A Clockwork Orange (film)

A Clockwork Orange (A Clockwork Orange in Latin America and Spain) is an Anglo-American science fiction film from 1971, produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. During its release it became the most controversial film in the history of cinema, thus being the most risky and demanding work of its director. Film adaptation of the 1962 novel of the same name written by Anthony Burgess. The film, filmed in the United Kingdom, tells the misadventures of Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell), a juvenile delinquent whose pleasures are: listening to classical music (especially Beethoven), sex, drugs and "ultraviolence", and leads a gang (Pete, Georgie and Dim) whom he calls droogs and with whom he commits a series of violent misdeeds, until he is betrayed by them and captured by the police. In an attempt to get out of prison, he voluntarily undergoes an experimental behavioral rehabilitation psychological technique known as the Ludovico method. The therapy works, Alex is released and must now face his past from his new conditioned social behavior. Most of the film is narrated in nadsat, a fictional adolescent slang that combines Slavic languages, especially Russian, English, and Cockney rhyming slang. In Spain and Latin America, some terms were adapted to the Caló language.

The film is characterized by violent content that facilitates social criticism in psychiatry, youth gangs, behavioral theories in psychology, and other topics set in a dystopian futuristic society. Its soundtrack is mainly made up of classical music passages, several of them reinterpreted and sometimes, as in the case of the credits, adapted by the composer Wendy Carlos using the Moog synthesizer.

Despite the controversy it sparked, the film was nominated for numerous film awards, including four Oscars, including Best Picture, making it the first science fiction film to be nominated in that category. Although it did not win the award, it is part of the AFI's 10 Top 10 list in the category of science fiction films. In 2020 the United States Library of Congress selected A Clockwork Orange to be preserved in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Description

Malcolm McDowell like Alex DeLarge.

Set in the England of the future, the year 1995, but seen since 1965; the film follows the life of a charismatic seventeen-year-old named Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) whose pleasures are listening to Beethoven's music, sex and ultraviolence.

Alex is a charismatic sociopathic criminal, the head of a small gang of libertines he refers to as "droogs": Pete (Michael Tarn), Georgie (James Marcus) and Dim (Warren Clarke). The four of them wear very particular clothing: white t-shirt and pants with braces, testicular protector, knee-high boots, a typical English bowler hat, a mask at certain times, false eyelashes in Alex's case and face paints in drooges, masks when they resort to ultraviolence, in addition to being armed. Alex uses a cane, and inside it he camouflages a knife like Pete and Georgie, not Dim who carries some chains.

Alex narrates most of the film in the "nadsat" language, a contemporary slang used by them, which combines Slavic languages, especially Russian, with English and Cockney; for example: militso «police», drugo «friend», chelovec «boy» or moloko «milk». He is irreverent and abuses others; he lives with his parents to whom he constantly lies to avoid going to school; His room is equipped with speakers, on his bed he has a bedspread covered with rubber breasts, as a pet he has a snake named Basil and has a compartment full of loot from his thefts.

Plot

This Wandsworth tunnel is the place of beating the beggar.

The story begins at the Korova Dairy Bar, where Alex, Pete, Georgie and Dim consume moloko-plus, which consists of milk mixed with velocentin, syntheisitisein or drencromina, narcotic substances that exacerbate violent behavior while planning their next nocturnal misdeeds. They wear a long-sleeved shirt and white pants, a bowler hat, a Victorian cane (except for Dim, who wears a chain), and false eyelashes. The first of that night's victims is an old drunk (Paul Farrell) lying in the street, belching songs and crying with nostalgia. After a brief chat, Alex and his droogos severely beat the beggar for singing such songs.

Later, they show up at an abandoned theater where a rival gang, led by Billyboy (Richard Connaught), whose clothing is reminiscent of a Waffen-SS uniform, attempts to rape a girl who manages to escape naked, while the two rival groups meet. They braid into a violent brawl in which Alex and his droogs are victorious. Hearing the sirens of a police patrol, they flee the abandoned theater. They then steal a 95 Dodge Durango and drive it into the night at high speed, running other vehicles off the road, finally stopping at a house with a sign that says "Home".

Alex and his droogs decide to invade said house. Alex deceives the occupants of him by asking for help for one of his friends who has suffered an accident. The lady of the house (Adrienne Corri) opens the door for him, and the gang, wearing their grotesque masks, invades the house. They take the owner by force, destroy the house and mercilessly beat her husband, the writer Frank Alexander (Patrick Magee). They rape her wife before her helpless gaze, while Alex kicks them, singing "Singin & # 39; in the Rain» (Singing in the Rain). The four return to the Korova dairy bar and watch as a lady sings Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in its fourth movement, Alex deals with a coup attempt by Dim (after he mocks the singing), and does so in brutal fashion. This resents his authority over his family and he does not fully notice it, after this, Alex returns home at dawn, his building is in a terrible state, including the elevator, forcing him to go up the stairs; Arriving at his apartment, he removes his false eyelashes, puts away the stolen money and takes out his pet basil, a snake that he places on a painting of a naked woman. For his part, Alex listens to Bethovhen while imagining violent scenarios such as an earthquake, a girl being hung and him looking like a vampire, with bloody fangs.

After skipping class due to a headache, he wakes up one morning to find P. R. Deltoid (Aubrey Morris) at home, a social worker who controls juvenile delinquents like him. Deltoid, who has a deep dislike for Alex, tries to persuade him to change his attitude, but he ends up hitting his testicles. Without paying too much attention to the social agent, Alex goes out for a walk and meets two teenage girls Marty and Sonietta (Barbara Scott and Gillian Hills) in a record store, he seduces them, they go to his house and fornicate each taking turns.

Thamesmead Housing Estate, one of the stages of the film where Alex beats Georgie and Dim.

Alex meets with his droogs who, confronted by Georgie, propose a new crime that they do not want to tell Alex who, in a fit of paranoia for losing his leadership, hits and pushes Georgie and Dim into the water, to later cut off their hand the latter using a razor that he draws from his Victorian cane. So he forces Georgie to tell him the plan he has in mind. He explains that he planned to rob and rape a wealthy woman (Miriam Karlin), who lives alone with her cats in a house isolated from society.

They arrive at the house and after trying the same trick used in the previous assault, only Alex enters the house through a window, since the woman knows of the same method used in the assault at the writer's house, surprising the woman who was just calling the police. Alex notices that among the eccentric woman's ornaments is a large porcelain sculpture in the shape of a penis, which she touches repeatedly, causing the anger of the woman who tries to hit her with a bust of Beethoven. Alex, in a thoughtless act, hits her with the porcelain penis sculpture. The police arrive at the house. Alex and his Drugos rush to flee, but first, Dim, enraged at Alex for beating and cutting him, hits him in the face with a bottle full of moloko-plus milk, leaving him momentarily blind, in pain, and with a small cut on his face. nose at the crime scene as his Drugos are on the run now under Georgie's leadership. After being arrested, he is violently interrogated by the police, he is dumped by his social agent P.R Deltoid who informs him that the assault victim has died, making Alex a murderer. He is sentenced to fourteen years in prison, where he is closely watched by the head guard (Michael Bates).

Alex adjusts to jail, becomes the prison priest's assistant (Godfrey Quigley) and wins his appreciation by making him believe the Bible has helped him reform, when he only reads it in order to imagine He is like a soldier of the time murdering other soldiers or like a conqueror surrounded by naked slaves who feed him grapes and sex. He gets a recommendation from the naive priest. The Home Secretary (Anthony Sharp) visits the prison and after Alex makes an interrupting comment, he offers him parole if he will undergo the Ludovico Treatment, an experimental aversion therapy, developed by the government as a strategy to stop crime. in society. The treatment consists of being exposed to extreme forms of violence, forcing him to watch very violent movie scenes; The first short is one where some young people are seen beating a man until he is bleeding, the next short shows some young people raping a girl while they take turns. Alex feels satisfied at first, but after a few minutes, he feels discomfort, then nausea, and then he is unable to look away from the screen or close his eyes, since his head is immobilized and his eyelids are forced open for a moment. pair of hooks To prevent his eyes from receiving environmental dust from not being able to blink, someone constantly and repeatedly pours a drop of eye drops into each of his eyes. He is also drugged before watching the movies, so that he associates violent actions with the pain they cause him.

The Dutch sculptor Hermann Makkink and the piece of his authorship used in the film.

In this way, the Ludovico treatment leaves him unable to be violent, even in self-defense, and also unable to touch or be attracted to a naked woman, but, in an unforeseen side effect, the treatment also makes him unable to hear his favorite piece, Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which is the background music for one of the violent movies.

Alex is left without the ability to defend himself, and furthermore, when he returns to his house he is evicted by his parents, who apparently do not want him at home; for they have rented his room to a guest (Clive Francis), they got rid of his stereo and treasures arguing to be taken by the police in compensation to the victims and apparently killed his snake Basil, claiming to have an accident.

They make a public demonstration where they beat him to show that he cannot defend himself, they leave a naked woman at his mercy who, when he tries to rape, feels that discomfort again; Everything turns out to be a success and the audience applauds except for the priest who disagrees, arguing that the change is only mechanical and not moral and Alexander deLarge will continue with a criminal mentality.

Alex achieves his goal and is released. When returning home his parents don't want him there, he finds out that someone took care of his room in exchange for paying the rent, they also tell him that his basil snake died and the rest of his belongings were handed over to the police, Alex full of anger tries to hit the one who occupied his post, but he rehears the effects of the treatment and eventually gets out of there. Alex wanders around town, just to meet his old victims. The beggar who hit the beginning of the story asks for alms and in that he recognizes it, charges revenge calling all his friends, who beat him to death until two cops arrive, which turn out to be two of his former drug addicts, Dim and Georgie, now working as agents, who recognize him and take him to a remote place, where they brutally beat him, while drowning him in a pork aperture until he died. Alex, weakened by the beating, wanders through the woods to casually reach the writer's house. This one, lying in a wheelchair, as a result of the assault of Alex and his gang, and also widowed, because his wife had committed suicide as a result of the rape he had suffered; he let him in without discovering his identity. The writer, who has a bodyguard (David Prowse), welcomes and feeds him, as well as calling some journalist friends to discredit the Prime Minister, but Alex makes the mistake of singing again "Singin' in the Rain" in the bathroom, causing the writer's memory and anger. The next day he decides to get revenge, drugging Alex, and tries to make him commit suicide, enclosing him on the top floor of a house and making him listen to a large volume of the second movement of the Ninth symphony Beethoven. Alex in his desperation tries to "get up" (as he calls suicide) by jumping out a window, but he manages to survive.

After a long recovery in the hospital, Alex wakes up from a coma. His parents visit him and in addition to apologizing to him, they offer him to return to his house. The Minister of the Interior, who had previously personally selected him for Ludovico's treatment, visits him, apologizing for the effects of the treatment, saying that he was only following his team's recommendations for which he will carry out an investigation, also telling Alex that he has done arrest the writer and his accomplices. The Government offers Alex a highly paid job, if he agrees to support the election of the (Conservative) political party, whose public image was seriously damaged by his suicide attempt and the controversial treatment he was subjected to. In front of the press, Alex narrates the end of the film: "I was definitely cured" while watching a surreal fantasy of himself copulating with a woman in the snow, surrounded by Victorian ladies and gentlemen applauding him, while the last one can be heard. movement from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as background music.

Cast and dubbing

Actor	Character	Spain	Hispanic American Population
Malcolm McDowell	Alexander «Alex» DeLarge	Pedro Mari Sánchez	Alfonso Obregón
Warren Clarke	Dim	Juan Antonio Castro	José Antonio Macías
Michael Tarn	Pete	?	Victor Ugarte
James Marcus	Georgie	Manuel Peiro	Moses Ivan Mora

Costume used by Malcolm McDowell in the movie.

• Philip Stone - Alex's father
• Sheila Raynor - Alex's mother
• Michael Bates - prison guard
• Godfrey Quigley - the prison chaplain
• Miriam Karlin - Mrs. Weathers
• Clive Francis - The tenant
• Patrick Magee - Frank Alexander
• Adrienne Corri - Mrs. Alexander
• David Prowse - Julian, Frank Alexander's bodyguard
• Anthony Sharp - Minister of the Interior

Filming

Ludovico's technique portrayed in Kubrick's film.

The film was filmed entirely in England, Kubrick's place of residence. The director cast McDowell after seeing the film "If....". Close associates of the director said it was possible there might not have been such an adaptation of the novel if the actor did not accept the role. Alex's choice of clothing—a cricket suit of sorts—was chosen by Kubrick upon seeing the actor dressed like this. McDowell's suffering throughout filming was long and tedious. He fractured a rib during the torture scene applied by his ex-drugos at the pig trough in the middle of the woods, in the dead of winter. He scratched the cornea of his eye while filming Ludovico's treatment—the actor ripped off his latex helmet with the cables that held his head and his eyelids in a panic attack after long hours. The doctor who is sitting next to Alex putting drops of water in his eyes so they don't dry out was a real doctor.

A Clockwork Orange was the first film Kubrick released under Warner Bros. It was also the first time he wrote the script alone. The documentary shows the total control that the director had over his films, such as A Clockwork Orange, where he asked for a list of the cinemas where it was going to be shown to find out if the colors of the walls and the type of light were adequate. McDowell tells as an anecdote in the documentary the type of personality that the director had: after his manager's warning for the lack of payment, the actor claimed Kubrick; He responded by deducting his salary with the chess matches he had won for him - in the breaks McDowell taught him to play table tennis and Kubrick to chess.

Reception and controversy

The film was nominated for four Oscars—losing to The French Connection—and revitalized sales of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It also caused controversy and was not allowed to be shown in the UK. By the time of its re-release in 2000, it had already earned a reputation as a cult film. Many critics and fans consider it one of the best movies ever made.

The film has been criticized for its excessive violence and lack of humanity, by moralist and religious groups, proclaiming that it serves as a lousy example of ideal behavior for today's youth eager for references on which to base themselves. In Latin America, the film was released in 1977 in its original subtitled version, rated for people over 21 years of age, and was received with a mixture of critics, on the one hand praising Kubrick's futuristic vision, and on the other hand criticizing the frontal violence and extreme exhibited, qualified by some conservative groups as a bad example of social behavior for the young generations.

Spain

The film was not released in Spain until November 27, 1975, in the original version with subtitles in arthouse cinemas, theaters authorized in 1967 to screen films that censorship did not authorize to screen in commercial theaters, on the condition that they that it was in its original language and subtitled.

It was screened for the first time on April 24, 1975 at the XX Valladolid Film Festival (Seminci 1975). It had enormous expectations and a massive attendance of young university students from all over the country, forming huge queues for 24 hours to get a ticket, which sold out quickly. It was shown again at the closing of Seminci on April 27, 1975.

The film was very well received, running for an uninterrupted year in theaters. It was the third film with the highest number of viewers in Spain in 1975.

It was re-released with dubbing in Spanish, and already in commercial rooms, on March 7, 1980. Stanley Kubrick himself intervened in the dubbing, choosing who would dub the characters in the film. The dubbing was directed by Carlos Saura, translated by Vicente Molina Foix and was adjusted by the dubbing actor Víctor Agramunt. It was recorded and performed in 1979. Once again, the film was quite successful, also running for a long time on the billboard. It was re-released in 1982, 1984 and for the last time in 2009, in a limited way.

American censorship

The film was rated ≪X≫ upon its original release in the United States. Kubrick later voluntarily cut 30 seconds of the film for its re-release; it was then rated R and was re-released in the United States in 1973.

British retreat

In the UK, the film's sexual violence was considered extreme. Later, it was said to have inspired imitations. The press blamed the film's influence on an attack on a homeless man and on a rape in which the attackers sang "Singin'" for the film. in the Rain» —Singing in the Rain—. Kubrick asked Warner Bros. to withdraw the film from the United Kingdom, because at one point he found himself under a lot of pressure, even receiving threats of death towards him and his family.

Awards and nominations

Soundtrack

In the picture, Wendy Carlos in 1958 during a demonstration of stereo sound for a science project. The artist was the interpreter of most of the songs that sounded in the soundtrack of Kubrick's film.

The film's soundtrack comprises classical music and electronic music composed by Wendy Carlos —he appears in the credits at the time as Walter Carlos—.

The main theme is an electronic transcription of Henry Purcell's "Music on the Death of Queen Mary", composed in 1694, for Queen Mary's funeral procession through the streets of London to Westminster Abbey.

Although two excerpts from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" are heard during Alex's Biblical daydreams while reading the Bible in jail, this piece does not appear on the soundtrack album, nor does it appear in the end credits.

Track List

Premiere

Announcement of the film at the Colonial Theater in Pennsylvania

The film had its premiere on December 19, 1971 simultaneously in New York, in the United States, and Toronto, in Canada. Shortly after, on January 13 and February 2, 1972, it arrived in the United Kingdom and the entire United States, respectively. British newspapers quickly wrote about its supposed negative impact on young people, with particular attention on criminals imitating the character Alex, something called the copycat effect. Conservative forces protested against its showing in cinemas, to the point that due to the overcrowding of the tape with scenes of sex and violence, some newspapers refused to advertise it, such as The Detroit News, which in March published an article in which it exposed its rejection of the promotion of a "sick film industry that uses pornography and appeals to lasciviousness to increase its income". Despite the fact that in the United States it received an X rating - suitable for adults only - by the Motion Picture Assoc iation (MPA), in August Kubrick replaced approximately thirty seconds of footage with sexual content to get a new version rated R—for ages 17 and older unless accompanied by an adult. Several newspapers hid behind the rating. X to avoid publicity, so the MPA condemned the use of its system for such purposes, while defining it as an "example of a legitimate film".

In December 1971 the British Board of Film Classification approved its uncut release for UK cinemas, although with an emphasis on the extreme sexual violence shown. The phrase that was displayed on the posters was as follows: « The adventures of a young man whose main interests are rape, ultraviolence and Beethoven". class, the prosecutor referred to the film, suggesting that it had a "macabre" relevance to the case. Another case was the murder a year later of an elderly homeless man at the hands of a teenager, who pleaded guilty after telling a the police that his friends had told him about the tape and "beating up an old man like this". Kubrick defended his creation on the grounds that experts in the field found no relationship between it and the crimes to talk about the attitude of the media: "They tend to exploit the issue because it allows them to exhibit and discuss the so-called harmful things from a high position of moral superiority." the British society, and the director's wife, Christiane, stated that the family received threats and protested outside their home. Finally, and despite his defense, in 1973 Kubrick asked Warner Bros. for a nationwide withdrawal, without any explanation in this regard, although some versions state that he did it to protect both his life and that of his family, as well as that the police recommended it to him. In this way, its broadcast was prohibited, and even the London cinema Scala went into receivership in 1993 after losing a legal battle over its unauthorized screening. In 2000, shortly after Kubrick's death, the restriction was lifted, interrupting a period or twenty-seven years.

On the other hand, in Ireland it was banned on April 10, 1973, an action to which Warner Bros. decided not to appeal. Decades later, in December 1999, its premiere was announced for March 17, 2000, with a poster in which the terms "ultraviolence" and "rape" were deleted, and the chief censor explained that the "use of those words in the context of advertising would be offensive and inappropriate". In Singapore it was prohibited for more than thirty years, until in 2006 its presentation was raised with an M18 rating -for people over 18 years old-, although it was rejected Finally, in October 2011 it could be released in the Asian country, with an R21 classification —restricted to people over 21 years of age—, as part of the Perspectives Film Festival. Similarly, in South Africa it was prohibited under the apartheid regime for a period of thirteen years, until 1984, although it was screened before clandestinely at the Sun City casino. In Brazil, its broadcast was not allowed until 1978, with a version with black dots covering the genitals and breasts in the nude scenes, due to the military dictatorship in which the country was.

Likewise, the censorship of the film was extended to Spanish-speaking countries, as in the case of Argentina, where the restriction was not lifted until July 1985. In Spain, which at that time was under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, also It was banned for a time, which ended when in 1975 Warner Bros. contacted Carmelo Romero, director of the Valladolid International Film Week, to offer him the premiere of the film at the festival. A year earlier, the Directorate General de Cinematografía y Teatro had taken the film Jesus Christ Superstar to test public opinion before taking it to theaters, but Kubrick refused to allow his work to premiere in Valladolid, which at that time was a city with a large number of students and considered politically conservative. Despite this, Romero insisted and recounted in the book 50 years of the Valladolid International Film Week (1956-2005) : «I had a friend at Warner, so that I asked for help. He offered to go to London and ask Kubrick's permission in person, but we had to strategize well. I wrote a letter for him to take with him, in which he assured that it would be screened at the University of Valladolid, which apparently was to his liking, and with the image and sound conditions that he considered appropriate. We lied like scoundrels, but in the end he agreed, in exchange for a detailed series of instructions that, of course, we did not comply with". In this way, instead of at the university, the projections were held at the Teatro Calderón and at the Cinema Coca, and being a success, it quickly reached other screens in the country. Thus, some of its release dates worldwide were the following:

International premiere dates

Country Premiere date United States 19 December 1971 (New York) 2 February 1972 (general) Canada 19 December 1971 United Kingdom 13 January 1972 Western Germany 23 March 1972 Netherlands 20 April 1972 Denmark France 21 April 1972 Sweden 26 April 1972 Japan 29 April 1972 Australia 12 May 1972 Italy 23 August 1972 (Venice Festival) Belgium 15 September 1972 (Gante) Finland 27 October 1972 Greece 1 January 1973 Norway 12 April 1973 (Oslo) Uruguay 25 April 1973 Country Premiere date Mexico 22 January 1974 Portugal 29 November 1974 Spain 24 April 1975 (Seminci, Valladolid) 27 November 1975 (Madrid) 9 January 1976 (Sevilla) 7 March 1980 (doubted version in Spanish) Brazil 4 September 1978 Hong Kong 30 October 1980 South Africa September 1984 Argentina 25 July 1985 Turkey 15 March 1996 Iceland 27 August 1999 (Reykjavik Film Festival) Ireland 17 March 2000 Kazakhstan 18 March 2004 Czech Republic 11 January 2007 Slovakia 13 September 2007 Singapore 28 October 2011 (Perspectives Film Festival) Poland 3 October 2014 Taiwan 29 December 2017

Differences from the novel

Although the film is shot in a similar way to what happens in the novel, its message is different. For example, the epilogue contradicts the final chapter of the book, where the author shows the protagonist sitting down and contemplating marriage and parenthood. On his part, Kubrick was unaware of this twist in the fate of Alex, since he read the American version, in which the director of the publishing house W. W. Norton & amp; Company considered the ending to be "superfluous", as well as a "betrayal of the A Clockwork Orange story". Kubrick did not learn of the existence of another ending until four months after the opening. of the shoot, although once he met him he admitted that he would not have included it, even if he had known about it at the time. Thus, it seemed to him that such an ending did not fit into the general mood of the film.

One of the additions made is the scene of Alex's entry into prison, about which the director said: "It was a necessary addition because the prison sequence is compressed, compared to the novel, and one had to to have something to give enough weight to the idea that Alex was really locked up. The prison break routine, which is actually quite accurately depicted in the film, seemed to provide this necessary weight." In the same interview, he recounted that he also omitted a part where Alex commits murder while in prison, while also expressing that he invented "some useful storytelling ideas" and remodeled some of the scenes. One of the changes he made is nadsat jargon, about which realizing that the audience cannot be taught a new language in a short period of time, he left only the most striking words. On the other hand, in both the film and the novel, the narrator is Alex, and the events occur in the same order.

Many of the violent scenes narrated in the book were omitted from the film or softened, such as the rapes, which in the novel involve girls as young as ten, while in the film these are apparently adult women, or that in the ambush that Alex is ambushed, the drugos make use of a milk bottle instead of a chain. Another event that does not appear is the beating that the gang inflicts on a teacher that leaves a library, as well as its adventures in the Duke of New York cafeteria and the theft of a car and its subsequent throw into the water, for example. The visit to Alex by his parents when he is in prison, the aggression he receives from the police or some events during his treatment and after his release from prison. In the same way, while in the novel the group is dressed in black leggings, in the film they have white pants, sometimes the same time that in jail Alex's inmate number is different or and he does not find out about the death of his partner Georgie, nor does he read the book that Frank Alexander is writing, which has the same name as the novel, when he enters his house.

Burgess Attitude

Anthony Burgess in 1986

Anthony Burgess was negative about the film, to the point of hating it. The author described his novel as "mediocre" and "shallow dystopia", at the same time that he wrote it in a hurry because of desire, upon learning of a disappointing diagnosis, of leaving his family with some money. On the other hand, he was outraged because of the enormous number of works he created, most famously—and largely due to Kubrick's film version— it was precisely A Clockwork Orange. the secondary creator who is feeding a primary creator who is a great film director". the press finds out about these sad facts, they don't go to the director and ask him what he thinks about it, they go to the author."

His first impression of the film was unpleasant, even his wife and his agent wanted to leave the theater after the first ten minutes of screening, but the writer decided it would be unethical. In the end, he began to worry that the audience would misunderstand the novel's message and the film would be perceived as a "hymn to violence". Regarding the latter, both the film and the American version of the book, he argued: "There's not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation of the characters [...] But my publisher in New York saw my twenty-first chapter as a betrayal."

Also, in numerous articles and reviews, the author was forced to defend Kubrick's work and explain to the audience the original meaning he established in the novel. Burgess made it clear to the reader that accusing works of art of promoting violence is incongruous, since they are a reflection of life, and made an analogy between William Shakespeare and himself: "So he is responsible every time a young man he decides to kill his uncle and blames it on Hamlet. By that rule of thumb, Shakespeare is responsible for producing a film like King Lear". He also did not like that Kubrick emphasized improvisation, and in 1987 he expressed that the "strong visuality" prevented the director from correctly conveying the text, although he emphasized the correct selection of the melody. Later, he lampooned Kubrick's creation in a script he wrote for the musical production of the play, such that at the end of the performance, a character similar to the director appears on stage holding a trumpet, with which he performs the song "Singin' in the Rain". A manuscript titled "The Condition of the Clock" was found in the writer's archive in 2019, addressing issues of ambiguous perception of the novel's film adaptation.