A clockwork orange......am I missing something

artvanderlay

That's funny, I loved There Will Be Blood; PT Anderson is a great director who knows how to draw the audience in, even in silence. Even his worst movies have something going for them, because he is highly-skilled at what he does.



On the other hand I found Kill List to be utter ****, much like the rest of Ben Wheatley's films (especially High-Rise and Free Fire). I'm not even going to watch a movie with his name attached to it from now on: I know what to expect. I find the UK film mags and newspapers hype his movies a lot probably because he talks to them and he's English, one of their own. The Irish do it too: I'd rather lose a limb that sit through another Lenny Abrahamson film.



Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Greyfox

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Just a few days ago I watched One Cut Of The Dead. For the first 35 minutes or so, I was very indifferent to it - just seemed like a low-rent zombie film to me. But it completely transformed after that and shed a whole lot of new light on that first half hour, and I fell for it completely. If I’d left after 30 minutes I wouldn’t have any ability to comment on the film whatsoever to be frank..

Yes, this can happen all right, I've experienced this in other entertainment mediums too. The thing is a film not picking up after the first half hour is definitely more common and these days theres a huge amount of entertainment choice that you could pick instead. I don't want to take the risk of wasting another hour with so many great films, tv shows, games and books out there. You should only carry on if there is at least some aspect of the film that has you curious or impressed or hopeful that it will get better and if you don't feel this way the director has failed in his job. Most great films have a good opening as it's the most important part of the film. If you turn a film off half way you will have reasons why you felt it was not worth continuing with and as long as there sensible reasons it's fair game to express them

nlrkjos

Road-Hog wrote: »

Watched first half hour of this the other night for the first time and Had to give up after that.....couldn’t see the masterpiece that it’s protrayed as.....overly violent both sexually and physically and a warped if any kind of story line.....can see why it was banned all those years ago...am I alone with this view.....I will admit that I’m no major film buff but for a film that has such a high rating by a lot of critics I just couldn’t appreciate how anyone could regard this as a classic...?

there's a pair of us in it...and I've watched it all, twice!

Fysh

artvanderlay wrote: »

That's funny, I loved There Will Be Blood; PT Anderson is a great director who knows how to draw the audience in, even in silence. Even his worst movies have something going for them, because he is highly-skilled at what he does.


On the other hand I found Kill List to be utter ****, much like the rest of Ben Wheatley's films (especially High-Rise and Free Fire). I'm not even going to watch a movie with his name attached to it from now on: I know what to expect. I find the UK film mags and newspapers hype his movies a lot probably because he talks to them and he's English, one of their own. The Irish do it too: I'd rather lose a limb that sit through another Lenny Abrahamson film.



Different strokes for different folks I guess.

The bolded bits above apply to Kubrick as much as Anderson, IMO.

In terms of judging a film before it ends, I think there's a conflation of two things here.

You can't judge a film as a piece of art or entertainment without having seen the whole thing. You can judge what you see on whether it persuades you to stick with the remainder, though.

Take Takashi Miike's Audition. It's a 2 hour film that doesn't show its hand as to its core idea for a good hour or so (though the daft bastids who designed some of the DVD covers seem not to have noticed this and opted for a somewhat spoilery approach). If you give up on it half an hour in, you can't usefully comment on the whole beyond "it didn't engage me for the first x minutes" - which is fair enough in entertainment context, but irrelevant judging the whole as a piece of art.

Zeek12

weemcd wrote: »

You're not missing anything. I always found the film to be straight fúcking garbage.

"Yarbles!! Great bolshy yarblockos to you.
I'll meet you with chain or nozh or britva anytime, not having you aiming tolchocks at me reasonless.
Well, it stands to reason I won't have it."

Gwynplaine

I've tried to watch it a few times. Turned it off around 40 mins in. Just not for me.

TerrorFirmer

Think it's utterly stupid to suggest that you can't critique something unless you've sat through the full run-time. Doesn't mean you're objectively right obviously, but you're entitled to a valid opinion once you've sat through a decent portion of a film.

I can think of films that improve as they go on, but I'm not sure I can think of any film that's generally recognised as being terrible but magically turns a corner half way through to become a tour-de-force. I can think of hundreds of films that finish as they start and progress, i.e, awful.

Any film that relies on audience persistence/good will to reach a better final conclusion is failing on some level. Film's don't have to play their cards immediately obviously, but they should be compelling/engaging.

That's obviously completely different to personal tastes, eg. someone mentioned Kill List above, I really liked that film and though it was incredibly compelling, but I can see why some people wouldn't like it, but it's definitely a good film in that genre. In the same way I'm not a big fan of A Clockwork Orange either, but I do recognise it's a good film.

Johnmb

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Think it's utterly stupid to suggest that you can't critique something unless you've sat through the full run-time. Doesn't mean you're objectively right obviously, but you're entitled to a valid opinion once you've sat through a decent portion of a film.

You certainly can't critique a film unless you watched it! You can form an opinion on the bit you seen, and you can say that the bit you seen was good/crap/indifferent, but not the whole film. Especially if you only watched about 30 minutes of a 135 minute film. You didn't see almost 80% of the film, so there's no way you can critique the whole film. You can only form an opinion on the bit you seen, nothing more...

Ash.J.Williams

Road-Hog wrote: »

Watched first half hour of this the other night for the first time and Had to give up after that.....couldn’t see the masterpiece that it’s protrayed as.....overly violent both sexually and physically and a warped if any kind of story line.....can see why it was banned all those years ago...am I alone with this view.....I will admit that I’m no major film buff but for a film that has such a high rating by a lot of critics I just couldn’t appreciate how anyone could regard this as a classic...?

Go back to the 70s and watch it again

I think that it's a film of it's time and doesn't stand up that well.

prefer eyes wide shut even tho it had mixed reviews at the time.
.

two wheels good

Road-Hog wrote: »

Watched first half hour of this the other night for the first time and Had to give up after that.....couldn’t see the masterpiece that it’s protrayed as.....overly violent both sexually and physically and a warped if any kind of story line.....can see why it was banned all those years ago...am I alone with this view.....I will admit that I’m no major film buff but for a film that has such a high rating by a lot of critics I just couldn’t appreciate how anyone could regard this as a classic...?

I don't think it was banned in the UK. AFAIR due to allegedly copy-cat crimes and controversy Burgess or Kubrick withdrew the film.
It may well have been banned in Ireland of course but that's hardly representative.

I seem to remember being shocked by the violence too. But the music, the slang, the costumes - it blew me away when I first say it in a Paris cinema imagining I was being such a rebel. And Malcom McD is brilliant!

My impression is that many modern-day films are more explicit and the violence gratuitous yet somehow they're more acceptable.

Zulu

Two point to make:
1) To those saying you need to see the full movie... ...I assure you that you only need to see the first 10 mins of Police Academy 6: Mission to Moscow to establish (correctly) that it's a box of sh1t. And speaking of boxes of sh1t,


2) the book (Clockwork Orange) is a box of sh1t. It's literally unreadable, unless you like learning new languages, or constantly (and I mean constantly) flicking to the appendix to translate a word. Nadset? Me boll1x.

tricky D

Kubrick Exhibition was in San Francisco a few years back currently in Barcelona until March, then in London from mid April iirc.

Letter re Iirish censorship...

batgoat

Zulu wrote: »

Two point to make:
1) To those saying you need to see the full movie... ...I assure you that you only need to see the first 10 mins of Police Academy 6: Mission to Moscow to establish (correctly) that it's a box of sh1t. And speaking of boxes of sh1t,


2) the book (Clockwork Orange) is a box of sh1t. It's literally unreadable, unless you like learning new languages, or constantly (and I mean constantly) flicking to the appendix to translate a word. Nadset? Me boll1x.

I've read the book a few times, it becomes pretty intuitive after initially starting it. Would classify it as one of my favourite books of all time and believe it's on a few lists as a modern classic. :pac:

Fysh

Zulu wrote: »

Two point to make:
1) To those saying you need to see the full movie... ...I assure you that you only need to see the first 10 mins of Police Academy 6: Mission to Moscow to establish (correctly) that it's a box of sh1t. And speaking of boxes of sh1t,


2) the book (Clockwork Orange) is a box of sh1t. It's literally unreadable, unless you like learning new languages, or constantly (and I mean constantly) flicking to the appendix to translate a word. Nadset? Me boll1x.

You can say after ten minutes that it opened so badly you turned it off.

You can't state categorically that it didn't get better later, if you didn't watch it. But you can say you weren't willing to sit through it to check. Whether someone on the internet disagrees with you or not, you're the only person who gets to decide if a film is worth your time.

Let's just say we disagree re: the book. I found a lot of the slang weirdly intuitive and didn't bother with the glossary at the back because it's a faff.

branie2

Not so horrorshow, oh my brother

Arcade_Tryer

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I mean this as no insult or disrespect whatsoever as it’s a universal statement... but anybody who ever says ‘I turned it off after x minutes’, whatever the film, cannot comment on the film in any meaningful way.

Of course they can. People have different preferences and most people can understand after a half hour or so of watching a movie if it's to their tastes or not.

A Clockwork Orange can be a difficult movie for some people to watch due to its nature. Indeed any movie whereby the viewer's expectations are very high, such that they demand that the movie meets them, can be difficult to satisfy the viewer.

This nonsense about having to sit through a two hour movie to be able to fully appreciate one's enjoyment of it is absurd. Sure, if you are a critic, or movie fanatic, and wish to analyse the movie to death afterward for pay or for play, then ok. But not for the average viewer who wants to be entertained and simply has too many other options and things to be doing than sitting through movies they are not enjoying, for whatever reason.

Johnmb

Arcade_Tryer wrote: »

Of course they can. People have different preferences and most people can understand after a half hour or so of watching a movie if it's to their tastes or not.

A Clockwork Orange can be a difficult movie for some people to watch due to its nature. Indeed any movie whereby the viewer's expectations are very high, such that they demand that the movie meets them, can be difficult to satisfy the viewer.

This nonsense about having to sit through a two hour movie to be able to fully appreciate one's enjoyment of it is absurd. Sure, if you are a critic, or movie fanatic, and wish to analyse the movie to death afterward for pay or for play, then ok. But not for the average viewer who wants to be entertained and simply has too many other options and things to be doing than sitting through movies they are not enjoying, for whatever reason.

You are creating an argument that nobody is making to shoot down. Nobody has said that you can't form an opinion as to whether or not a film is for you within a relatively short period of time. Quite the opposite, many have specifically said that is all you can do.
You cannot comment on the quality of the film as a whole if you only watch about 20% of it. A film not being for you does not make it a bad film. There are many great films that weren't for me. I know they are great films because I still watched them. I could not make any claim as to whether they were good, bad, or indifferent had I stopped watching them after 20-30 minutes, I would just know that they weren't for me, but I'd have no idea if they were good or not. A Clockwork Orange actually fits into that category for me, as does Schindler's List. I'm sure there are others if I thought about it longer. They weren't for me, but they were good films, and worth watching (once, I wouldn't be looking to buy either on DVD for many more viewings).