Mechanical Orange and censorship in Italy.
They point out to me from the direction that it is true that Arancia Meccanica ends up with Alex, to whom the minister promises a place as head of the Police (and Alex who relishes his beloved ultraviolence without the limits of the law) but this has not happened in the Italian version from which the final part was removed and / or manipulated.
Here I have to say that it comes as a surprise to me, so making the local mind I remember how I saw the film.
When he left he was obviously a minor so I couldn't see him, and he talked about it almost ten years later. After all, Italian public television never passed it on because it was a kind of taboo. Eventually you can find it on Netflix, but since I don't want to put up a VPN just to see it in Italian, if someone saw it on netflix and has tox, please tell me if it has the final scene or not, or if Alex becomes or less police chief.
Actually, I saw the complete movie quite late, because all the synopsis and everything I read was focused on the activities of the drugs and honestly the rape scenes for me are "no-go": it means that if a movie ha, I normally don't watch it. I had a hard time looking at "Il Corvo" and "Ultimo Tango", for this reason. (honestly: "Ultimo Tango" is the most overrated shit in history, carried on the altars by a herd of horny, reduced to the level of the maniac of the public toilets , who celebrated it only because they 'buggered' this poor woman .) .
So I wasn't very interested in watching a movie that ultimately seemed to talk about a group of fascist drug addicts going around rape women. Because we only said this (I lived in Italy).
Reviews of the period were made like this:
Achille Bonito Oliva, famous (?) Film critic, writes:
"Kubrick also prophesies the danger of an" aestheticizing "violence indeed, he represents it, he puts it under his eyes, using the Ninth of Beethoven and Rossini: a violence to the rhythm of music."
In practice, violence and music.
And apparently, to put it in an academic way, on the "Morandini", there is written:
«Of the 3 Kubrick films that can be considered sci-fi, Arancia Meccanica is the most violent and the one in which it speaks more than the present, just loaded with future connotations. Like the other two, it is a philosophical fable that illustrates his discourse on violence and the relationship between instinct and society with brilliant lucidity, even though he, despite his obvious effort to grotesque stylization, has escaped the risks that are taken in the cinema in the illustration of violence. "
Now, today these fools (in the IT world they say "buzzword overflow" when one speaks in a similar way) today make people laugh and look like a champion of the "incomprehensible intellectual", who writes without saying anything. (he speaks of risks that are run without saying which , he speaks of a philosophical fable without specifying which philosophies, he speaks of the relationship between instinct and society without saying which relationship , he speaks of obvious effort without saying what effort , etc.).
But before the Internet those keys were the stuff you read in all the newspapers, reviews and synopsis. So it was a film about violence. And on classical music. Of course it was, I had put a stone on it. If you go to see a film about violence and music, and you know there is a rape, you do it for three reasons: either music, or violence, or rape. And I didn't really like it, since none of the three things attracted me too much. Ludovico Van for me is on everyone's lips because it is a topos of music: only one person in 1000 of those who say "he was a genius" could explain why.
But I had a cinephile friend. But those hard ones, able to watch Pasolini's trilogy in a D'Essai cinema in Bologna and also have the final debate with those of the DAMS. Of those who are moved by "Il Pesciolino Rosso", a famous (?) Iranian film capable of splitting the balls also to Jeeg Robot d'Acciaio. And she saw it in the original language (but with French subtitles). Here, a girl like that.
Then, talking to her, I admitted that I had never seen him, and that I was refractory because of the rape scene, so she offered to watch him together. Since I trusted her (I find the scenes of rape a really unpleasant experience) she brought me the videocassette (obviously in the original language: those who watch Iranian films in Persian are at home in London, isn't it?) And so was that I saw Arancia Meccanica. What I thought was the full version.
For this reason I thought that everyone had seen this movie to the end, and I always thought that anyone who came out of it focusing on these scenes of initial violence was cooked in the brain and that it probably focused on the rape scene.
It was pretty crazy because the final part, when Alex is corrupted by the minister and accepts to be able to practice ultraviolence on the side of the law, and his drugs who are also in the police, it becomes clear the message of the film, which I illustrated here: https://keinpfusch.net/arancia-meccanica-e-il-mito-della-rieducazione/
Without that part the message is distorted, because it would say (I have not seen the wrong part) that a forced reeducation transforms the executioners into victims, but nothing more. But it does not say the most fundamental part, namely that any system based on repression attracts all violent psychopaths and criminals to join the police, as they will be able to commit the sadistic crimes they love without being punished
When I found out (by pure chance) I asked myself some questions. I mean, what's the point of cutting that scene? Arancia Meccanica arrives in Italy with almost ten years of delay, when there is no talk of terrorism and "subversion" anymore.
Why is it so important to prevent the masses from thinking that the police are made by sadistic psychopaths who have chosen the uniform in order to be able to vent without being punished?
If it is, it is a catastrophic case of Excusatio non petita , since so far no Italian intellectual has ever pushed the debate to the point of saying that there is a similar systematicity. The only one was Kubrick, in fact, but you never knew.
But the problem is not "why".
The problem is different:
Why is the problem understanding WHO gave the order?
First of all, if we talk about the RAI that censors the political parts of Captain Harlock , as he did, we know "who". The parties control the RAI, we know how , we know well who they put in the CDA, etc.
But Arancia Meccanica never came out for RAI. In Italy it comes only for the Cinema. Who had (what body, exactly) the authority to call the distributor and force him to a second post-production that would have made the cuts? Who pays? A post-production costs.
After that, (and I believe this is the version that everyone has seen) he arrived on video, with the usual releases of the newspapers like Repubblica, Unita ', and others. And even here I ask myself: WHO had the authority to make a good call and force some parts to be cut off?
Watch all the movies and decide which parts to cut, at what point at what point, is a damn job. What is the body that does it? Who takes care of this, who is paid to do it? With what budget ?
And who gives this body authority to cut parts of films, when the Italian Constitution says that censorship is forbidden? Why did everyone who put that film on agreed to cut those parts? What obliged him? What exactly is the authority, the power of that entity?
Even when he went out on TV for La7 and Tele +, I don't know (but I could be denied) that there was the final scene, otherwise it wouldn't have happened that 100% of the people (of every political faction) would continue to describe it as a movie of aesthetic violence and never of the sociological theory it contains.
The point is that somewhere in Italy there exists and operates an entity capable of deciding that a film, in all its outputs, must be cut off, and this "cut" lasts for years and years.
I do not know what this body is, who gives it authority and power and who finances it, but while I am there I would like to save a piece of document at this point, so as not to be taken for a fool.
From Wikipedia:
And thank goodness. Because there is also a version of the Book (but not the film) where Alex understands that he was violent because … in reality he dreamed of getting married and starting a family. (not kidding!).
This, however, is the classic stupidity of the American censor who adds a chapter to the book that has nothing to do with a dick, written moreover in an absurd way and different from the rest, and therefore does not touch us so much.
But the part with the minister who, after the suicide attempted by Alex, to remedy the scandal offers Alex the possibility of practicing his beloved ultraviolence on the side of the law, it has been removed (that I know, but now I have doubts) only in the Italian version.
But the problem, if this happened: WHO in Italy has the power and authority to order the removal of a piece of film when it is politically unwelcome?