By The Butcher
You love ’em, he hates ’em! The Butcher carves up your favourite films, and this week, he applies his sharpened cleaver to Stanley Kubrick’s controversial cult classic A Clockwork Orange. Shustritt!
Stanley Kubrick, 1928-1999
Oooooh, too soon? If there’s a sacred cow in the high falutin’ world of cinema, it’s that bearded, under-productive, pretentious, self-indulgent, “reclusive” bore, Stanley Kubrick. This is the tubby, misogynistic bully that you’re apparently not allowed to say a bad word about; and the guy whose work “speaks for itself.”
This was also the bloke so out of touch with, well, everything, that he actually put Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in the same film, and had them have sex with each other, something that the once-marrieds probably never did in real life. Like all of his films, that final “sexy” effort, Eyes Wide Shut, was a tedious, stultifying mess that needed a jolt of cinematic Viagra.
Though all of Stan’s flicks are grindingly, insufferably bad, one of his worst is 1971’s A Clockwork Orange. Following a bunch of silly looking blokes in white overalls, bowler hats, codpieces, and Doc Martens who like to pick on homeless drunks, single ladies, and elderly couples, this “controversial” flick (which has been banned in several countries…not enough, if you ask The Butcher) is supposedly about how the system crushes individuals, and strips the young of their humanity and sense of difference.
Really? It just looks like a bunch of dorks getting up to no good. Rape, assault, sex…all the sort of stuff that most directors get criticised for. Oh, but not Stan! When Stan does it, it’s “art”! Why? Because he uses classical music? Because he has a “cold” style eschewing traditional forms of action? Because he lived in England, even though he’s American? Because he had a beard? Don’t be fooled!
With flicks like A Clockwork Orange, Lolita, and Eyes Wide Shut, Stan gave himself up as a bit of a sleazy perve. No amount of classical music can hide the fact that the wildly overrated and ridiculously under-worked Stanley Kubrick is just like the rest of us…except with more bad films on his decidedly slim resume.
Want to read more from The Butcher? Check out his angry missives against Scarface, The Artist, Only God Forgives, One Battle After Another, Birdman, Lethal Weapon, Blazing Saddles, Strictly Ballroom, Donnie Darko, Psycho, 12 Years A Slave, Red Dog, The Wolf Of Wall Street, Breathless, Elizabeth, Miracle On 34th Street, The Full Monty, There Will Be Blood, Les Miserables, The King’s Speech, Picnic At Hanging Rock, The Magnificent Seven, Gone With The Wind, The Right Stuff, 81/2, Pulp Fiction, Easy Rider, The Shawshank Redemption, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Wizard Of Oz, Jaws, Black Swan, Gladiator, Chopper, I’m Not There, Interstellar, Marvel Studios and Citizen Kane.
