet begun to pay for his crimes, when he encounters both his former cronies and the husband of the woman he killed. The violence is so graphic that the film was for many years banned in its home country. Yet for many unsqueamish viewers, Kubrick's vision of an anarchic future, an obvious allegory for an anarchic present, creates a grim, unrelenting film whose effects linger long after viewing.

Product Details

Release Date:	09/21/2021
UPC:	0883929723430
Original Release:	1971
Source:	Warner Home Video
Language:	English
Format:	Blu-ray
Sales rank:	3,025

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Malcolm McDowell	Actor
Patrick Magee	Actor
Adrienne Corri	Mrs. Alexander
Aubrey Morris	Actor
Warren Clarke	Actor
Michael Bates	Chief Guard
John Clive	Stage Actor
Carl Duering	Dr. Brodsky
Paul Farrell	Hobo
Clive Francis	Lodger
Michael Gover	Prison Warden
Miriam Karlin	Cat Lady
James Marcus	Georgie
Godfrey Quigley	Prison Chaplain
Sheila Raynor	Mum
Madge Ryan	Dr. Branom
John Savident	Conspirator Dolin
Anthony Sharp	Minister of Interior
Philip Stone	Dad
Pauline Taylor	Psychiatrist
Margaret Tyzack	Conspirator Rubinstein
Steven Berkoff	Constable
Lindsay Campbell	Inspector
Michael Tarn	Pete
David Prowse	Julian
Jan Adair	Handmaiden
Prudence Drage	Handmaiden
Vivienne Chandler	Handmaiden
John J. Carney	C.I.D. Official
Richard Connaught	Billyboy
Carol Drinkwater	Nurse Feeley
George O'Gorman	Bootick Clerk
Cheryl Grunwald	Rape Victim
Gillian Hills	Sonietta
Craig Hunter	Dr. Friendly
Virginia Wetherell	Stage Actress
Katya Wyeth	Girl in Fantasy
Gaye Brown	Actor
Peter Burton	Actor
Barrie Cookson	Actor
Lee Fox	Actor
Neil Wilson	Actor
Shirley Jaffe	Actor
Barbara Scott	Marty
Wendy Carlos	Composer,Composer
Rachel Elkind	Composer
Gioachino Rossini	Composer
Henry Purcell	Composer
Ludwig van Beethoven	Composer

Technical Credits

Stanley Kubrick

Anthony Burgess

Stanley Kubrick	Director,Screenwriter,Producer
Si Litvinoff	Executive Producer,Producer
Max L. Raab	Executive Producer,Producer,Executive Producer
Roy Scammell	Stunts
Anthony Burgess	Screenwriter
Brian Blamey	Sound Effects
André Dias	Sound Effects
Peter Glossop	Sound Effects
Sandy DellaMarie	Special Effects
Eddie Haben	Sound Effects
John Jordan	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
Eddie Frewin	Stunts
Bernard Williams	Producer

Editorial Reviews

After the visionary journey through space and time of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick offered a very different look at the future (which seemed uncomfortably close to the present) in A Clockwork Orange. But if one has to compare A Clockwork Orange to any of Kubrick's other films, it comes closest to Dr. Strangelove: for all its horrific violence and troubling moral ambiguity, it is ultimately a satire, and, like Dr. Strangelove, it wrings a shocking amount of humor from situations that few people would think of as funny. With the notable exception of Alex (Malcolm McDowell in the best performance of his career), most of the characters are little more than cartoons (with dialogue to match), while a great deal of the violence walks a fine line between Looney Tunes absurdity and crushingly vivid brutality. Kubrick's future state is often garish and ugly, veering between an amusingly hideous riot of color and texture gone wrong and the decaying remnants of a cinder-block nation (remarkably, Kubrick and production designer John Barry built only one set for the entire film, with everything else shot on existing locations that were dressed in "futuristic" style). And Kubrick throws in plenty of crude comic relief that suggests some degenerate variation on a Carry On film; from the overexcited school representative to the doctor and nurse enjoying recreational sex as Alex regains consciousness, Kubrick places his grim vision in an England where foolish absurdity is the order of the day. And while Alex seems one of the few characters capable of making a complex moral choice (never mind how sinister his choices happen to be), he also takes his choice more seriously than anyone else in the film. Alex has adopted violent hedonism not out of profit, politics, or pragmatism, but because he likes it, and, while this makes him difficult to admire, he's still the smartest and freest man in the film's moral universe.