To this day it’s hard to imagine and accept the fact that A Clockwork Orange was released in 1971. Doesn’t that just seem so unbelievably distant? I mean the Beatles were still together in 1971. Think about that. In the same year the Beatles were still making music A Clockwork Orange came out? It just doesn’t make sense.
When Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange was released in December, 1971, it generated controversy, as well as acclaim. Though the film received a rating of “X” in the US, meaning no one under the age of 17 could be admitted, the film still garnered a “Best Picture” nomination at the Academy Awards and had extremely positive notices, like this one from the New York Times.
In the review, Vincent Canby noted that while he thought 2001 was, in spirit, an American film, ACO was much more “an essentially British nightmare…in its attentions to caste, manners, accents and the state of mind created by a kind of weary socialism.”
During the height of this controversy, Burgess, author of the novel, and Malcolm McDowell, the film’s star, appeared on a British television program to discuss the film along with film historian William Everson.
Here it is:
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