The countdown is almost at an end. My last blog on The Shinning wasn't particular well written and was a huge wall of text!

So, I thought I will change the format here... To make it more accessible and more interesting.

What I did here, instead of simply writing about what I like about the movie and its (A Clockwork Orange) hidden narrative, I will turn it into an interview with the director.

The Interview (my views)

Thomas: Mr Kubrick, I am a huge fan of your work. At the moment, I am writing an online blog, a countdown of your top 5 films. In particular, I've selected A Clockwork Orange (ACO)as my No. 2 since I felt in ways, ACO's hidden narrative was clearly visible - in fact, I think you have been pretty straight with your message which is rare in your films.

Kubrick: Well, A Clockwork Orange was adaptation on Anthony Burgess's book published in 1962. It was given to me by Terry Couthern while I was making 2001: A Space Odyssey. One evening, I started to read the book and finished it in one sitting. By the end of Part One, it seemed pretty obvious that it might make a great film. The so-called hidden narrative is pretty much what's in the novel.

Thomas: So, are you saying the film itself is very close to what's in Anthony Burgess's novel?

Kubrick: Yes. By the end of Part Two, I was very excited about it. As soon as I finished it, I immediately reread it. For the next 2 or 3 days, I reread it in hole and in part, and did little else but think about it.

Thomas: What makes such novel so attracted to you. Your full concentrations and rereading such novel in whole and in part?

Kubrick: Firstly, it seemed to me to be a unique and marvellous work of imagination and perhaps even genius. Secondly, the narrative invention was magical, the characters were bizarre and exciting, the ideas were brilliantly developed.

Thomas: At what point did you think you can turn this into a film?

Kubrick: Well, as equally as important as those aspects I pointed it out earlier, the story was of a size and density that could be adapted to film without oversimplifying it or stripping it to the bones. In fact it proved possible to retain most of the narrative in the film.

Thomas: From what I have gathered by watching the films more than 10 times, the stylisation of the violence is very comedic and what actually happens to Alex, in the brainwashing sequence, is much more unpleasant to watch then what he does to anyone else, especially his victims.

Kubrick: Violence in the film is stylized, just as in the book. The problem, of course, was to find a way to presenting it in the film without benefit of writing s tyle. To preserve the realistic of the violence on film, a sense of irony has to be achieved and in ways, it turns out to be rather comedic - Such as the first section of the film that incorporates most of the violent action is principally organised around the Overture to Rossini's Thieving Magpie, and in a very broad sense, you could say that the violence is turned into dance, although, of course, it is in no way any kind of formal dance.

Thomas: I see but what about Alex's brainwashing sequence. In ways, since it was much more unpleasant to watch than what Alex did to his victims - Are you saying the government is as bad as Alex and in ways, is Alex society in general?

Kubrick: Such narrative you have drawn up yourself and since film experience is much closer to dream then anything else. In this daydream, If you like, one can explore ideas and situations which one is not able to do in reality.

Thomas: So is governmental control, as part of the narratives in A Clockwork Orange a way of expressing a concern in reality?

Kubrick: First of all, I don't choose stories as political tracts. The fact that A Clockwork Orange has such overtone and narrative is mainly because of Burgess's novel happens to be about something that now happens to be particularly topical - Behavioural psychology and the conditioning of antisocial behaviour, with its particular relevance to psychologist Skinner's book.

Thomas: Can you elaborate on the narrative of governmental control inA Clockwork Orange?

Kubrick: Is a question of how authority can cope with problems of law and order without becoming too oppressive, and, more particularly, in relation to the ever-increasing view that politics are irrelevant to the solution of social problems, that there's no time for political and legal solutions, that social issues have to be solved immediately even if this means going outside law and politics. "What solutions authority may be evolve concerns me, and is one of the great unanswered social problems."

Thomas: Alex in the film and novel, is a evil person but when compared to the government's treatment, in ways, you have turned him into a victim. In that context, Alex becomes the hero and the government becomes the villains in ACO... Is that how you intended it?

Kubrick: You can't really put it that way. it's a satire, which is to say that you hold up current vices and folly to ridicule. You pretend to say the opposite of the truth in order to destroy it. The essential moral of the story hinges on the question of choice and the question of whether man can be good without having the choice to be evil and whether a creature who no longer has this choice is still a man.

Thomas: By that, do you mean the choice of hero and villian is an illusion?

Kubrick: No. What I mean is the fact Alex is the very personification of evil and is still in some strange way attractive due to several things: His honesty, his lack of hypocrisy, his energy and his intelligence. In the course of the A clockwork Orange, eventually, you begin to sympathize with Alex because you begin to identify with him as a victim of a much greater evil. Perhaps, more importantly, we recognize our own subconsious. This may also account for some of the antagonism the film has created. The subconsious has no conscience - and preception of this makes some people very anxious and angry.

Thomas: By making Alex attractive, in ACO, you have been criticised for making evil attractive so as to make your point wiht even the most extreme exmaple?

Kubrick: If Alex were a lesser villain, then you would dilute the point of the film. It would then be like one of those westerns where they purport to be doing a film which is against lynching and so they lynch innocent people. The point of the film seems to be: You shouldn't lynch people because you might lynch innocent people; rather than: You shouldn't lynch anybody. Obviously, if Alex were a lesser villian, it would be very easy to reject his 'treatment'. But when you reject the treatment of even a character as wicked as Alex the moral point is clear.

Thomas: Well thank you for you time Mr Kubrick.

Kubrick: Thank you. How about a game of Chess?

Thomas: Until next time.