Mind vs. Movies – A Clockwork Orange

Posted by Brian Knight
September 23, 2007
Please excuse the brevity of this essay. I would have liked to add more on this topic, which is an important one to me, but the past week has been a little chaotic, preparing my stepson, who has lived with me for twelve years, to move to his father’s house in Wyoming.
While at Walmart a few days ago, buying supplies for my stepson’s going away party, I found a copy of Artie Lange’s Beer League. I’m a fan of Lange’s work on The Howard Stern Show, but I’ve passed up Beer League perhaps a dozen times. I just had a feeling it wasn’t going to be very good.
But Walmart has The Bargain Bin, and for $5 I was willing to take a chance on it.
I watched it yesterday, and while I did thoroughly enjoy it, it was nothing special. It was a good entertaining movie, but not a great movie.
I watched it a second time tonight, realized I’d had my fill of it, and put in A Clockwork Orange.
During the Walmart trip I also picked up a Box set of Beethoven CDs, which includes my all time favorite work of music, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Beethoven’s Ninth naturally puts me in the mood for A Clockwork Orange.
I’ve watched A Clockwork Orange more times than I can remember, and will never be tired of it. A Clockwork Orange is, in my humble opinion, a great movie, an entertaining, thoughtful film about sex and violence, crime and punishment, the difference between free will and mental slavery, and in its own weird way, the strength of the human spirit.
As much as I love the movie, it is nothing compared to the book written by Anthony Burgess. If you haven’t already, watch the movie A Clockwork Orange, then read the book. I offer A Clockwork Orange as absolute proof that even a great movie is no match for a finely crafted novel, fired to life by the powerful human imagination.
I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but sometimes we all need reminding. We all get lazy sometimes, and even writers and avid readers fall into the boob-tube trap. TV, video games, and computers are an easy out, and unfortunately, the modern standard for entertainment.Reading is harder than zoning out in front of the tube, but for those willing to do just a little bit of mental heavy lifting, the rewards are so much greater, and with a really good book, the heavy lifting is minimal.
Brian Knight

Related posts:

  1. An Open Mind
  2. Best Holiday Movies
  3. Autopsy of the Mind
  4. In which I explain the inner workings of my mind with the cunning use of puppets
  5. Goliath

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Comments
Comment by Anonymous on September 23, 2007 @ 7:06 am

Yes, yes! Late last year I read the novel, having seen the movie back in the seventies when it first came out. Loved the book, then ordered and watched a copy of the movie. Saw the subtle differences that sometimes enhanced with the visuals, yet also changed the images conjured up by one’s own mind to shift the meanings. Actually did a presentation for our writers group of a bit of reading (text on screen and audio) comparing it to the same bit of film clip of the scene. It was a good lesson in the values of the mediums.

susan @ spinning

Comment by Janet Berliner on September 23, 2007 @ 4:56 pm

Reading a book and seeing the movie, in whichever order, is the ultimate pleasure for me. –J.

Comment by Frank Wydra on September 23, 2007 @ 7:57 pm

The book, the movie have always been among my favorites. So much that one year my kids trekked through trash stores to find me an original rat-bitten rag poster. I treasure it.

And the point you make is almost always the case. I have difficulty thinking of a single good- emphasis–book that was bettered by the movie. There are poorly written books with imaginative plots that have been improved on the screen, but they are in the minority. Most of the time (Terms of Endearment comes to mind) they are diminished by the film makers.

Thanks for reminding all of us why the fading art of reading is so important and for using the best example I can think of to make your point.

Frank

Comment by John B. Rosenman on September 23, 2007 @ 11:03 pm

I think I’ll see the movie again (after many years) and then read CO (for the first time). Your enthusiasm is infectious.

The fading art of reading . . . Bradbury warned us about that, didn’t he?

Also, after many, many years, I’m re-reading Stranger in a Strange Land, this time the author’s longer version. Why wasn’t it ever made into a movie? Or maybe it shouldn’t be.

By the way, I grokked your essay.

Comment by Brian on September 24, 2007 @ 12:39 am

Susan, thanks for the comment. I do think that even a film that is one hundred percent true to its source material looses something on the screen. The imagination is the cleverest director.

Janet, it depends on the story, but I agree. I do like to spot the differences :)

Frank, that poster is quite an item, I imagine. I’m a little jealous :)

John, yes, Bradbury did warn us about that. Oh, and I grokked your comment ;)

Brian

Comment by Anthony Lapaglia on October 23, 2007 @ 6:41 am

Hello webmaster…Man i just love your blog, keep the cool posts comin..holy Tuesday

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