RadixJournal - August 25, 2023


Clockwork Orange


Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

144.15152

Word count

2,291

Sentence count

168

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

12

sentences flagged

Hate speech

10

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

J.F. is joined by Mark and Thomas to talk about the Trump mug shot and why it reminds them of Kubrick's ' Clockwork Orange' and why they don't like it. Plus, they talk about why they think Trump looks like Alex DeLarge in the movie.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.660 Testing, testing.
00:00:02.880 Hello.
00:00:04.200 Hey, JF, how are you doing?
00:00:06.240 Doing good.
00:00:07.340 Thanks for jumping on. I appreciate it.
00:00:10.240 It's a pleasure.
00:00:11.800 Do we have a mugshot yet?
00:00:15.240 Of the man Donald Trump?
00:00:16.820 Yes, we do.
00:00:17.440 Now, hold on. I've seen a lot of false mugshots flying around.
00:00:23.060 I believe I'm seeing a real one.
00:00:25.420 It looks like the real ones that were published.
00:00:28.400 Interesting.
00:00:30.000 So this is, let me post a link into the chat so everyone can see this.
00:00:37.000 Breaking. Okay, this is from CNN.
00:00:39.840 Wow.
00:00:42.780 I have to say, I'll post this in the chat.
00:00:50.640 Yeah, I've seen someone from Ungol.
00:00:54.960 I almost want to just post all those photos from Trump history.
00:00:59.340 You know, this AI account where he's making Trump part the Red Seas and teaching Tom Brady how to play football.
00:01:07.820 But, yeah, he looks a bit deranged.
00:01:17.060 Yeah, I mean, this could be a photo before you get into the psychiatry hospital.
00:01:22.560 Well, his eyes seem to be pointing in different directions.
00:01:26.260 I think it was a night.
00:01:30.880 Yeah, that's definitely the face.
00:01:34.660 I was wondering, because someone like Trump, you would expect to think through these things.
00:01:41.600 You know, he would have practiced before the mirror over and over of what it's going to look like.
00:01:46.240 Do you want to be stern or defiant or do you want to smile?
00:01:54.840 I think they don't allow you to smile, actually.
00:01:57.560 So I've heard.
00:01:58.260 But I think that he may be trying to do a look like the apprentice type of look, like a decisive boss.
00:02:07.860 Yes.
00:02:08.120 But if you take it on a bad angle, these looks aren't as good as on TV.
00:02:14.260 You know, if you have a good director on your side that's trying to make you look like a boss, you're going to look like a boss. 1.00
00:02:20.000 But if you make that same look in front of a Georgian bureaucrat, you're going to look stupid. 1.00
00:02:26.800 Correct. 0.99
00:02:27.780 It's actually the classic Kubrick look where he has his protagonist or antagonist with his brow out.
00:02:38.980 You know what I'm saying?
00:02:39.840 You see like the whites above the iris and pupil.
00:02:48.100 You know, when it's looking up.
00:02:50.480 Yeah.
00:02:51.380 I mean, it's probably most pronounced in Clockwork Orange, but he does it in.
00:02:56.380 He also does it in The Shining.
00:02:58.100 Right.
00:02:58.280 Yes.
00:02:58.740 Also has his forehead bowed.
00:03:01.720 You know what I mean?
00:03:02.480 So it has a kind of sinister appearance.
00:03:05.820 Yeah. 0.99
00:03:06.020 I mean, Trump kind of looks like, you know, Alex DeLarge and his droogs just broke into his apartment or raping his wife before his very eyes. 0.99
00:03:15.540 I mean, is that too much of it? 0.99
00:03:19.300 Is that too much of an exaggeration?
00:03:20.720 I don't I don't think so.
00:03:23.620 Mark and I actually just watched a Clockwork Orange recently.
00:03:26.640 So it's on our minds.
00:03:28.660 Oh, yeah.
00:03:29.840 But I do movie that that movie lovers love it. 0.92
00:03:34.000 But I'm annoyed by this movie.
00:03:36.440 Why are you annoyed by it?
00:03:37.760 Thomas, I don't know.
00:03:39.400 It's it's like a let's take over the boomer type of movie, but in a very failed way, in a very failed direction.
00:03:48.360 I'm all for taking over society from the boomers, but not in the direction suggested by this movie. 0.99
00:03:54.960 So you're suggesting that Alex is beating of the old homeless man and his just general reckless defiance is kind of taking.
00:04:09.440 It's like the youth taking over the boomer world. 0.87
00:04:12.680 Exactly.
00:04:13.600 OK.
00:04:14.860 I think there's another reading.
00:04:18.780 Oh, yeah.
00:04:19.080 His name is Alex DeLarge.
00:04:22.720 So I believe he's he's Alexander the Great.
00:04:27.380 And he's I he's also a bit of a mirror image of in the film, Frank Alexander, who's the writer who gets cuckolded in the most unimaginably bad way by the droogs in one of the early scenes.
00:04:45.540 And it's he also lives at home, which is, you know, there's a kind of Freudian element, Oedipal element to that.
00:04:53.780 But I think we were Mark and I were talking about this and we we don't have a definitive reading.
00:05:01.340 But I think behavioralism is a kind of I mean, I think Kubrick probably himself didn't like someone like Skinner.
00:05:14.460 And I think Kubrick is, you know, a Freudian.
00:05:18.500 He is interested in Nietzsche and all.
00:05:21.180 He's just a different type of person who would not respond to behavioralism and Skinnerism.
00:05:28.220 So Skinner wrote a book called like Beyond Freedom and Dignity, I believe, where he was suggesting something.
00:05:35.680 I mean, he I don't he wasn't suggesting exactly a Ludovico technique, but he was suggesting that you could, in effect, train people like dogs to, you know, if you sit, you get a treat.
00:05:49.140 If you chew up my socks, you don't get dinner, you get, you know, disciplined in some way.
00:05:59.060 And he he took this as a this almost all encompassing way of understanding human behavior.
00:06:05.840 And, yeah, I think someone like Kubrick definitely is reacting against it.
00:06:10.020 But my my view of it is is kind of twofold.
00:06:15.320 There's this connection between Alex and Beethoven, obviously.
00:06:20.660 And there's a connection between Frank Alexander, the writer, who's a kind of libertarian.
00:06:26.920 He's kind of like you, basically, I think.
00:06:29.460 I think I think he is you right wing libertarian who hates the public and, you know, the people, they will they will sell the tradition of liberty for quiet life.
00:06:46.680 They must be led.
00:06:49.000 I got a libertarian.
00:06:50.800 You're touching on something you're touching on something.
00:06:54.260 But I'm not sure if this movie is a the revolution of the hippies or if it's a revolution against the hippies.
00:07:03.220 That's what I'm correct.
00:07:04.160 Well, this is what.
00:07:04.960 OK, let me let me compete it.
00:07:06.440 But Frank Alexander is also connected to Beethoven.
00:07:09.200 He looks like Beethoven.
00:07:10.760 He has he's he's almost a human bust of Beethoven.
00:07:13.720 And he also his doorbell is the I don't know if you caught this, but his doorbell is so his doorbell is the opening line of the Fifth Symphony.
00:07:26.920 So both of them are kind of like in also Beethoven's connected to Hitler.
00:07:33.560 So the they start playing the Ninth Symphony when in that very famous scene.
00:07:40.100 And I'm sorry if I'm leaving anyone behind here who hasn't seen the film, but I imagine most of you have seen it.
00:07:46.860 The famous scene where they're playing the Ninth Symphony as a background score.
00:07:52.360 They're like, are you referring to the background score?
00:07:55.940 They're they're playing it as a background score to what are kind of Linny Rief and Stahl esque, you know, images of Nazi rally and then actually like bombings of Poland.
00:08:08.540 And I think there might have been historical Holocaust imagery in there as well.
00:08:13.060 But that's associated with Beethoven.
00:08:14.540 So what I think Kubrick is suggesting as a sort of Freudian or Nietzschean is that in a way, there's no difference between Beethoven and Hitler. 0.77
00:08:28.660 The only difference, there's no essential difference.
00:08:31.660 The only real difference is that Beethoven is a kind of sublimated martial domineering attitude that you you either write a symphony or you invade Poland.
00:08:42.880 But there's some type of masculine force, life force that is pumping through the veins of both Beethoven and Hitler. 0.74
00:08:53.820 And obviously, one is preferable to the other, but they're but they are the same thing.
00:08:58.600 And that, you know, I think that Kubrick is probably pretty ambivalent about Alex, Alex, Alex LeGrand, Alexander the Great.
00:09:10.980 He's a kind of force of Aryan energy. 0.99
00:09:14.120 He's smart, but he's also naive and he fundamentally is sociopathic. 0.99
00:09:19.600 He doesn't give a shit, but he's also actually a good leader in a weird way. 0.99
00:09:23.620 He kind of knows he needs to bring the droogs in line and keep, you know, keep static, keep a good hierarchy. 0.99
00:09:30.340 Doesn't you know, we don't want any rebellions on our hands or anything like that.
00:09:34.740 And so my guess is that Kubrick is giving and the other thing that's connected is sex and violence.
00:09:41.820 So not only is after Alex goes through the Ludovico technique and he is modified through behavioralism to hate violence,
00:09:52.940 but he also can't lust after women.
00:09:56.140 So in one scene that you might remember, he, you know, a naked woman just walks before him and he's kind of reaching up to her breasts.
00:10:05.460 But then he he cowers down because he's feeling all these the sickness because he's associated in a behavioral like method sex with nausea, nausea, death.
00:10:18.120 And so he's kind of, I think in some way that Kubrick is very ambivalent about Aryan power and it might need to be, it needs to be contained and it might. 0.99
00:10:39.520 And that can take different forms.
00:10:41.560 I mean, it could take the form of, you know, becoming Beethoven or it could take the form of being kind of modified and pacified through the, you know, the modern welfare state or Christianity.
00:10:53.560 And he becomes a Christian that's actually said explicitly, he said, he is a good Christian who will always turn the other cheek.
00:11:01.880 It's said by a politician.
00:11:03.640 So Kubrick is kind of suggesting that Christianity is a way of making the Aryan good.
00:11:10.560 But I think there's also another aspect of, of like a punishment where, you know, they say at one point, the, the behavioral scientist, who's a kind of stand in for BF Skinner, he, he says, you know, well, he's, he's associating Beethoven's ninth symphony with, with Hitler.
00:11:31.560 And, uh, he says, well, it can't be helped.
00:11:35.060 Perhaps this is part of the penal aspect of this.
00:11:38.300 He's like, I'm sorry, boy, there's nothing that can be done.
00:11:42.140 And so what he's kind of telling is maybe you might need to take away Beethoven.
00:11:47.400 Like you, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
00:11:50.840 You can't like, you know, there, there's that kind of thing of like, um, and many people said this, um, including like Jewish conductors or Israeli Jewish conductors, like Berenboim or something.
00:12:01.560 Of, you know, you know, Richard Wagner, he was the worst man of all time.
00:12:06.060 He was a rabid anti-Semite.
00:12:07.900 He, he was a preface to Hitlerism in so many ways. 0.91
00:12:12.720 Um, but I still love his music, you know, but I think Kubrick might actually be suggesting that that's not possible.
00:12:21.280 You, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
00:12:24.180 Anyway, these are just kind of my initial thoughts on it.
00:12:26.840 I, I think it's a good movie.
00:12:28.140 And the other interesting thing about it is that it's the immediate followup to 2001 and Kubrick was after 2001, obviously huge budget and Kubrick wanted to make a Napoleon movie, but they were having a huge cash crunch in Hollywood.
00:12:50.980 Probably like what we're going to see, you know, in, in, in the coming years where they just can't afford this stuff.
00:12:57.760 And so they, they had this low budget.
00:12:59.580 So I think in a way, a clockwork orange is kind of his Napoleon film.
00:13:03.960 And he would have, he was thinking through these issues.
00:13:07.240 And I, I think he probably would have had a similar message if that Napoleon film had been made.
00:13:12.240 Very interesting.
00:13:14.240 Very interesting.
00:13:14.700 I have to watch it again because it's been probably 15 years that I haven't seen it.
00:13:20.560 Yeah.
00:13:21.040 I, that's the same with me.
00:13:22.340 I had not seen it in a while and I rewatched it and then Mark and I rewatched it again last night.
00:13:28.400 And it, um, it's an interesting one.
00:13:31.840 It's not his best, but it's kind of fascinating.
00:13:35.720 And it might tell you his thoughts about Aryans, basically.
00:13:42.360 We're all basically, uh, Alexander DeLarge is at heart.
00:13:48.740 But it's a very sad message if he says we have to abandon the music, basically.
00:13:53.860 Yeah, it is a sad message.
00:13:55.500 To tame our nature.
00:13:56.760 Yeah.
00:13:57.920 And maybe does Beethoven kind of inspire, you know, does listening to Beethoven, Alex really
00:14:04.900 connects with Beethoven and is that actually inspiring his violent mayhem?
00:14:11.460 Because, you know, there is a lot of that in the, I mean, I, I, I was, I was talking
00:14:16.280 about this with Mark the other night.
00:14:17.560 I was like, there, you know, there are a lot of classical composers who you could say the
00:14:23.420 music is, is kind of background music or entertainment, you know, like you could, and I don't want to demean
00:14:29.420 Mozart or something, but sure.
00:14:31.420 You know, it's some level, it's a kind of nice music that you can have on.
00:14:36.480 You can imagine it being performed in a court or, you know, you could have it on while you're
00:14:40.260 eating dinner or something.
00:14:41.860 But Beethoven, he kind of grabs you by the ears and forces you to listen to him.
00:14:47.260 I mean, it is a violent, you know, music.
00:14:50.720 Boom, boom, boom, boom.
00:14:51.580 Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
00:14:54.220 Yeah.
00:14:54.620 And I mean, he, he wrote a symphony about Napoleon.
00:14:57.800 His third symphony is about Napoleon and then Napoleon invaded the German lands and he scratched
00:15:04.260 it off the scores.
00:15:05.520 The legend goes, I mean, it, it's, you know, but it is the, it's a kind of violent music.
00:15:11.360 So you could even suggest like, you know, is it sublimation or does listening to Beethoven,
00:15:17.900 if you're really able to listen to it, does it get you in touch with the life force and
00:15:24.880 violence and, you know, pillaging and conquest and domination?
00:15:30.420 Like, does it, you know, are we, we're all living in this horrible welfare state of modern 0.99
00:15:35.860 Europe and it's just stupid and dysfunctional and it, you know, makes everyone equal in the 1.00
00:15:42.320 worst possible way. 1.00
00:15:43.360 But like, you know, can you listen to Beethoven and want to be Hitler effectively? 0.83
00:15:52.680 Good stuff.