A Clockwork Orange (film)

"[voiceover] There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova Milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence."

"[voiceover] It was around by the derelict casino that we came across Billyboy and his four droogs. They were getting ready to perform a little of the old in-out, in-out on a weepy young devotchka they had there."

"Ho, ho, ho! Well, if it isn't fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarbles, ya eunuch jelly thou!"

"[voiceover] The Durango-95 purred away real horrorshow - a nice, warm, vibraty feeling all through your guttiwuts. Soon it was trees and dark, my brothers, with real country dark. We fillied around for a while with other travellers of the night, playing hogs of the road. Then we headed West. What we were after now was the old surprise visit. That was a real kick, and good for laughs and lashings of the old ultra-violence."

"Viddy well, little brother. Viddy well."

"[voiceover] We were all feeling a bit shagged and fagged and fashed. It having been an evening of some small energy expenditure, O my brothers. So we got rid of the auto and stopped off at the Korova for a nightcap."

"[voiceover] And it was like for a moment, O my brothers, some great bird had flown into the milkbar and I felt all the malenky little hairs on my plott standing endwise and the shivers crawling up like slow malenky lizards and then down again. Because I knew what she sang. It was a bit from the glorious Ninth, by Ludwig van."

"[While listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony] Oh, bliss! Bliss and heaven! Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures!"

"A bit cold and pointless, isn't it, my lovely? What's happened to yours, my little sister? (...) What you got back home, little sister, to play your fuzzy warbles on? I bet you got little, save pitiful portable picnic players. Come with uncle and hear all proper. Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones. You are invited."

"[voiceover] As we walked along the flatblock marina, I was calm on the outside but thinking all the time. So now it was to be Georgie the General, saying what we should do, and what not to do, and Dim as his mindless, grinning bulldog. But suddenly I viddied that thinking was for the gloopy ones, and that the oomny ones used like inspiration and what Bog sends. For now it was lovely music that came to my aid. There was a window open with a stereo on, and I viddied right at once what to do."

"[voiceover] I had not cut into any of Dim's main cables and so, with the help of a clean tashtook, the red, red kroovy soon stopped, and it did not take long to quieten the two wounded soldiers, down in the snug of the Duke of New York. Now they knew who was Master and Leader. Sheep, thought I, but a real leader knows always when like to give and show generous to his unders."

"Initiative comes to thems that wait."

"Naughty, naughty, naughty. You filthy old soomka."

"This is the real weepy and like tragic part of the story beginning, O my brothers and only friends. After a trial with judges and a jury, and some very hard words spoken against your friend and humble narrator, he was sentenced to fourteen years in Staja No. 84F, among smelly perverts and hardened prestoopnicks, the shock sending my dadda beating his bruised and krovvy rookers against unfair Bog in his Heaven, and my mum boohoohooing in her mother's grief, at her only child and son of her bosom like letting everybody down real horrorshow."

"[voiceover] It had not been edifying, indeed not, being in this hellhole and human zoo for two years now, being kicked and tolchocked by brutal warders, and meeting leering criminals and perverts, ready to dribble all over a luscious young malchick like your storyteller."

"[voiceover] I read all about the scourging and the crowning with thorns, and I could viddy myself helping in and even taking charge of the tolchocking and the nailing in, being dressed in the height of Roman fashion. I didn't so much like the latter part of the book, which is more like all preachy talking than fighting and the old in-out. I liked the parts where these old yahoodies tolchock each other and then drink their Hebrew vino, and getting onto the bed with their wives' handmaidens. That kept me going."

"[voiceover] And viddy films, I would. Where I was taken to, brothers, was like no sinny I ever viddied before. I was bound up in a straitjacket and my gulliver was strapped to a headrest with like wires running away from it. Then they clamped like lidlocks on my eyes so that I could not shut them, no matter how hard I tried. It seemed a bit crazy to me, but I let them get on with what they wanted to get on with. If I was to be a free young malchick again in a fortnight's time, I would put up with much in the meantime, O my brothers. So far the first film was a very good, professional piece of sinny, like it was done in Hollywood. The sounds were real horrorshow. You could slooshy the screams and moans very realistic, and you could even get the heavy breathing and panting of the tolchocking malchicks at the same time. And then what do you know, soon our dear old friend, the red, red vino on tap, the same in all places like it's put out by the same big firm, began to flow. It was beautiful. It's funny how the colours of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen. Now all the time I was watching this, I was beginning to get very aware of like not feeling all that well, and this I put down to all the rich food and vitamins. But I tried to forget this, concentrating on the next film, which jumped right away on a young devotchka who was being given the old in-out, in-out first by one malchick, then another, then another... When it came to the sixth or seventh malchick, leering and smecking and then going into it, I began to feel really sick. But I could not shut my glazzies. And even if I tried to move my glazz-balls about, I still could not get out of the line of fire of this picture."

"[voiceover] It was the next day, brothers, and I had truly done my best, morning and afternoon, to play it their way and sit, like a horrorshow co-operative malchick, in the chair of torture, while they flashed nasty bits of ultra-violence on the screen. Though not on the soundtrack, my brothers, the only sound being music. Then I noticed in all my pain and sickness what music it was that like cracked and boomed - it was Ludwig van - Ninth Symphony, fourth movement."

"It's not fair! It's not fair that I should feel sick when I hear lovely, lovely Ludwig Van!"

"[voiceover] And, O my brothers, would you believe your faithful friend and long suffering narrator pushed out his red yahzik a mile-and-a-half to lick the grahzny, vonny boots...The horrible killing sickness had whooshed up, and turned the like joy of battle into a feeling I was going to snuff it."

"[voiceover] She came towards me with the light like it was the like light of heavenly grace, and the first thing that flashed into my gulliver was that I'd like to have her right down there on the floor with the old in-out, real savage. But as quick as a shot came the sickness, like a detective that had been watching around the corner and now followed to make his arrest."

"[to his Mum and Dad] Right! I'm leaving now! You won't ever viddy me no more. I'll make me own way! Thank you very much. Let it lie heavy on your consciences."

"[voiceover] Then there was like a sea of dirty smelly old men, trying to get at your Humble Narrator, with their feeble rookers and horny old claws. It was old age having a go at youth, and I daren't do a single, solitary thing, O my brothers, it being better to be hit at like that than want to sick and feel that horrible pain."

"[voiceover] I woke up. The pain and sickness all over me like an animal. Then I realised what it was. The music coming up from the floor was our old friend, Ludwig van, and the dreaded Ninth Symphony."

"[voiceover] Suddenly, I viddied what I had to do, and what I had wanted to do, and that was to do myself in; to snuff it, to blast off for ever out of this wicked, cruel world. One moment of pain perhaps and, then, sleep for ever, and ever and ever."

"[voiceover] I jumped, O my brothers, and I fell hard, but I did not snuff it. If I had snuffed it, I would not be here to tell what I told have! I came back to life, after a long black, black gap of what might have been a million years."

"No time for the old in-out, love, I've just come to read the meter."

"Eggiwegs! I would like... to smash them, and pick them all up, and throw—AAH! Fucking hell."

"[last line of the film] I was cured all right."

"This is the end of the line for me, eh? The end of the line, yes!"

"Excellent. He's enterprising, aggressive, outgoing, young, bold, vicious. He'll do...He's perfect. I want his records sent to me. This vicious young hoodlum will be transformed out of all recognition."

"As I was saying, Alex, you can be instrumental in changing the public verdict. Do you understand, Alex? Do I made myself clear?"

"Tomorrow, we send him out with confidence into the world again, as decent a lad as you would meet on a May morning. What a change is here, ladies and gentlemen, from the wretched hoodlum the State committed to unprofitable punishment some two years ago. Unchanged after two years. Unchanged, do I say? - not quite. Prison taught him the false smile, the rubbed hand of hypocrisy, the fawning, greased obsequious leer. Other vices it taught him, as well as confirming in those he had long practiced before. Our party promised to restore law and order and to make the streets safe again for the ordinary peace-loving citizen. This pledge is now about to become a reality. Ladies and gentlemen, today is an historic moment. The problem of criminal violence is soon to be a thing of the past. But enough of words. Actions speak louder than. Action now. Observe all."

"Our subject is impelled towards the good by paradoxically being impelled towards evil. The intention to act violently is accompanied by strong feelings of physical distress. To counter these, the subject has to switch to a diametrically opposed attitude. Any questions?"

"Very soon now, the drug will cause the subject to experience a death-like paralysis, together with deep feelings of terror and helplessness. One of our early test subjects described it as being like death, a sense of stifling or drowning, and it is during this period we have found that the subject will make his most rewarding associations between his catastrophic experience-environment and the violence he sees."

"[to Alex] Violence is a very horrible thing. That's what you're learning now. Your body is learning it...You felt ill this afternoon because you're getting better. You see, when we are healthy, we respond to the presence of the hateful with fear and nausea. You're becoming healthy, that's all. By this time tomorrow, you'll be healthier still."

"I've heard about you. I know what you've done. Breaking the hearts of your poor grieving parents. So you're back, eh? You're back to make life a misery for your lovely parents once more, is that it?"

"You've been like a father and mother to me. Well, it wouldn't be fair now or right, I mean, for me to go off and leave you two to the tender mercies of this young monster, who's been like no real son at all. Look, he's weeping now. But that's all his craft and artfulness. Let him go and find a room somewhere else. Let him learn the errors of his way, and that a bad boy like he's been doesn't deserve such a good mum and dad as he's had...You've made others suffer. It's only right that you should suffer proper."

"I know you! Isn't it your picture in the newspapers? Didn't I see you on the video this morning? Are you not the poor victim of this horrible new technique?"

"(talking over phone) Recruiting brutal young roughs into the police, proposing debilitating and will-sapping techniques of conditioning. Oh, we've seen it all before in other countries. The thin end of the wedge. Before we know where we are, we shall have the full apparatus of totalitarianism. [looks over shoulder in the empty room] This young boy is a living witness to these diabolical proposals. The people - the common people - must know, must see. There are great traditions of liberty to defend. The tradition of liberty is all. The common people will let it go. Oh yes. They will sell liberty for a quieter life - that is why they must be led, sir, driven, pushed!!"

"Policeman: [to Deltoid] If you'd care to give him a bash in the chops, sir, don't mind us. We'll hold him down. He must be a great disappointment to you, sir."

"Chief Guard: [to Alex] You are now 655321, and it is your duty to memorise that number."

"Chaplain: What's it going to be then, eh? Is it going to be in and out of institutions like this, though more in than out for most of you? Or are you going to attend to the Divine Word and realise the punishments that await unrepentant sinners in the next world as well as this? A lot of idiots you are, selling your birthright for a saucer of cold porridge, the thrill of theft, of violence, the urge to live easy. Well, I ask you, what is it worth, when we have undeniable proof, yes, incontrovertible evidence that Hell exists? I know, I know, my friends. I have been informed in visions that there is a place darker than any prison, hotter than any flame of human fire, where souls of unrepentant criminal sinners like yourselves—Don't you laugh, damn you, don't you laugh! I say like yourselves, scream in endless and unendurable agony. Their skin rotting and peeling, a fireball spinning in their screaming guts. I know, oh yes, I know."

"Prison Governor: These new ridiculous ideas have come at last and orders are orders, though I may say to you in confidence that I do not approve. An eye for an eye, I say. If someone hits you, you hit back, do you not? Why then should not the State, very severely hit by you brutal hooligans, not hit back also? But the new view is to say no. The new view is that we turn the bad into good. All of which seems to me to be grossly unjust, eh? (...) You are to be reformed."

"Tramp: This is the poisonous young swine that near done me in—him and his friends, they beat me and kicked me and punched me. Stop him, stop him. They laughed at me blood and me moans. This murderous young pig is a prize specimen of the cowardly brutal young! He is in our midst and at our mercy! Give it to him! That's it!"

"Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven."

"Being the adventures of a young man ---who couldn't resist pretty girls ...or a bit of the old ultra-violence ...went to jail ...was re-conditioned ...and came out a different young man ...or was he?"

"The breakthrough presentation of Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange for the millions who were not allowed to see it until now!"

"The central idea of the film has to do with the question of free-will. Do we lose our humanity if we are deprived of the choice between good and evil? Do we become, as the title suggests, A Clockwork Orange? Recent experiments in conditioning and mind control on volunteer prisoners in America have taken this question out of the realm of science-fiction. At the same time, I think the dramatic impact of the film has principally to do with the extraordinary character of Alex, as conceived by Anthony Burgess in his brilliant and original novel. Aaron Stern, the former head of the MPAA rating board in America, who is also a practising psychiatrist, has suggested that Alex represents the unconscious: man in his natural state. After he is given the Ludovico 'cure' he has been 'civilized', and the sickness that follows may be viewed as the neurosis imposed by society."

"The erotic decor in the film suggests a slightly futuristic period for the story. The assumption being that erotic art will eventually become popular art, and just as you now buy African wildlife paintings in Woolworth's, you may one day buy erotica. The violence in the story has to be given sufficient dramatic weight so that the moral dilemma it poses can be seen in the right context. It is absolutely essential that Alex is seen to be guilty of a terrible violence against society, so that when he is eventually transformed by the State into a harmless zombie you can reach a meaningful conclusion about the relative rights and wrongs. If we did not see Alex first as a brutal and merciless thug it would be too easy to agree that the State is involved in a worse evil in depriving him of his freedom to choose between good and evil. It must be clear that it is wrong to turn even unforgivably vicious criminals into vegetables, otherwise the story would fall into the same logical trap as did the old, anti-lynching Hollywood westerns which always nullified their theme by lynching an innocent person. Of course no one will disagree that you shouldn't lynch an innocent person—but will they agree that it's just as bad to lynch a guilty person, perhaps even someone guilty of a horrible crime? And so it is with conditioning Alex."