Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange - Based on the Novel By Anthony Burgess
Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1972), published by Abelard-Schuman in New York, is a film companion volume containing the complete final shooting script alongside production stills from Kubrick's controversial film. It is not a novelization and should not be read as one: the text is Kubrick's own screenplay, adapted from the truncated American edition of Burgess's novel, which lacks the concluding chapter present in the British first edition.
Kubrick's film, released in 1971 and starring Malcolm McDowell as Alex, became one of the most debated works in cinema history almost immediately upon release. Its formal elegance and its refusal to moralize over scenes of extreme violence generated accusations that the film aestheticized brutality. In Britain, Kubrick eventually authorized its withdrawal from distribution following threats against his family, and it remained effectively banned there until after his death in 1999. The film's influence on visual culture, fashion, and subsequent science fiction cinema proved enormous regardless.
This volume offers primary material for understanding how Kubrick translated the novel's central preoccupations: the Ludovico Technique appears on screen as a medical spectacle, Alex strapped in a chair with eyes forced open, his conditioning rendered as a problem of physiology rather than philosophy. The screenplay documents choices Kubrick made and those he set aside.
A Ballantine paperback edition preceded the hardcover by several months. The hardcover is considerably scarcer, particularly in fine condition.
Hardcover. First Hardcover Edition, First Printing. Octavo, cloth binding. New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1972. #11222.
Fine in fine dust jacket.
Kubrick's film, released in 1971 and starring Malcolm McDowell as Alex, became one of the most debated works in cinema history almost immediately upon release. Its formal elegance and its refusal to moralize over scenes of extreme violence generated accusations that the film aestheticized brutality. In Britain, Kubrick eventually authorized its withdrawal from distribution following threats against his family, and it remained effectively banned there until after his death in 1999. The film's influence on visual culture, fashion, and subsequent science fiction cinema proved enormous regardless.
This volume offers primary material for understanding how Kubrick translated the novel's central preoccupations: the Ludovico Technique appears on screen as a medical spectacle, Alex strapped in a chair with eyes forced open, his conditioning rendered as a problem of physiology rather than philosophy. The screenplay documents choices Kubrick made and those he set aside.
A Ballantine paperback edition preceded the hardcover by several months. The hardcover is considerably scarcer, particularly in fine condition.
Hardcover. First Hardcover Edition, First Printing. Octavo, cloth binding. New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1972. #11222.
Fine in fine dust jacket.