return of a clockwork orange

Documentary about the controversy surrounding Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange

"Almost 30 years ago, Stanley Kubrick imposed his own ... all » censorship on one of cinema's most controversial films, A Clockwork Orange, refusing to allow it to be shown in public.

FilmFour looks at the furor that surrounded the film's initial release and offers a re-appraisal through the eyes of Alexander Walker, Mark Kermode, Camille Paglia, Tony Kaye and Steven Soderbergh."

from wikipedia:
United States censorship

The film was rated X on its original release in the United States. Later, Kubrick voluntarily replaced roughly 30 seconds of footage from two scenes with less bawdy action for a 1973 re-release, rated R. It is a common myth that only the R-rated version can be seen nowadays, but in fact the opposite is true: all DVDs present the original X-rated form, and only some of the early 80s VHS editions are in the R-rated form.[5]

The film was rated C (for "condemned") by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office for Film and Broadcasting because of its explicit sexual and violent content; such a rating conceptually forbade Catholics from seeing the film. The "condemned" rating was abolished in 1982, and since then films deemed by the conference to have unacceptable levels of sex and/or violence have been rated O, meaning "morally offensive".

[edit] British withdrawal

In the United Kingdom, the sexual violence in the film was considered extreme. Furthermore, it was claimed that the film had inspired copycat behaviour. In March 1972, a prosecutor at a trial of a 14-year-old boy accused of the manslaughter of one of his classmates referred to A Clockwork Orange, telling the judge that the case had a macabre relevance to the film.[6]

The attacker, a boy age 16 from Bletchley, pleaded guilty after telling police that his friends had told him of the film "and the beating up of an old boy like this one"; defence counsel told the trial "the link between this crime and sensational literature, particularly A Clockwork Orange, is established beyond reasonable doubt".[7] The press also blamed the influence of the film for a rape in which the attackers sang "Singin' in the Rain". Kubrick subsequently requested that Warner Brothers withdraw the film from UK distribution.

At the time, it was widely believed that the copycat attacks were what led Kubrick to withdraw the film from distribution in the United Kingdom. However, in a television documentary made after Kubrick's death, his widow Christiane confirmed rumours that Kubrick had withdrawn A Clockwork Orange on police advice after threats were made against Kubrick and his family (the source of the threats was not discussed). That Warner Bros. acceded to Kubrick's request to withdraw the film is an indication of the remarkable relationship Kubrick had with the studio, particularly the executive Terry Semel.

The ban was vigorously pursued during Kubrick's lifetime. One art house cinema that defied the ban in 1993, and was sued and lost, was the Scala cinema at Kings Cross, London, on the same premises as the present-day Scala nightclub. Unable to meet the cost of the defence, the cinema club was forced into receivership. [8]

Whatever the reason for the film's withdrawal, it could not easily be seen in the United Kingdom for some 27 years. The first VHS and DVD releases followed shortly after Kubrick's death. It was also shown in many UK cinemas.