Fragments of ideas have been swimming in my consciousness this past week, most of them having vaguely to do with US politics at this moment. Suddenly, I thought about A Clockwork Orange - both the movie and the book. That story was predictive, in ways I could not have imagined.
When the movie came out in 1971, I was already a fan of Stanley Kubrick. I saw the film, and was so struck by it, that I then read Anthony Burgess's book and saw the film again within a week. What forced that story into my consciousness in the past few days where the reports of renewed Russian tampering with US electoral process. In both the book and film, in a near dystopian future, violent young thugs speak a slang Burgess called "Nadsat," a language he invented - a combination of American English and Russian.
I was toying with idea of writing about this today when, completely by chance, I came across the fact that tomorrow - the 25th of February - is the 103rd anniversary of Anthony Burgess's birth. That kind of coincidence always makes a big impression on me. So here we go.
Let's talk a little bit, first, about Burgess. He was an educator, novelist, critic, composer, libretist, screenwriter, essayist, TV broadcaster, translator, a linguist and polyphone, speaking not only "easy" languages like German, French, and Russian, but also Arabic and Malaysian. While in the British military during WWII, he was arrested for insulting Franciso Franco. His wife once said something obscene to the Duke of Edinburgh and got him thrown out of the colonial service. These are some of the many facts about his life that I find amusing.
In 1991, I heard Burgess speak at my beloved New York Public Library, when he was introducing his then new novel - Mozart and the Wolf Gang. That evening, I was aware from the outset that Burgess was the smartest person I had ever heard give a speech. My mind raced, did cartwheels, tap-danced, and tried to leap tall buildings in a single bound trying to keep with his discourse. The man's mind was breathtaking.
What has struck me, this past week, is that A Clockwork Orange predicted a violent world in which, because of their strong influence on each other, American and Russian cultures blend to such an extent that out-of-control fifteen year olds speak in slang that combines the words and grammars of their two languages. Also, because of his weird hair color, friends of mine and I refer to the toxic current denizen of the White House as Agent Orange. How could Burgess have known the US-Russian blending would involve the color orange!
Burgess wrote the book, he said in three weeks, as a jeu d'esprit, because he needed money. He even let the American publisher chop off his last chapter to get the book out in the USA. Kubrick paid only $500 for the film rights. But the movie made the book a bestseller and gave Burgess a well-deserved international reputation.
Both the book and the film portray a violent world and explore the nature of free will. Burgess's 21st chapter did not make it into the American edition of the book on which the screenplay was based; so its content was then also left out of Kubrick's film version. Burgess's story follows the exploits of a young felon from drug-crazed violence followed by drug-induced reprogramming. In Burgess's ending, his young character finds redemption. Burgess disliked the omission. Kubrick agreed with the American publisher that it was a better story without the final salvation.
Whether or not you would prefer that happier ending, say happy birthday to Anthony tomorrow. Oh and by the way, the last day of shooting on Kubrick's film was today's date - 24 February - in 1971. A fact I found out while researching for this blog.
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He wrote it in 3 weeks?!? Wow, how long is the book? Mind you, in my experience it can take just as long to write a short book as it does to write a long one, because every word carries that much more weight.
ReplyDeleteThat’s what he said, Zoe. He was apt, according to one biographer, to “mythologize.” He may have typed it out in three months. But all the dialogue in the book was written in his invented language—Nazdat. I think he must have had that all figured out way ahead of time. He did not outline. He said his stories came from his unconscious. Being a pantser myself, I have an idea that a lot that book flew out of him. His wife was brutally sexually assaulted by two AWOL GIs while he was away in the war. Critics and biographers think that the central themes of sexual violence and appropriate punishment came in the wake of that tragedy. I can imagine those parts pouring out of him.
DeleteExcellent! I'm with Zoe Sharp above: three weeks?!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jamie. As I said to Zoe, above, Burgess has been described as someone who wrote fiction about himself was well as his characters. He was certainly a genius, but even so, a book that good that quick? Not from scratch. Not in my wildest imaginings.
DeleteWhat a wonderful tribute, Sis! I remember seeing Clockwork Orange when it came out. It struck me as crazily bizarre--though of course I was working on Wall Street at the time which likely would have seemed the same to Burgess! Having said all that, there is NO scene in any movie that stays with me more than the one of the boys doing their thing in that apartment. I guess that's a true testament to Kubrick and Burgess, though God knows what it says about me!
ReplyDeleteMe, too, my brother. Ordinarily I am so turned off by violence in film that I hide under my sweater until it is over. David used to tell me the coast was clear: “You can look now.” But Kubrick seemed to be able to tell the story with all that visual detail without making it seem prurient. I am going to watch it again tomorrow in honor of the birthday. I’ll see if my response is different now.
DeleteI was a grad student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign when I saw it. I was completely blown away by the movie, not only the story, but also the use of music. What made the evening unforgettable was when I walked out of the movie theatre, the riot police were sweeping down Green Street only a few yards from away. It was the day the USA bombed and mined Haiphong and the students were out in protest. I truly felt I had become part of the movie.
ReplyDeleteI read the book long before I saw the film. I think the impact was stronger that way. It was years before I was willing to try the film...
ReplyDeleteMIchael, I plan on watching it again tonight. I am not at all sure I still have the stomach for it. I will try to work out how I was able to see it twice in week and tomorrow will report here.
DeleteWhat an experience, Stan! But then, from what I know of your youth in Apartheid South Africa, you have been an eyewitness to some stunning and very disturbing events. I pray the world will stop giving us so many sensations of being in a movie thriller. I prefer my experiences of crime to be fictional.
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ReplyDeleteI promised to cycle back and report on a re-viewing of the film, which took me longer than I thought. But it was worth it. The film is brilliant. Abhorring violence in movies as I do, I wondered myself how I managed to watch it on the big screen twice in a week. Now I know. The violence is clear and terrible, but it is not prurient. In fact, watching it is more like watching a ballet—not a pretty one, but a telling one, perfectly choreographed to make its point with losing aesthetic distance, a commodity so scarce in the arts these days as to seem anachronistic. I was more horrified by the nastiness of the reprogramming scenes. As I think both Burgess and Kubrick would have wanted in their audience response. Brilliant. Totally brilliant.
ReplyDeleteWithOUT losing..
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