Controversial changes are inevitable when novels are adapted into films. The changes that are picked up on are usually ones regarding a misrepresentation of a novel’s character, or a change in the plot that grossly distorts the novel’s essence. Something that’s not usually analysed, though, is the linguistic changes that occur. A Clockwork Orange is a prime example of how the language used in novels is modified in film adaptions to cater for different audiences and to help squeeze a novel’s worth of reading into one and a half hours’ worth of screen viewing.
The A Clockwork Orange film’s exclusion of the final chapter from Anthony Burgess’ novel of the same title caused a stir at the time of the film’s release, with Burgess condemning the change and voicing concerns over the meaning of the novel becoming misconstrued.
There are, however, other adjustments to the novel that Stanley Kubrick made in his stylistic film adaption of A Clockwork Orange, in addition to the elimination of the novel’s final chapter. In terms of language, Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange’s scarce use of the distinguished language which is so prominent in the novel is something that stands out. This change in Stanley Kubrick’s stylistic adaption of A Clockwork Orange had Burgess farther aggrieved. Nadsat, the iconic language Burgess created for his novel’s central character, Alex, was the staple that held together his novel. It was Alex’s most lethal weapon, used forcefully to gain power over his peers; used mischievously on his villainous outings; and used manipulatively to pull free from any sticky situations he found himself in. Speaking in Nadsat reassures the audience that Alex has intelligence, has potential; without it, there wouldn’t be much to differentiate Alex from other offending adolescents and it’s hard to imagine the audience being anywhere near as quick to forgive him for his actions.
An example of the diminished use of Nadsat in the film comes in one of the first scenes, in which Alex and his friends taunt and attack a homeless man. Alex’s narration in the novel goes like this: “All we did then was to pull his outer platties off, stripping him down to his vest and long underpants (very starry; Dim smecked his head off near), and then Pete kicks him lovely in the pot, and we let him go.” Now, there is a case to be heard for this acting only to amplify the violence, the unfamiliar words and style of speech making it hard for the audience to understand what exactly is going through his head and therefore making it a challenge to relate to him. However, the feeling I get from his surreal narration is a feeling of detachment from the violence. The language he uses has my attention rather than his actions; trying to decipher his words preoccupies me to such an extent that I don’t think to dwell on the pain he’s causing to the defenceless man. This isn’t the case in the film, in which the violence very much dominates the proceedings. We’re introduced to the seen by Alex remarking that the one thing he could never stand was “to see a filthy, dirty old drunkie”. After that, we see Alex torment the homeless man before, together with his friends, beating the man up. Burgess wrote “language ceases to be an opaque protection against being appalled and takes a very secondary place” of this. It is true that there’s a distinct lack of protection from the violence in the film, and the blast of classical music over many of the violent scenes suggests that Kubrick was aware of this and tried to amend this, but you can’t help thinking that he missed the point. Acting as a linguistic veil over the violence was not the only thing Nadsat gave the novel, so blasting Beethoven over violent scenes won’t give the film what it’s lost by neglecting to recognise language’s importance to A Clockwork Orange.
It is worth noting, though, that it would’ve been incredibly hard for Kubrick to employ Nadsat to the same extent as Burgess did in his novel. When A Clockwork Orange was first published, a glossary was included in many of the copies, so meant that readers would be able to look up any words that they were unsure about. For those who were not afforded this luxury, it would still be able to pick up Nadsat through techniques such as re-reading passages. Audiences watching the film, however, would have no means by which to aid their understanding, so Kubrick may have been worried that audiences wouldn’t be able to adapt to the complex language over a two-hour period. A study by Saragi, Nation & Meister (1978) found that subjects who’d read the novel scored 67% on a test of its vocabulary. An understanding of 67% is impressive, but it does mean that a third of the vocabulary wasn’t understood by readers of the novel, and it’s likely that the level of understanding would be far lower for film audiences exposed to Nadsat in its entirety over two hours. Two hours is insufficient time for audiences to develop an understanding of a language, especially when the audience is likely to be more mainstream than the novel’s audience and therefore perhaps less likely to be open to such a challenge.
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