La naranja prohibida

This documentary is of note chiefly because it describes a situation in which very little of interest actually happened.

A film festival based in a Spanish university town wanted to screen A Clockwork Orange a few years after its release in the US. The film was generally banned from exhibition in Franco's Spain, but because of a push towards reducing censorship, the authorities allowed it. Festival-goers were very excited and stood in line to buy tickets for hours and hours. After seeing the movie, they reported that they liked it and were glad they'd had a chance to see it. That's it.

Surely a few people died in the rioting that followed the screening of such an incendiary film? Surely the Spanish government changed its mind and sent in tanks to prevent the exhibition? Surely the film festival's coordinators were jailed, their careers ruined, and their legs crippled by repeated beatings? No, no, and no.

A Clockwork Orange created a seismic cultural wave around the globe. There's a fascinating documentary to be made about its impact, but this damp and largely pointless tale isn't the one.

This film sets up a strawman and absurd premise. In fact Clockwork was also banned in Easter European socialist and communist countries as well. Banned in Poland, Hungary, USSR, Bulgaria, Romania. Also banned in Japan, Ireland, Singapore.

It was NOT the general nihilism or a political impetration of that which cased the bans, it was a) the celebratory graphic rape of the Dutch girl while the rapists sung "Singing in the Rain" and b) several direct copycat crimes copying the "ultra violence" down the actual assult in the film and the costumes.

This is a time when LIBERAL societies as well as conservatives blamed, rightly or wrongly, severe increasing graphic violence in film, TV and other entertainment for violence in the real world. In the US, DEMOCRAT Al Gore and his wife made "offensive" and "violent" lyrics in songs, especially African American Rap songs their target, calling for bans.

This documentary is laughably in a bubble, making this about Franco and the church of Spain when it was a worldwide phenomena.

Burgress (the author of the novel "clockwork) and Kubrick (the film adaptor) delayed or reduced release in the UK itself due to some sensational copycat crimes.

If you thought this movie would be a blast for because of the Christian/Fascist/ArtHouse/Clockwork tensions brought to light by this historical document, you were wrong, guys... Every side of that "crazy" story is so trivial that the final sum could never result in an epic tale!... ...The mishaps narrated and the characters involved are cute though.

The documentary on the attempts to screen A Clockwork Orange in Spain in 1971 under Franco is VERY VERY INTERESTING.

Oddly, many of the young people were not only disturbed by it, but didn't think it could be made today.

But one older man said, "Wrongness isn't erased by removing the reflection of something that is wrong." It was a film of its time about a time by a man of its time.

I, too, lived in and through that time. I doubt that many of those who criticise, either the film or this documentary, did. Chaplin's The Great Dictator would resonate MUCH more strongly with those who lived during WWII than those millennials who probably don't even know the century in which it was fought. Today is not THEN. Stop judging THEN by the standards of TODAY. Perfect knowledge and perfect perspective do not exist.

Many of the themes in the film foreshadowed the racial violence that happened in the 1990s and later, perhaps even the rise of violence and neo-fascism in the Republican Party.

The film has as a theme the unchecked prevalence of violence in society by self-satisfied mobs of those who feel that the violence they inflict is justified.

The film does not glorify violence. It is a reflection of the people and the society of the time, particularly in England. Except for some subversive political parties, we have, for the most part, moved forward. Not completely, not perfectly. But we humans, are, for the most part, a work in progress.

Don't shoot the mirror; don't shoot the messenger.

I 'loved' this movie for all the reasons a young man might.

And just love most all of Stan's movies.

But, I remember the controversy of the day, on the release and aftermath, and subsequent consequences that were accommodated by groups like Skinhead, punks etc, {if anyone remembers 1979 when the "Warriors come out to playeeeee!!")

I remember that Stan even asked Warner to withdraw the movie himself, Clockwork Orange was pulled from UK cinemas in 1973 and not officially seen in the UK again for over 25 years was down to Stan.

This is just money grab BS doco.