A Clockwork Orange (the movie)

[AniamL]

Don't read this if you haven't seen the movie. Go watch it and come back.


I watched this movie a few months ago (still consider it one of the most well-produced movies I've ever seen, although the plot is kind of disturbing) and have been holding this question for an intelligent audience. Anyway, I was watching it with 10 or 12 schoolmates, and at the end of the movie, when Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was played, just before the main character jumps out the window, I and two other people watching left the room with our hands plugging our ears... while the rest of the kids looked at us strangely. My ears were ringing and I felt dizzy... my brain was buzzing and I was very uncomfortable, and apparently the other two kids felt the same way. There was something about the song that drove us as crazy as it did the main character. Were we just so into the movie that we took the role of the main character, or did the director actually superimpose a high-pitched shrieking noise on the Ninth and only we, the musicians, noticed it? Hopefully one of you has seen the movie, because this has been bugging me.

[ramonesfan]

RE: A Clockwork Orange (the movie)

I haven't seen the movie but you just made me want to.

[jazzmosis]

RE: A Clockwork Orange (the movie)

Maybe you read too much into movies. I'm in a Film major and much of the time, we destroy movies to the point that there's just no way a director was trying for all these things at once.

[AniamL]

Then what would be the logical conclusion for me having to get up because my ears were in agony?

[jazzmosis]

Could be that you just thought you were in agony, so you left. Or maybe you didn't like the song. It just seems unlikely that you "became" the character.

More than likely, you just wanted to feel like you were in agony and that you were more into the movie then you actually were - so you consciously got out of your seat and left. There's no way you slipped into some hypnotic trance where you became a fictional movie character.

[AniamL]

Well "not liking the song" is immediately eliminated because, well, it's played throughout the movie, it's classical, and its Beethoven. And your opinion doesn't really make any sense to me. I wanted to be in the movie so much that I consciously got up? That seems like an equally or more improbable psychological step. And like I said, a few other people in the room followed me, though I didn't immediately cite the reason I left the room. Your explanation doesn't seem logical to me.

Also, though I worded it poorly in my first post (my fault), I wasn't adamantly suggesting that I in fact took the role of the main character. It was just a counter-point I threw in there that was intended to introduce discussion. I probably should reversed the order of the clauses in that sentence.

[zildjian133]

Theres nothing superimposed its all psychological.

[jazzmosis]

Fair enough - If you didn't actually think you became the character, then fine.

Come to think of it, my last post really wasn't all that logical. However, it still seems unlikely that you would be so into the movie that the music would bother you. Considering how often the music is played throughout all of Clockwork Orange, wouldn't your ears be ringing every time, instead of just at the end when the character leaps out the window?

[Moogy]

Suicide is your only option.