sycasey 2.0

That's a great example, yeah.

Right, which is why I took some time to allow for the fact that even if you don't "literally" see it, that doesn't necessarily invalidate your feelings of trauma from the heavily suggestive imagery -- indeed it may even be worse. I only went into this analysis because of the comparison to Hitchcock's techniques in the Psycho murder scene, as a way to point out that I think they are technically similar in some ways. Certainly that was also a sequence that elicited emotional reactions in people, even if they didn't "literally" see the knife going in.

When I recently rewatched A Clockwork Orange for this episode, I noticed that Kubrick actually DOESN'T ever show a rape. On a couple of occasions, he shows a long build-up to one, but in each case the woman either gets away before it can happen (the one on the stage, before the first droog brawl) or the camera cuts away from the actual act (the author's wife, after the original home invasion). Also, it's not officially a rape scene but something similar happens when Alex kills the cat lady -- the moment of death is stylized and obscured behind editing, not shown directly. Just IMO, but I think this is an example of the setup being so meticulous and detailed that it leaves you THINKING you saw it happen. I also won't try to say that this can't be equally traumatic to someone who doesn't wish to see violent rape scenes; indeed, it could be more so. But I do think Kubrick is working similarly to Hitchcock here, making the "anticipation of the bang" seem worse than the "bang."

I just want to say that I thought this was a good, productive exchange and that I also had some of the objections AlmostAGhost was raising to your earlier line of argument. I think you've explained yourself well here, and I don't really object any longer. And yes, I'll also stipulate that I totally understand why the actions depicted on screen in A Clockwork Orange might be too much to take (particularly for women who have been subjected to sexual violence or threatened with it). I personally like and appreciate the movie, but for anyone who doesn't want to see such things I would definitely recommend they not watch it. It's just a movie; some things are more important. (Also, sorry if it seems like I'm spamming here. I just haven't gotten to log in all day and there were a lot of interesting threads started up since I'd been on the forum.)

I wanted to return to this point. I think this is a good breakdown of how drama traditionally works, for books or movies or plays or whatever: introduce a conflict and then resolve it, usually to some restoration of a new (better) status quo. But what if a movie is deliberately trying to break from that traditional format? What if the point of the work IS to lead the audience to an unexpected conclusion, precisely BECAUSE it provides none of the resolution you describe above? Can that not also be a valid approach? Are there any works you can think of that you might consider "great" that fail to provide this kind of catharsis? I get that A Clockwork Orange might not be one, given its tone and subject matter. What about Coen Brothers movies? They often "resolve" themselves in a kind of existential quandary, not really restoring anything for the better.

I think it matters in that it can help you determine HOW to read a film and what it's saying. It doesn't completely override everything that winds up on screen, though, and it certainly says nothing about how successful the filmmaker was in delivering on his/her aims. Only we, the viewers, can determine that (and it's going to be subjective for everyone). I take it as sort of "additional information" that might help my reading. If the additional information flies in the face of whatever I experienced while watching the movie I might disregard it or decide the filmmaker wasn't successful.

I'd argue that IMDb ratings are a reliable-ish gauge of popularity, though not exactly perfect (as you note, there is going to be a lot of self-selection bias). Most of the claims of them being "unreliable" have to do with judging quality, which is not really what bleary was trying to demonstrate with the chart -- he's just looking at how the movie's ratings compare by gender and age group. I'd also bet that women probably only account for about 13% of all people rating any movie on IMDb. "Rating" movies online tends to be a male-heavy endeavor.

Yes, that does seem to be broadly true.

You're probably right about that . . . but at the same time, I can't really change my own reaction to the material. If it comes from a place of privilege, so be it. I can only be honest about what the film says to me, and leave the space for others to do the same.

Hmm, not as stark a divide as I might have anticipated.

Yeah, to me it's more about having SOME purpose (beyond base impulses like making more money). It could be to make you feel uncomfortable, or it could be something else.

Hah, there was that too. I get it, it's a tough movie to talk about in a live format.

I agree that was the intent, but for me there were a few moments where I raised an eyebrow and thought her argument was starting to tilt into the former.

I don't know how to respond to this, given that I've watched the movie many times and clearly have gotten more than that out of it. I'll just say that I disagree completely.

Probably she meant the latter, but yeah I had a similar reaction. It started to sound a little bit like she was blaming the Cat Lady (for example) for not opening the door for Alex. That was the right call!

I agree with a lot of this. I also feel like I was giving this film short shrift a little bit in my comment, since I focused on why I could see an argument for voting against it. So let me try to mount more of a defense or full-throated praise. It seems to be generally true that people respond more to A Clockwork Orange when they're young and see it fade as they age. It's the same for me . . . but I'm not sure if that has to be a big strike against it. I will say that when I first saw this movie at 18, it wasn't just something I loved, it was something that opened my eyes to the possibilities of what cinema could do. This wasn't just a comedy or an action movie, it was a movie that used dark humor and violence to first shock your sensibilities and then after grabbing you by the scruff, forced you to examine the disturbing consequences of those actions and the response to it. It delivered a bracing inquisition in to fundamental moral questions: Alex is terrible, but what do you do with someone like that? If you take away his ability to do bad, was that a victory? Did it make society safer, or did it just ensure the violence came from somewhere else? Was it worth the removal of his humanity? Maybe when you're young you need something like this to kind of get in your face and force you to start thinking philosophically about moral issues, even if it's a bit shaggy and unsubtle about doing so. There is value in that. Though perhaps not as much as with something like 2001, I do still keep finding relevance in the movie and new things to explore. For example, upon this most recent viewing I was struck by its commentary on the criminal justice system. The government's treatment of Alex isn't just cold during the Ludovico treatment, their cruelty also continues afterward, when they just toss him back out into the world with no further support system. We see how that goes: Alex's old friends come around (as cops!) to torment him, his former victims try to exact revenge, his family are nervous around him, even perfect strangers (Joe the lodger) immediately treat him as a pariah. To me this was a great illustration of why recidivism rates are so high. Also, the KISS of movies? I don't think so. I never heard a KISS song that even pretended to be about anything other than partying or chasing girls. I'd say the closer musical parallel is early gangsta rap -- music that does carry a social critique or message, but one that is sometimes drowned out by the violence and misogyny on the surface.

It's either that movies with a top-billed female aren't seen by the public as "important" enough to be great, or that the opportunities for such movies are fewer in the first place and thus there are not as many to choose from. Maybe a little of both. I'm not necessarily restricting it to "top billed" (Streep certainly wasn't the top billed in Adaptation), more that you'd consider them one of the lead characters. That would disqualify examples like Streep in The Deer Hunter or Manhattan, where she's on screen for a pretty small amount of the running time, but could still include something like The Devil Wears Prada, where Anne Hathaway is really the lead but Streep is certainly playing a major character. Given that, you could make cases for Scarlett Johansson or Amy Adams.

Oh, I do. It's not my personal favorite, but I get it. We'll discuss more when Woody Allen comes up on the podcast, which I'm sure will not be controversial at all.

Agreed on all points. It seems pretty obvious to me that Alex is the quintessential example of the "unreliable narrator." AlmostAGhost theorized above that the whole movie might be simply a fever dream of Alex's and not really happening . . . I wouldn't go that far, but the presentation is definitely subjective and highly tilted towards Alex's POV. That's why the other characters come off poorly, IMO -- Alex sees the older people as stuffed-shirt fuddy-duddies just there to be used for whatever he can get from them. He thinks the violence is fun and playful. Of course, as soon as violence is directed back towards him, it's seen very differently. Does Kubrick empathize with Alex? Maybe. I'm not sure if it's that or that he is deliberately trying to place the audience in Alex's shoes as a challenge to our morality. It's also very possible that he just doesn't want to do the obvious thing and present Alex's actions as clearly evil from the beginning; that might not leave the movie anywhere to go after the opening scenes. On the podcast they also discussed the film's relationship to Burgess' novel, and Amy claimed it was a "bad" adaptation because it didn't share the same moral viewpoint Burgess had. I'm not sure about that. I'm reminded of a more recent film, directed by someone often compared to Kubrick: The Social Network. That's another movie where there seems to be a differing point of view between writer and director: Aaron Sorkin's script tells you Mark Zuckerberg is an asshole, but David Fincher's direction kind of wants you to admire him. IMO, that makes for a richer film experience, to have these competing ideas about the same person coming at you throughout. A Clockwork Orange is an even more extreme version, but I think there's something similar going on here. You're getting BOTH messages: Alex is reprehensible, AND ALSO sympathetic. It's not either/or.

At least Diane Keaton still has Annie Hall though.

I voted a tentative yes on the poll, though I could be convinced otherwise. My objections are not so much to the artistry or content of the movie (I think it remains a great, thought-provoking film, if not always the most enjoyable watch), but rather: 1. It's BARELY an "American" film. The only things that qualify it for the AFI list are that the financial backing was American (Warner Bros.) and that Stanley Kubrick was American-born. On the other hand, all of the filming took place in Britain, the entire cast was British, and the story all takes place in Britain. Kubrick lived a majority of his life and did most of his professional filmmaking in England. It seems pretty British to me. 2. There's a good argument that this isn't even a Top 5 Kubrick. Of course, I think Kubrick made more than five great films so that's not necessarily a knock on it, but if you're considering an all-time list maybe it doesn't need to be there. But that said, A Clockwork Orange has also clearly had a huge impact on popular culture (look how many Simpsons references!), so based on that I say yes.

This was exactly my conclusion when the question was asked on the Facebook group: Meryl Streep is a great actress who hasn't actually been in many great films. Paul had a good suggestion with Adaptation, maybe the best film she's in where she can reasonably be described as a lead actress.

We might need to consider the possibility that she secretly likes being an elf, perhaps due to some hidden sexual fetish. We may be in Bad Santa territory here.