Malcolm McDowell talks about A Clockwork Orange and Stanley Kubrick | BFI
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- Опубліковано 6 жов 2024
- ‘The only movie about what the modern world really means’ - Luis Buñuel.
Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ decline-of-civilisation novel remains a chilling, thrilling and unsettling cinematic vision of nihilistic violence and social control. It was so controversial upon its release that it was withdrawn by Kubrick himself, and not seen again in the UK until after his death in 1999. Set in a flamboyantly stylised near-future where gangs of disenfranchised teenagers indulge in narcotic cocktails and revel in acts of ‘ultraviolence’, the film centres on Alex (McDowell) and his band of droogs. With A Clockwork Orange Kubrick was striving to deconstruct classic Hollywood narratives and create a cinema that behaved like music - in doing so he created a new, viscerally disturbing mode of storytelling.
Here the film's star, Malcolm McDowell, talks about making the film and his close bond with its director.
Watch a longer conversation with McDowell on his whole career: • Malcolm McDowell in co...
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His performance in that film is iconic and legendary, one of cinema's unforgettable anti-heros
Just like you
Alex is in no way whatsoever an anti hero
@@kiaandavids755 the definition of antihero is: a main character in a story who lacks conventional heroic qualities and attributes such as idealism, and morality.
@@matthewr7570 you’ve missed the point of the film if at any point you are trying to root for alex. Alex is a completely different entity in comparison with Travis Bickle.
@@matthewr7570 definitely an antagonist to literally everything in his surroundings. Travis is an antihero because he’s a bad person, but you want him to kill Sport to save Iris. Alex has no other goal other than pure destruction. He doesn’t have a single positive motif in anything he does.
I was 17, and had read the book a couple months before the movie came out. I didn't know there was a movie, so when it came out I told a friend, we have to go see this movie. It was so great and different , and my friend , who didn't have any idea before seeing the movie , was stunned too. This movie is still futuristic, and totally original. My favorite movie.
Lol, I went to a Christian High School and just like you, My cousin gave me the book .. but the movie came out and being under age we snuck in .. hahaha. I think I got a C , but did end up reading Anthony Burges book with the Russian glossary…. What at time , I miss the 70’s …. Stay Strong
May he live long and healthy, he is phenomenal!
Michael Tarn (Pete) is doing fine. He was the only Droog who was actually a teenager.
No he's not. David Prowse and Michael Tarn are still alive
As is Georgie and Joe the lodger
what!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????????
@@AshaNimo1 david prowse.... not very alive anymore...
It wasn't that "A Clockwork Orange" was so violent because it wasn't compared to other movies, it was the wantonness of the violence, the sadistic pleasure and nonchalance with which the characters, especially Alex DeLarge engaged in the violence that makes the movie unique. He rapes a woman in a home invasion with those grotesque masks as if he's having the time of his life, it's such fun. He beats up an old man in the tunnel with wanton glee. It's the way the violence was played out as if it was not just perfectly normal but such satisfying fun and pleasure to rape, assault and maim with utter gleeful abandon. This is what made the movie such a controversy and gave it an enduring allegiance by fans because that level of wanton, sadistic glee has never really been achieved in any other movie.
Everyone imitates Tony Montana in Scaeface, I always imitated Alex in A Clockwork Orange. Malcom's performance was epic and iconic.
I’ve never seen Scaeface before but whenever you have time, you should watch Scarface.
I think mcdowell took personally his contribution of the "singing in the rain " scene because he chose the song and dance to introduce the home invasion. He came up with the idea. I dont think he felt appreciation of what he brought to the movie ( he has his cornea scratched during filming multiple takes of the theatre scene ) so he probably felt used up from what he probably feels is now an unbeatable performance.
hope that a clockwork orange gets a 4K release this year for its almost 50th anniversary love it and it is one of my favourite movies and great video with Malcolm McDowell
geez can this interviewer show some respect? He is giving such sass back to Malcolm show some praise for this guy and his legendary performer!
Malcolm hates being praised in interviews.
McDowell will be remembered for two things:
1. Working with Stanley Kubrick as the star of "A Clockwork Orange"
2. Spending over half a century complaining about working with Stanley Kubrick as the star of "A Clockwork Orange"
TheStockwell......Donut....The interviews he faces spotlight A Clockwork Orange. This interview is about him and Clockwork. What else would you expect him to reiterate. He is not the first actor to speak of Kubrick as a hard task master.
@@mazza4190 True, but McDowell has made it lifestyle to keep repeating - and expanding on - his "Stanley was mean to me!" stories. It was fascinating for the first three decades, but now it's getting annoying and sad.
It's an epic tragedy, of course, that Kubrick didn't call li'l Malcolm on his birthday or hide a coin in his plum pudding each Christmas, but it's not as if Kubrick was his father - or promised to be. Yet, every time McDowell talks about Clockwork, it's ten percent "Kubrick was, of course, a genius" and ninety percent "I was expecting we'd be best friends for life - and he let me down!" You don't hear Dullea, Collins, O'Neal, Nicholson, or the cast of "Full Metal Jacket" whimpering, decade after decade, so MUCH about betrayal or whatever.
At this point, in this interview, McDowell is telling us how HE needed to make the film "watchable for an audience and find somewhere - which is rare in a Kubrick movie - someone who is sympathetic in any shape or form." I'm happy he made the film watchable, of course, by creating a sympathetic character. Bless him. But, um, wasn't that his job? To do that "acting thing" he was paid to do?
As a side note, it might be helpful at this point for McDowell to learn it's pronounced KOO-Brick, not CUE-brick.
Now, with Kubrick gone, McDowell is probably going to keep nursing and building on his hurt - and telling us all about it. But, it's as the old saying goes: Hell hath no fury like an emotionally needy actor who feels wronged by an undisputed cinematic genius.
@@TheStockwell I don't know his emotional content. I had read that Kubrick wasn't really up for making the film. I also read Burgess wasn't impressed with the adaptation. I cannot give you further. I would not be surprised if McDowell had suffered in his career taking the role. I would also suggest his first films did not pay him a fortune because they were outside the norm. IF...O' Lucky Man and Clockwork will not have made him a lot of money but what he did on the screen was edgy and convincing. He put in brilliant performances throughout all three of those films. A far cry from the big money of today, "what will you do with the big, big money" I appreciate him for being part of the adaptation that is now becoming a reality here in the U.K. I did not bother with the interview through to the end simply because neither Kubrick nor Burgess can reply or comment. His body of work for a young Northerner from the U.K. isn't great but their are some real gems of British cinema. Maybe an interview about his career without a mention of Clockwork would be appreciated. IF... is still one of my favourite films and A Clockwork Orange will always have a special place in my memories. Not really bothered about performers. KOO-brick, really? Keep the side note mate.being a Northerner you should here how much bastardization of the common English language goes on. My name is Mazur people insist on calling my name Mazza. Actually pronounced Maz-ool. Or so I have been told by Polish people. Such is life.
“If”
Only actors like Douglas, Nicholson, Cruise "survived" after Kubrick... Cause they were already stars...
For me - still the most radical and daring film to ever find its way into cinemas, whether it be for a mainstream or cult audience. Full of humour, but still, very, very realistically worrying.
What a brilliant actor. And he seems such a lovely guy too.
Clockwork Orange was an amazing film, with great acting, writing and directing.
The masterpiece film spoken about by the man that helped make it a masterpiece
He is such an incredible actor! So talented! It has been a pleasure watching him!
Read the book when I was a punk teen. Then the movie came out in my 20's. Malcolm made this all work so well because he used the book and narration to make it come alive. I believe he is at least a responsible for the success of clockwork as Kubrick was. They took Burgess Frankenstein and added the spark that brought it to life.
It's interesting that you bring up Frankenstein, as Burgess himself said:"A Clockwork Orange gives the message thats the opposite of Frankenstein. The message is that it's just as much a sin to unmake a monster, as it is to create one."
This man's talents were never completely utilized
I couldn't get enough of Malcolm McDowell
I've seen Malcolm McDowell at least three times in my life, I even saw him in a public restroom at one of the conventions he attended
@Raymond Pritchard of course he was
Good job he's so charismatic, because that interviewer is a total vacuum
INTERVIEW ALL RIGHT!?
TRY THE QUESTIONS
VERY NICE QUESTIONS, SIR.
Good Job Malcolm! There will be not another performance of supernatural gifts like yours for another 100 years, not until the true zeitgeist of our era, that you have so masterly portrayed and anticipated, is over again. May you live a long life my friend, with happiness and health.
McDowell is a legend
Happy 50th Anniversary for A Clockwork Orange. 👏🏻
Great performance, indeed. "The only movie about what the modern world really means"- Luis Buñuel. One could say that about a few Buñuel films as well. Thanks. !
he is going to talk about this movie till the end of time...I love to here him talk...his eyes and voce have not changed.
It's almost impossible to imagine an interviewer more inept or out of his depth than this.
he asks the question, then shuts up and lets the guest talk. That's a good thing.
@@uncletony6210 HE's total crap
@@rODIUMuk why?
So terrible!!!! Looking at his watch, poor listening skills, seemed bored…I admire this actor more keeping his enthusiasm next to this douche!!
Wow…!!!! And I wrote that comment before I got to the 17 min mark. Who is he? Totally terrible interviewer
A true cinematic legend
To this day, every time I pour someone a glass of red, I exclaim ‘TRY THE WINE’
And then when I top them up, ‘Have another glahss’..
Malcolms a treasure to humanity, i always wanted to get a beer n shoot some pool with him. Just chill n shoot the shit.. But what ive always loved about our friend and humble narrator o my brothers was he was a normal lookin kid. Not some big bad muscle man bar room smasher, he didnt need any of that cow.. He used intelligence, cold calculating planning and cunning as his weapon along with real horrorshow skills with the cutthroat britva... I saw Acwo when i was 13 totally by accident getting it from my public "biblio" library and it CHANGED my life instantly and as a kid it went right over my head but i knew for some reason i loved this film and story after viewing it another million times over the course of my life and READ the novel and listened to the audiobook which is done VERY VERY WELL whoever does the audiobook does all the characters perfectly.. a brilliant story and kinda becoming quite relevant in our own dystopia we got goin on here in shitty 202-what ever the fuck it is now.. like it matters anymore right-right droogs? 😂
Malcolm McDowell is my favorite actor.
Mr McDowell was iconic in this film and in Gangster 1 he was epic too
I’m surprised that he was surprised that the audience at the Manhattan screening sat in silence through the whole movie.
There was plenty of violence in Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch,” but it was not nearly as intentionally revolting as in “Clockwork Orange.”
And that’s not meant as a criticism of Kubrick who made an arguably amazing film.
But street crime back then in NYC and other urban areas had become more prevalent and frightening, so it’s not surprising that no one laughed while watching the movie.
I didn’t see “Clockwork Orange” until the late seventies in a second-run theater.
The audience, which was mostly all male and working class, didn’t laugh or talk during the movie either.
The only vibe I picked up that night was kind of mean.
When you get down to it, and if you bypass all the intellectual discussion, it’s a relentlessly violent movie about violence in modern society and the inability on the part of government to deal with it.
And that’s why it got an X rating when it first came out.
Great actor. And he was wonderful too in Inhabited. Hugs from Spain.
When you consider the year “Clockwork Orange” was produced it broke all boundaries, a revolutionary film to which it still gets better every time I watch it!
The "singing in the rain" bit is what ultimately establishes his absolute menacing psychopathy. Its funny he see's it as somehow softening the edges of the brutal r^pe and murder.
Winner of the "Most Peculiar Nose In Showbiz" prise! I love him. Really should do King Lear, he's at the precisely right age and energy.
Malcolm just an awesome actor !
One of the few well deserved large egos on earth. I truely do not believe a single actor outside perhaps Daniel Day Lewis could have brought that character to life in that so very Kubrick manner.
Can’t they ever talk about If....?
It's not a movie u would think you could watch over and over but it is. Its retrofuturistic
McDowell will be remebered for 3 things
Dr. Monty: from Bo3 zombies
Alex: clockwork orange
Micheal Myers therapist
@Cameron Farrelly , that's exactly what I wanted to say. God bless the Enclave! God bless America!
Dr. Sam Loomis***
My Dad introduced me to Malcolm with Blue Thunder when I was about 6. I've been a fan ever since. I'm 25 now. He had many great roles. One of my all-time favorite actors.
I did see If... years later, after Clockwork Orange, and thought it would have done well if distributed properly, like The Graduate. In those years, the 1970s, we watched these movies in failing cinemas, often at midnight movies.
I felt so sorry for Malcolm Mcdowell doing that film.s Especially when I read what he had to go through during the Ludivico therapy scenes. However McDowell's own physical torture during the scenes added something to the film.
Dr Monty.......
Its him 😁
@@phazebeast7373 Yeh but hes wearing a blue scarf wtf??? Treyarch are even putting spoilers in other companies video
@@wutang-dan3489 hahah !! Blue scarf means he might be returning in bo5 😂
Clockwork Orange is why Dr.Monty turned out to be evil
Danny Torrance and his mother was very sympathetic! :)
He has the best voice in the world!
After Clockwork Orange, Malcolm couldn't make any other movie as good as that Kubrick's film, when he dies, Hollywood will know they had lost a great cinema legend.
sebastian alegria The list of movies as good is fairly small so there’s no shame in that.
I mean who has made a movie better than that or on the same level tho lol - not many
I mean no disrespect to Mr. McDowell, because he is a fine actor and I LOVE his work in A Clockwork Orange but, is he inebriated in this interview?
I just now figured this out; McDowell does the voice of John Henry Eden on Fallout 3.
@@tomvaqs doesn't everyone?
EDIT: And you're lucky I knew what you meant.
Always healthy Sir. McDowell :)
I didn't realize he was a SIR ,I always thought he thought being a SIR was BULL 🐂 SHIT!!!!!!!!!!
love the movie!!! love McDowell's performance in it!!!!
Now in my 70’s and the movie just came to me, I looked up Malcom McDowell as he was so charismatic in that movie. Good the see how he has aged, as have I but must be tired of having the movie rehashed over and over.
This movie is sick, perverted, violent, and sadistic set to the tune of classical music and "Singing in the Rain." I think you can turn this sick, perverted, violent, and sadistic movie into a musical along with a live orchestra. It would be a hit because we live in a sick, perverted, violent, and sadistic society. Art imitates life and life imitates art.
The 'right-on' politically correct interviewer takes himself far too seriously and desperately needs a sense of humour and something even resembling a personality. Malcolm was pulling his leg and it went completely over his head.
Yeah he really sucks. Good think McDowell carried 97% of the 22 minutes here.
FOOD ALRIGHT? TRY THE WINE! HAHAHAHAHA I JUST SHOT BEER OUTTA MY FUCKING FACE HAHAHAHAHA I Truly Love Malcolm And That's One Of My Favorite Lines From The Whole Movie 👍👍
Malcome is so exuberant, I've never seen him like this
My favorite movie ever!!!
Anyone know where I can contact Malcolm? I'd love to get my bowler signed.
"He doesn't do sympathetic characters that well..."
Kirk Douglas in "Paths of Glory?"
God bless, Malcolm McDowell . If, a must see.
Stanley Kubrick was having alot of problems finding an actor to star in A Clockwork Orange, untill one day he went to see IF, and thought to himself when he saw McDowell:"Yup. I have found Alex!"
Coolest damn thing I had ever scene...Masterpiece
He was put through hell making that movie. You couldn't put an actor through shit like that anymore, you would have law suits.
The response to the film in New York sounds like the response to The exorcist dead silence. Aparently its producer said "thats it, were dead" BUT there was light at the end of the tunnel because this is reguarded as a cult classic, controvercial films seem to take a long time for the public to digest
Talking shit about actor McDowell. I’ve seen many films that I cannot remember the title of the films. So many. But he was also great in Cat People with Natasha Kinski and in a film about a school were the pupils made war against the teachers. I don’t remember the name of the movie. A great chiose of actor what showed the genius of Kubrick. And to let a mostly comic actor sich as Ryan O’Neal to play the leading part in Barry Lyndon was a choise that only a genius such as Kubrick could make.
He is still cute. Who hadn't a crush on him;
He’s a very beautiful man.
Ye now he's a dilf!
Exactly!
McDowell is about one of the few actors still alive from that film.
No disrespect to Anthony Hopkins but I wish they would've let Malcolm be Hannibal Lectur in silence of the lambs.
His wife Kelley is a lucky woman maybe the luckiest woman in the world
I'm an American, of Irish, Scottish, and Welsh ancestry, but I love the northern English accent. Not so much the BBC.
I love the story at 7:57
Shoulda been a Clockwork Orange 2. These days there woulda been.
No I’m glad they kept it just the one film
Well in the book version in the last chapter Alex amends his life, but its very short, and no-one would want to watch it lol
Yes. There was an epilogue where Alex finally grows out of his criminal ways, he meets one of the droogs who's now married with a stable job, and the alternate reality authorities have now gotten rid of most of hoodlum gangs and the streets are now safe. Neither McDowell nor Kubrick liked the epilogue. Both thought it was stupid so they chose not to include it in the film. Kubrick:"A publisher pushed Burgess to include the epilogue so the book would end on a more positive note." McDowell:"The epilogue was stupid! It had Alex working in a bank or something."
I do believe there is subconscious guilt from Alex subtly manifested in the scenes between his release and attempt at suicide. The whole chain of events feel like Alex is making him self available to the punishment handed out to him, almost as if he is embracing society’s retribution against him. Most noticeably, when he’s reciting singing in the rain in the bath. On the face of it he’s happily re visiting the assault, but he must be aware that this could trigger the writer to realise who Alex actually is. And therefor sign his own death warren. It might appear accidental, but I think deep down Alex at least believed in an eye for eye, even if that meant at his own expense.
Interesting. I too have felt Alex, in the movie, acts as if he sort of embraces the punishment handed out to him by society.
Disagree 100%. Alex goes into prison a child and is still a child when he comes out. He's feeling sorry for himself because he has nowhere to live and can no longer get satisfaction from being a degenerate. Him singing "Singing in The Rain" in the bath is almost a flex in a way. I raped/killed his wife and now here he I am bathing in his house as he feeds me and comforts me as if I am the victim. Obviously it's subjective, but I really do think people give this character way too much sympathy.
I really thing he is slightly beered in this interview, but hes great👍
How about some stories about Joseph Losey 'and Robert Shaw.
meeting him tomorrow im so excited
How did it go?
is there an interview where he talks more bout the eyeball scene ?
Excellent film but why did BFI not use the new restored print in the latest cinema re-release?
I don't believe for one moment that an audience attending Malcolm McDowell In Conversation at BFI Southbank is entirely made up of people too young to remember when IF came out.
I mean I’m way too young. Half of the fans of A Clockwork Orange are not from the period in which it came out
Unreasonably pedantic you’re being, aren’t u ?
Keep taking away individual rights and this great movie will come to life in 2020
Maxis bawlsed everything up
Compared to what film makers do now, makes A Clockwork Orange look like The Huckleberry Hound Show.
He's so funny. Alex is funny as well and it's ok, u know why? Because it's just a movie damn it.
The gratuitous violence of the film pales compared to the real life violence perpetrated in Britain by punk rockers, /skinheads, soccer hooligans, black gangs and neo Nazis. I mean, it was pretty scary back then.
Instantly pissed off. Kubrick never did sympathetic characters?! All of Kubrick’s films have sympathetic characters. He just doesn’t spoon-feed the viewer sentimentality.
This man turns into a monster over his fashion shows ;P
So today 06/14/20 arrived, upon which I discovered after having watched 'Clockwork' the previous evening was on McDowell's birthday! How appropriate my inadvertent timing was! Was it coincidental that a couple of DeLarge's droogs, Georgie and Dim, went on to become cops? Pete, on the other hand, by the time he is 19, he has left the violent teen culture behind, married, and entered the adult world of work and family thereby exemplifying freedom of choice. DeLarge ultimately gets 'cured' by catastrophic injuries incurred during a suicide attempt, and subsequently cutting a deal with the real villain, the Minister of the Interior.
Minister of the Inferior
I’ve never been able to get through the movie.
I much prefer it when McDowell talks like this rather than when he makes his occasional bizarre attempt at an American accent.
I liked Caligula, the movie. What the hell, I had read Suetonius. That's what it's based on.
I remember when shooting alcohol into a subway ticket takers booth and then lighting it afire was shown in a movie made for TV years ago and days later teens recreated it and killed the ticket taker who couldn't get out
I knew Malcolm from 3 different things
A Clockwork Orange
Rob Zombies Halloween
Call of Duty Black Ops 3
Honestly I’ve always loved the way his voice sounds, awesome portraying characters in these movies and especially in call of duty, that was legendary
What a fantastic roll of ground-breaking films - If, Clockwork Orange, Caligula and then he gets to kill Captain Kirk to boot!
Had a terrible nightmare after watching this and had to watch it back because I dreamt that I responded with some terrible remarks about the French. Thank God i didn’t.
Yes, we really like you Malcolm. Now get with the progamme, Alex! King Lear, Richard III, whatever, we love you. Grow a beard or don't.
18:15
Dead 😂😭
He always takes a few pokes at Kubrick. He's like a emotionally hurt little brother talking here (or any other interview)
@Inge Fossen nobody,I repeat, nobody who uses the term fanboy has any credibility to anything they say.
Being honest about your positive AND negative feelings you got towards someone is being mature and transparent, not “emotionally hurt little brother”.
Especially someone like Malcolm who’s known to poke fun at people he respects.
Listen up Vics, it's a horror show of a film, a melinky bit ultra violent oh my Brother's but worth a vidy!!
this guy is dope as fk
Movement! That is exactly why I don't like Temuera Morrison as Boba Fett. He moves completely differently than the original actor
After a brilliant start to his career in the Sixties and early Seventies he cashed in and settled for money, dross and ham acting.
robert hagan And why would he do that? Any guesses? To me, he just dropped out of sight, so I don't know what movies you're referring to.