Vintage ’71: Orange-aid

Ever since the Arabs decided that ten made a nice basis for counting—or maybe since Moses got The Word, from Him, in ten parts—film critics have dutifully handed down their annual Ten Best lists. Why, I don’t quite know. Here are the fifteen most notable films of the year, from one man’s perspective. (An asterisk indicates that I reviewed the film in these pages.)

Blood and guts sloshed across the 1971 screen in six fine movies. The most imaginative, Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange, is also the most repulsive, eons removed from Jadorow-sky’s hideous El Topo*, but still a film nurbling—I fall into the newspeak of Anthony Burgess’ novel, upon which Kubrick based his film—in ultra-violence horror show, out of which we are supposed to (and do) “vedee”—see— the conflict between evil free will and state Pavlovian-induced supergood determinism in a new light. Malcolm McDowell’s Alex is an unforgettable character, undergoing experiences in Burgess’ astutely satirical socialized paradise of the future which easily confirm one’s preference for what we’ve got now.

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David Brudnoy

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Ever since the Arabs decided that ten made a nice basis for counting—or maybe since Moses got The Word, from Him, in ten parts—film critics have dutifully handed down their annual Ten Best lists. Why, I don’t quite know. Here are the fifteen most notable films of the year, from one man’s perspective. (An asterisk indicates that I reviewed the film in these pages.)

Blood and guts sloshed across the 1971 screen in six fine movies. The most imaginative, Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange, is also the most repulsive, eons removed from Jadorow-sky’s hideous El Topo*, but still a film nurbling—I fall into the newspeak of Anthony Burgess’ novel, upon which Kubrick based his film—in ultra-violence horror show, out of which we are supposed to (and do) “vedee”—see— the conflict between evil free will and state Pavlovian-induced supergood determinism in a new light. Malcolm McDowell’s Alex is an unforgettable character, undergoing experiences in Burgess’ astutely satirical socialized paradise of the future which easily confirm one’s preference for what we’ve got now.