Clockwork Orange

          I'm going to be honest; watching "Clockwork Orange" in class freaked me out a little. The drugs, the violence, the rape, the eyes being clamped open, the whole experience was very intense. But obviously there is more to the movie and the book than those small clips we saw in class. I researched the novel and Anthony Burgess's ideas, and behind the traumatizing movie is the powerful story of a troubled youth finding his way out of the darkness and realizing theres more to life than drugs and violence.
          In order to portray the story of Alex in a more interesting way, Burgess created a language called "Nadsat". This dialect is only spoken by the teenagers in the novel, giving the teens their own sort of community and connection that the adults cannot comprehend. This emphasizes how Burgess wanted to isolate the teenagers and give them their own ideas of superiority over the adults. "Nadsat" pulls pieces from numerous languages and slangs, including Russian, cockney slang, German, and Burgess even made up some words himself. Burgess explained that if he used contemporary speech, his novel would soon become outdated. But because he invented his own dialect, the novel is timeless and his unique speech will never go out of style.
          I also read that Burgess used made-up words to cover up the harshness of some of the book's content. The book is very violent and very obscene, so using words people don't understand to describe horrible scenes can confuse readers, and lessen the impact of the more intense scenes.
          Aside from the novel, the film adaptation of the book that we watched in class had some interesting techniques, such as incorporating the song "Singing In The Rain". I had some ideas about why this song appeared in the movie. First, I thought it was supposed to emphasize the contrast between 1951 and 1971. In between those time periods, the American public became much more liberated due to drugs and alcohol, and the general ideas about sex became much more open. The movie "Singing in the Rain" also deals with lighter topics than "Clockwork Orange" does. Putting that song in Clockwork Orange is ironic because the song is always associated with Gene Kelly dancing happily through the streets, and now people see it associated with rape and violence. It's quite the contrast.