In 1988, a German adaptation of A Clockwork Orange at the intimate theatre of Bad Godesberg featured a musical score by the German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen which, combined with orchestral clips of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and "other dirty melodies" (so stated by the subtitle), was released on the album Ein kleines bisschen Horrorschau. The track Hier kommt Alex became one of the band's signature songs.
Subtitle A Clockwork Orange
Warner Home Video's Blu-ray of A Clockwork Orange nails the transfer at an in-your-face 1:66 aspect ratio, and looks exactly, exactly as I remember it at a press screening in December of 1971. The high-key lighting of some interiors and the please-back-off-another-foot close-ups of pink 'n' white pimply faces grinning at us are dead-on accurate. Yep, those flicker frames that too closely resembled interesting sex are still missing from the Keystone Kops afternoon threesome in Alex's bedroom. This version is rated "R". Dolby and DTS tracks are here, along with audio and subtitles in English, French and Spanish. This time around Kubrick goes for selected needle-drop music by Wendy Carlos, Beethoven and Singin' in the Rain sung by Gene Kelly. That's probably another factor about A Clockwork Orange that initially burned me -- using that song to make Alex's ritualized rape even more outrageous. I was a huge fan of that musical in 1971, so Kubrick was in a way giving us complacent film fans the Ludovico Treatment, too!
Godard must be a whole world in himself. How is it to work with such allusive and poetic dialogues and narrations? Subtitling Histoire(s) du cinÃma sounds as the most epic work of a subtitler ever. How did you proceeded with that film?
Do you think the combination of the Parasite hit and the availability of foreign films in VOD platforms could change the mindset of American viewers in terms of being open to watch movies with subtitles?
While McDowell came up with the name Alex DeLarge, it's possible he conjured the name from a solitary passage in the novel in which Alex refers to himself in the third person as "Alex The Large." However, in a closed-caption subtitle and several newspaper articles seen near the end of the film, Alex's last name is shown to be Burgess.
Isaac Julien directed this excellent British documentary (1996) about the psychiatrist and theorist who wrote about colonial oppression and revolution. In English and subtitled French. 52 min. (JR) Read more
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