-- Opening image of ACO flips last image of 2001, as 2001 flips
ending of DR. STRANGELOVE.
Death ==> Dawn
StarChild ==> Evil Teenager
-- It is Alex's parents who understand him the least.
(Z.R.)
-- The bodybuilder is played by David Prowse, who was also Darth
Vader in STAR WARS.
NIETZSCHE STILL IN THE BACKGROUND
-- Here is what Alex thinks while he is listening to Beethoven's 9th
Symphony: "It was like a bird of rarest spun heaven metal. Like
silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense. It was
gorgeousness and gorgeosity..."
I have found Nietzsche's HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN book (tr. Marion
Faber, Univ. of Nebraska Press), and here is a quote from page 106.
(NOTE: this book was written in the late 1870s). "At a certain place
in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, for example, he [the free spirit]
might feel that he is floating above the earth in a starry dome, with
the dream of immortality in his heart; all the stars seem to glimmer
around him, and the earth seems to sink ever deeper downwards . . . "
(Z.R.)
CLOCKWORK ORANGE FILMBOOK
When ACO was released, Stanley Kubrick published a book version of
the film. It consists of a scene by scene series of black and
white stills with the dialog printed underneath. To my knowledge
this is the first and last time that Kubrick did this. . . .
I found it odd that a director who has such a perfect grasp of the
medium of cinema would produce such a non-cinematic version of his
work . . . devoid of the colour, music, pacing, and drama of the
original. The book presents a flat, cartoon version of the film.
Here is the preface to the book, written by Kubrick on May 22,
1972:
I have always wondered if there might be a more meaningful
way to present a book about a film. To make, as it were,
a complete, graphic representation of the film, cut by cut,
with the dialogue printed in the proper place in relation
to the cuts, so that within the limits of still-photographs
and words, an accurate (and I hope interesting) record of
a film might be available to anyone who had a bit more curiosity
than just knowing what happened in the last reel. This book
represents that attempt. If there are inaccuracies then they
have escaped the endless chekcing and re-checking of myself
and my assistants, Andros Epaminondas and Margaret Adams.
I have similar "film books" of a couple of Hitcock's films, but
these seem like odd artifacts of a pre-VCR society. Is there still
a market for this kind of publication in this adge of interactive
CD-ROMs and readily available video-tape versions of any film
you'd care to own? I have always had the idea of producing an
annotated 2001 in a book or CD-ROM format with all available
production notes, special effects explanations, trivia, analysis,
etc. I just don't know if the market for this kind of thing exists
anymore . . .
(J.H.T.)
Back to Table of Contents.