Effects Debate

A clockwork orange

A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 darkly satirical scifi film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange. The film concerns Alex (Malcolm McDowell), a charismatic, psychopathic delinquent whose pleasures are classical music (especially Beethoven), rape, and Ultra-violence. He leads a small gang of thugs (Pete, Georgie, and Dim), whom he calls his droogs. The film tells the horrific crime spree of his gang, his capture, and attempted rehabilitation via a controversial psychological conditioning technique. Alex narrates most of the film in Nadsat, a fractured, contemporary adolescent argot comprising Slavic, English, and Cockney Rhyming slang.

This film was withdrawn by Kubrick himself as his family along with himself were getting too many death threats. It was only after his death that it was shown again in cinemas and put on DVD and VCR.

The British authorities considered the sexual violence extreme, furthermore, there occurred legal claims that the movie A Clockwork Orange had inspired true copycat behavior, as per press cuttings at the British Film Institute. In March 1972, at trial, the prosecutor accusing the fourteen-year-old-boy defendant of the manslaughter of a classmate, referred to A Clockwork Orange, telling the judge that the case had a macabre relevance to the film. The attacker, a Bletchly boy of sixteen, pleaded guilty after telling police that friends had told him of the film “and the beating up of an old boy like this one”; defence counsel told the trial “the link between this crime and sensational literature, particularly A Clockwork Orange, is established beyond reasonable doubt”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/european_football/article782393.ece

Three Spanish teenagers fascinated by the film Clockwork Orange burnt a homeless woman to death for kicks.

Popular belief was that those copycat attacks led Kubrick to withdraw the film from distribution in the United Kingdom, however, in a television documentary, made after his death, widow Christiane confirmed rumours that he withdrew A Clockwork Orange on police advice, after threats against him and family (the source of those threats are undiscussed).

After watching this film, it is shown why some people can be upset or offended by this film. we agree with certification to a certain extent but we do not agree with censoring as we believe that when you hit the age of 18 you should be sensible and mature enough not to be influenced by what you are witnessing.