What's it going to be then, eh?
That's the famous first line from the Anthony Burgess novel, A Clockwork Orange. I purchased a VCR/DVD player not long ago, so it has rekindled my interest in some of my old videos. One of them is that film by Stanley Kubrick, which I came to admire. Actually I liked the novel itself much more at the time, but I was given the tape as a gift. That was back when a video of a movie like that was specially packaged and cost about seventy bucks, if you can believe that. It's a good movie, and holds up surprisingly well over time. That usually doesn't happen with visions of the near future, but Kubrick had a nack for it (2001 still doesn't look very old-fashioned).

I have various recollections of CWO... the first being an article in Playboy. That must have been in 1971 when the movie was released. I know... a thirteen year old boy looking at a Playboy. It sounds impossible but it really happened. I remember the weird pictures of Alex with his fake nose, etc. It was beyond comprehension of course. Several years later while in college I ended up at an art theater that was showing it. It was still pretty opaque but caught my interest. Then I read the novel... then I got the video tape which has a date of 1983 on it (sounds about right). I'm not sure I've watched it since then, until the other night. I also obtained the soundtrack...and dressed up like Alex for Halloween one time... as did two of my nephews... as did Bart Simpson.

In sum I will say that various elements seem pretty prescient. Alex and his "droogs" could be dressed as punks or goths and their actions would seem pretty normal nowadays. His "treatment" or "cure" seemed like something that might be used on terrorists somewhere, and the manner of speaking by the bureaucrats would also fit our times. Maybe Kubrick was another time traveler -- they're everywhere... I'm sure of it... probably moving through the years by means of wind-up citrus fruit.