Christopher Pyne And A Clockwork Orange

This episode of You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, I just want to put a trigger warning out in front of it. We are discussing Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange and it's a movie that features some scenes involving rape, so they are briefly discussed in this podcast. I just wanted to put a warning at the top. Hey, they I'm Peter Hallier and welcome to You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, the podcast that talks to movie lovers about classic and beloved movies

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He Ain't Seen Nothing.

If you had told me I'd be doing a movie podcast featuring former Minister of Defense Christopher Pine, I would have been very surprised, very surprised. Indeed, although through his appearances on the project, Christopher Pine has become my most unlikely friend of recent years. He's a good company, he's intelligent, he's funny, and he's extremely candid. This was the first interview I recorded for this series, and I really enjoyed it.

I'm Christopher Pine, and my three favorite movies are Gone with the wind.

Frankly, I don't give a damn.

The Chariots for five and the sound of music? But is it you can't face? Although I do have a particular affection for Babe, but I'm only allowed to have three favorites. Amazingly, I've never seen a clockwork orange until recently. What you got back home, little sister, to play your fuzzy warbles on? I bet you've got little save potable picnic players come with uncle, and.

Here all proper, here angel trumpets, some devil trombones.

You are invited.

Welcome Christopher Pine. Sorry I should I should say it again. Welcome Christopher Pine. Now, thank you for coming on. You ain't seen nothing yet. Why have you not seen A Clockwork Orange until this week?

Well because I had quite a sheltered upbringing, which will surprise your listeners. And we weren't allowed to watch movies like A Clockwork Orange when they came out, because they were seen to be seditious. And the first thing I was allowed to watch was I Claudius, which had Bobs in it.

By we could stage the greatest night of love the world has ever.

Seen, because my father thought, despite the fact that it was a little bit out there, it was about ancient Rome, and it was very important in our family to have a love of the classics.

What was the first movie you ever saw?

Oh, God, that's a good question. I can tell you. Actually, Beatrix Potter. It was a children's movie with actors dressed up as Jeremy Fisher and Jemima Puddle Duck. I can't remember the name of it, but it was Beatrix. It was about It was a Beatrix Potter movie at a movie house, at a cinema with my dad and my family.

Yeah, so what is going through the movies? What is it?

Do you still go to the movies? Do you?

What is it?

I love the smell of popcorn. I never really ate popcorn, but I love the smell of popcorn. And I love the adventure of going to a movie.

I love going to the theater. I love it. I love taking my family and like going with friends. I think it's an experience and certainly never be replaced by Netflix or videos at home. So yeah, I think it's part of growing up, taking your kids, being you know, with your family at the movies, and people aren't allowed to opt out.

Really, yes, you know, because my mum would often watch movies at home, but she would do the ironing, she did the you know, did them and then and she would you know, of course go and you know, take the put them in the basket and then take the clothes off to the rooms.

And I said, do you want me to pause?

It's catch up, that's not that's not watching the movie.

That's not what movies are about.

I like the factions. They make it dark, yes, you know, and it's all focused on the movie.

Yes, do you want modern cinema? What do you think of the state of cinema?

Now? What was the last good movie you saw?

It certainly wasn't The VP that was terrible, which I saw recently. That was just I didn't see me nonsense. It was about George Bush's vice president, not the yeah vice vice that's right. Sorry, rubbish, absolute rubbish. Hated that movie, thought it was just terrible. Almost walked out, did you. I've only ever walked out of one movie, which Saving Private Run?

Really why?

Too violent for me? The first twenty minutes I thought, this is terrible.

I can't stay here, and you got three o'clock crange.

Yeah, but you know it's brutal.

The Imaha Beach scene was, which is the scene was too much for me?

So you walked out early?

Yeah? Sorry, you know I left, and I've never left a movie.

I'm also a great I walked out of one, which is a very different movie than Saving Private right, I walked out of In Bed with Madonna? Oh, yeah, was that bad?

I was a garbage you know. I'm also a great weeper in movies.

Yeah.

My worst weeping in the movie was Working Girl.

Remember when she gets the job at the end, and that music comes up, that great music comes up, that choiet which is singing let the rivers run. And I was this is bad because I was at the Chelsea Cinema and I was sitting next to the member for Sturt, my predecessor, Ian Wilson, who I defeated in pre selection about a year later, and I'm sobbing.

In working And I always thought that was bad because he must have thought, God, I don't know this guy's crying and buddy working girl. And then a year later I knocked him up in pre selection. I mean, really, Chalk and Cheese, wasn't it.

But you did you begin getting more emotional watching movies because I did when I had kids. Sure, I started getting more emotional when I watched movies and crying more.

Oh definitely. My children think it's an erratus that are crying movies that aren't in the least bit sad. But I get upset of something wonderful.

Happens to people in the rock movie once.

As well as something. You know, I don't cry when terrible things like you know, violence doesn't make me in the least bit of motive, but you know, wonderful things that have sort of real I found them tears chair because like that girl and working girl getting the job at the end with the telephone in the air.

I asked you, so, which movie haven't used? Because I know you're a movie buff. We speak a lot when you come on the project and you you off the name drop certain movies and I which one haven't you seen? And you said A Clockwork Orange? And I thought, perfect,

Wow, is that right?

That's right?

When did he die?

Nineteen ninety nine, So the.

Brits didn't get to see A Clockwork Orange until after nineteen ninety nine.

It was open for a few weeks I think, and then he had Warner Brothers of the whole thing.

But he was okay to be watched in the US. The rest of the world it.

Was allowed, and it was nominated for an Academy Award, which was rare for an r RAD film to be nominated for an Academy Award.

So you watched it, what did you think about I.

Thought it was really interesting. Actually I quite liked it. I didn't love it. I could see that it would have been a real groundbreaker in its time, though, and it was in that period of those kinds of movies that was breaking out of the old sort of way that movies has been made by Hollywood or the Brits. It was clearly you know, it's a disturbing movie, but it's quite lyrical. So as a person who's read the Iliad and the Odyssey, for example, I quite liked the

One thing I could never stand was to see a filthy, dirty, old drunkie howling away at the filthy songs of his father's and going blur in between as it might be a filthy old orchestra and his stinking, rotten guts.

For me watching it, because I hadn't seen thought I had, but I had it. I think i'd just scene you the images. But when I sat down and watched it and it reminded me the first half hour, I was like, I was just getting through it.

It felt like a bit of work.

Is that right?

Yeah?

I didn't feel that way because I'd never it was a genre that I'm not used to.

Yeah, how did you? How did you handle the violence? And then and the I was surprised.

I was quite surprised by it, actually, And that's quite early in the movie. Yes, So that's really the opening night is all those terrible crimes at their connects, rapes and they rate that woman who with the red dress? Is it dear?

There's a young male here.

He says, there's been an accident.

He wants to use the telephone.

What I suppose you better let it mean? Look, it was I mean it was very Stanley Kubrick, you know, cutting the holes in the red dress so that her breasts were exposed.

So that scene happens, which is Alex and gang of.

Drug cool drugs. He had extence.

They cut out the holes in the dress her breasts, and then when he goes and breaks into the other house later on with the phallic artwork a catwoman. Did you notice there's artwork on the wall that actually has a woman with the same scene, the same cutout of the notice that it was.

I thought it was very interest It was all very seventies, there wasn't.

It he was.

Did you notice the amount of phelic artwork? Has a lot of phallic artwork in the movie, there's the pine household.

And any phallic artwork. I didn't think it was overdone because it was the seventies. Yes, and in the seventies everybody was proving that they could have, you know, phallic artwork and you know enormous vaginas and things sort of as ashtrays and apparently didn't matter, which I thought was all a bit tried too hard. But I was only a child, of course, But now looking back, I think it's all a bit tried too hard. But on the other hand, the movie really did reflect the times.

That it made noughtynughty, naughty, you filthy old sunka.

Hello, don't it's a very important welcome art.

There was criticism of it for being soft pawn, you know, like there was people who kind of thought Kubrick had this fascination with that that that there was that sex scene that was supposed to be a twenty eight minute sex scene. But they sped it up, they did, and it's basically a threesome.

Three some with the two girls from the album shop.

That's right, And they sped it up. And one of the reason they sped it up it was all to do the sensors and the rating. I can see why though, they thought they would get away with not getting an R rating if they sped it up. Then the censors said, well, hang on, if we allow this to happen. They were actually thought pornographers would actually use this as a trick to gets their movies through as well.

It was a bit random though, that scene. I'm not sure how that added to the movie. That Alex album shop meets these two girls has a threesome.

Yeah, what was.

The I'm not sure how that added to the movie at all. No, which makes me think that maybe Kubrick did have sort of your know, i mean, Eyes Wide Shut has a whole lot of scenes and that they're completely unnecessary.

Well, yeah, that was his last work, and he died before that was released.

What were your images?

What were your impressions of what A Clockwork Orange was?

If you put yourself back before you saw that.

I thought it was a seditious movie that was designed to undermine the moral values of the Western world.

Okay, you got.

Because that's what That's why I was told I wasn't allowed to watch it. I just thought, I'm never going to watch A Clockwork Orange. That opportunity is now passed, until you mentioned that I should watch a movie that

And so what do you think then? The overriding theme he was quite liberal.

So it's peculiar, isn't it that he was quite small or liberal? But he just probably thought I was too young and impressionable to be allowed to see, which is fair enough. Which is fair enough because now that I've seen the movie, I realized he probably made a very sensible decision. Absolutely, you know, definitely. I mean that the hideousness of the murder of the catwoman with the phallic sculpture is terrible, Yes, terrible.

It's kind of it's so like, I don't think anyone would get away. I can't imagine any director now doing a scene like that where it's kind of you're not sure it's been played for the last for a little while. I mean, did you find any of it funny?

It's a good question because I often thought during the movie, this is almost high fast. Yeah, this is high fast. Because the way they were all the drugs were dressed was also peculiar. The underpants on the outside. The idea of that was, what is the idea of all that?

Well, Malcolm McDowell played Alex and when they were collaborating, Kubrick asking what he wanted to wear, and you know, he goes, I got my cricket uniform, my cricket whites in my car and he put his cricket whites on. Being an American didn't really know where they was, and he saw his protector's he said, yeah, wear that on the outside, so he wore on the outside.

That kind of became the drugs thing.

But there were times where you could have been in the Monty Python sketch.

Yeah, exactly because it was it was filmed that way. I mean, it's kind of rough.

The scene when he comes back into the house after he comes out of aversion therapy and there's a lodger. Yeah, the lodger and I had a few laughs during that.

See, that was very That was a very unusual and funny scene because the lodger sort of talks to him like he's the parent about how he should have behaved and how he hasn't behaved that way, so they're not welcome here anymore, and the parents basically allow the lodger to do that.

I've heard about you. I know what you've done, breaking the arts of your poor grieving parents. So you're back, eh, You're back to make life a misery for your lovely parents once more.

Is that it?

Yeah, it sounds like that could have been a Monty Python sketch.

I agree. I thought it was. It was at random, But the mother is random too, you know, with the purple hair and she's crying sometimes and other times she's you know, loving Alex and wanting you know, it's just I felt. Also the movie was designed to say, this is what the seventies is like, yes, and this is the new world we live in and it's pretty ugly, and you know, we're always trying to I mean, the Sound of Music is one of my favorite movies, right, yep.

There's a parties family that was as close as we've gotten.

But people love the Sound of Music.

It's a great film.

We want to Ronald Reagan's favorite movies and why do we love it?

Lisa was one of my first crushes, is that right?

She was sixteen while I was younger.

And the Ronald Reagan's one of Ronald Reagan's favorite movies. So because it lifts everybody, it makes everyone feel great. I mean, you can't watch the Sound of Music without feeling great. And a clockwork Orange is basically saying no, the world is a terrible place and welcome to it here it is and full display. Yeah, and which is confronting.

It's a very confronting film, obviously, But it's also about free will, isn't it. Can you impose? Can you impose free you know that got a free will? Or can you can you make somebody change that?

Yeah?

Can you change their DNA to become a good person?

Or should good and evil be a choice?

Do you think that's about good and evil being a choice?

Just?

I suppose it was really because in the end the man was saying, when he was on the stage having been apparently cured, there was a person who was against what they'd done, because I think it was the warden or something.

Or something, Yeah, it was what was I think it was the minister.

The minister was in favor of the aversion that the prison Chaplain, the prison Chaplin.

I think that scene.

Taken aways free Will is the film? Did it make a difference? Most of Kubrick's movies were made for a reason, and I think it probably did. I think it probably said to people back in the seventies, Wow, this could be the future. This is disposed to dystopian future. This could be the future unless we change it. But has it changed, probably not really.

Do you understand why it's a classic?

Do you?

Ye?

Do you kind of give it.

Because it was so different? I mean it was a classic because I mean classics are classics because they either tell an amazing story, or they are huge budget, or they had a fantastic score and gone with the windows, all three, which is why it's still a classic. And I pity people that haven't seen Gone with the End. But they're also classics because they change fit the theater.

How did you feel about Alex's performance of singing in the rain?

Yeah? That was interesting, wasn't It was disturbing too.

It was disturbing.

So that was They shot the versions of that scene I think for days, because Kubrick does take out to take like famously, so many takes, and they shot it for days, even I think, using different recasting the actress. And Kubrick just didn't think there was it felt flat, there was something missing, and he so he encouraged malcol McDowell to kind of jump around a bit maybe to sing, and he sung singing in the rain.

Libed singing in the rain.

That's interesting, isn't it, Because I mean the actors these days, the directors would basically tell them what to do it almost the whole movie. But and obviously when Kubrick makes this movie, Malcolm Madowell is much more involved in the final outcome than just the run of the male actor.

Well, apparently the script is very faithful to the book and a lot of it was just also notes that. So I think, and I think Malcolm MacDowell worked with Kubrick months leading into the obviously with the wardrobe is one example, and even in the moment to add lib singing in the rain. But what's interesting is that he had lived singing in the rain, apparently Kubrick pissing himself laughing at the monitor.

Which is slightly weird.

To be honest, I can understand divorcing yourself from the fact that you are shooting a rape scene and he singing singing in the rain, like you can actually I think kind of go okay. I noticed a disturbing scene, but I found it funny what Malcolm just did then because.

It works for the film.

But it worked for the film.

For the film, I don't think you know, I think he's supposed to be laughing when you're watching it at all. But then when it's it's interesting because when he sings later on, so Alex has come out of a version therapy and he breaks into the writer's room and the writer that doesn't recognize him as.

Then he sings it again.

He sings it again, and it's actually the perfect song for him to sing because he's singing, I'm singing the rain, I'm happy again. He's almost found this contentment, which you gotta go how it's an amazing.

Writer works out that he's the guy that broke into his house. It's a few years before, and it's it's so left him a cripple.

It's like if you were scripting it. It's such a perfect song to sing, both in the first performance and then later on when he's in the bath. The lyrics just work perfectly, and it's just amazing. It's what a happy coincidence.

So what's with the bodybuilding guy who looks after the you know who that is?

No, who that is Darth Vader himself. No, that is a gentleman by the name of David Praws.

Is that right, Yes, a young man.

As a young man.

So this was made in nineteen seventy one, so about eight years before or six years before Star Wars and New Hope.

And he was a bodybuilder.

Wow.

And he actually actually because he knew Kubrick was a big fan of doing multiple takes. And yet he complained about the idea. You know, he carries the wheelchair. Yes, he complained. He goes, how many takes are you going to do with this?

Yeah?

Right, And so Kubrick agreed to do six. He did six. Wow, six takes.

But that was an unusual part of the movie. Yeah, I mean, what were they trying to convey there that the writer in the wheelchair that the bodybuilder was his lover. Now, well I.

Just thought that. But then the wheelchair, so he might he may have just had it that was his I.

Think in the end I thought it was actually he was protector against it happening again. And he was just a practical person who could carry him around. But the opening part when the you couldn't see the bodybuilder, but you could hear him lifting weights, yes, And I thought, what's that in the background. That's such a weird sound.

It's quite a flat shot, and they start on the writer and they pan across.

The when you hear what.

The sound is actually that the dumbbells kind of comet and the.

That's so weird. But I'm sure Kubrick was alive. He'd have a good explanation for that.

I'm sure we don't have access to him, sadly.

But I thought that was an unusual another another random part of the movie which must have had some deep meaning that I missed.

Yeah, and what about the the the therapy scenes. Did it make you not want to watch Nazi films in your home cinema anymore? The certainly had that effect on I'm not watching anything.

How did you know? I didn't think that was the best part of the movie. I know it was critical to the movie, but I actually thought it was a bit weak, because, I mean, I didn't like the why they were keeping his eyes open, eyelids open with those things, and I thought it was very unlikely he would have been able to do that.

Well, you know the doctor.

Is that true though, that they can do things like well.

That they actually did that, and the doctor who was there wasn't supposed to. He was actually an actual doctor who was just they had on set to kind of because they wouldn't have been able to do it without.

That must have been a misery because I kept thinking during that part of the movie, God, this must have been impossible to do to shoot. Yeah, well, because that was distracting from me, and.

It scratched.

Mcdiland are being basically blinded for you know a little while it scratches the coroners that they call it scratched cornea, cornea.

The cornea. My father was an ice surgeon. Yeah, now that was I mean, that was an obviously critical part

Has Australian government ever conducted such a version. Therapy tests that you are aware of knowledge, not to monitor your knowledge. So you're leaving the window a job.

You never know.

Do you can get Peter that the phone on the phone.

I liked the whole Beethoven motif.

I going to ask you about that.

I thought that worked.

So Alex loves as much as is a violent hoodlum, the one thing that kind of gives him a human redemptive feature for even the therapy is that he loves Beethoven.

And it did. It did give him a redemptive aspect, don't you think?

Absolutely?

Yeah?

And you know I had friends in the seventies and eighties who loved the clockwork orange and because they felt that, you know, the message was you could be violent and seemingly unable to be a part of society because you loved Beethoven and classical music. Actually you were quite sophisticated that It didn't mean that they walked around being drugs. But I'm sure, I'm quite sure that.

Where the cricket protected on that I remember they were.

There was there were a few of the say NAC's boys at the time who thought that this that Alex was quite a reasonable character because of the music side of it, the sophisticated music sign of it. Didn't make me want to watch the movie, I must say, But no, I think as the part that that part of the movie, the Beethoven aspect, is quite interesting, actually quite quite a different take on Alex, which makes you think, well, maybe he is just really you know, disturbed, and he's been

Yeah, it gives you an insight, like a little glimpse that there might be some humanity left left in him.

And then it works.

Beautifully because when he gets the therapy and he's turned against sex and violence, which which he loves, the other thing he loves, which is Beethoven's and it's the Ninth I think that's playing over these Nazi films, he also begins to hate Beethoven, so he loves he's taken away from him, so you're keen on music.

Left for a while, he's stopel like.

Politicians aren't often portrayed sympathetically.

In movies. Do you have but there are some? There are some?

Do you have a favorite portrayal of a politician.

Look, I've watched a lot of movies about politicians, and I don't expect politicians to be portrayed sympathetically in movies. But I'd like them to be portrayed as they are or were. And I think the portrayals of Lyndon Baines Johnson are very good in the movies I've seen about LBJ. He seems to get captured well. I think the unfortunately, people find it very hard to capture the Kennedy mystique because it's too much show business and there's too many myths.

Of them, Ze Churchill.

The recent one I saw Churchill, I found that a bit hard to believe. I thought he was kind of portrayed peculiarly because he wasn't a ditherer. But I thought that movie he was portrayed a bit as a ditherer. There's been some wonderful old movies. Marlon Brando played Napoleon in a movie called Desiree Yep, and I thought that was a wonderful portrayal of Napoleon JK.

Obviously it's just dealing with the assassination of JFK. But did you I saw that as a fifteen year old.

I saw it by the Stones version Stones I.

When I saw it, we were holiday in Queensland and I was a bit obsessed with jfk assassination. So my parents dropped me off to see the movie. I sat there by myself and they picked me up at the end of it, and my mum says she's never seen me more shaken afterwards.

It rattled me.

Look, I agree, if it was true, then it would be a movie that would shake your faith in our society. But I think it was rubbish based on the facts. I just think it was just a rubbish movie. I think, you know, it was a good movie, but I think it was just the whole story about the New Orleans, you know, mafia getting together with the cashtro people, anti Cashro people and shooting Kennedy. I think it's all fantasy.

What do you think happened there?

I think Lee Harvey Oswald.

Acted alone, no grassy all And I.

Think the most convincing theory I've ever seen was that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, but that in their attempt to protect the president, the Secret Service might have accidentally

Yep, the magic bullet that are still available.

It says it wasn't a magic bullet, but there are two kinds of ballistics that entered the president's head that day. One was Lee Harvey Oswald's weapon and one was different.

So if you're a if you're let provide security for the president and you shoot the president, not doing your job, is it?

But you would if you did that, cover it up, yes, right, So if you're the Secret Service, and of course accidents happen all the time with weapons, and these people are running around with, you know, highly powerful weapons that have got not their safety catch on because they're designed to protect shoot people. And it's not completely beyond the realms of possibility that an accident occurred that day in the shock and panic of trying to protect the president. Not

Do you because you.

Wouldn't want people to know that there'd been this terrible.

Accident, do you think there should be an Australian movie covering egg Boy? Did he have a second egg? The response was over the top.

From a senator Anning's protectors people, yes, security guards.

It's like he had a second It's like he had They thought he had a second egg on him, or a flower, like he was going to bake a car.

I don't think that people should be egging politicians or media presenters like Paul Lee. Sales was attacked recently in Perth with yoga I think yogurt, which was awful.

That seems to be a thing that's happening in the UK.

It's pathetic.

I just I completely.

Ag Alan Joyce was hitting the face with a shaving cream pie one day two years ago. That's just that's just so bad mannered, you know, offends my sense of what's right and wrong.

I do agree.

I don't think though. Look, I was amused because I don't like Phraser Anning right, and that helps, but that should I don't like when egg Girl tried. I tried to got one on Scott Morrison's head and they just rolled off his head.

Yeah.

And there was the time that John Houston caught the egg. Do you remember that in ninety ninety three. There was tilling him at the Adelaide rally. Yeah, and he just put his hand up and caught the egg. And it's kept on talking. And I thought that was bad.

That's pretty cool actually, But.

I must admit when that child at the or youth shouldn't call him a child. When the youth threw a sandwich at Julia Gillard, Yes, in the high school, Ladlade, I thought that was really below below stairs. I think it's played below stairs.

But I do agree, and I I said I found egg Boy funny because I did test Fraser Anning. But the principle, I can understand people not thinking that's it right, and I completely agree. And egg girl who tried to get scomo that wasn't that wasn't.

So I think people if they don't like Fraser Anning, the best thing for people to do is to ignore him. Because that brought a lot of attention to Fraser Anning well, because he.

Got sixteen plots to begin with and then two and it was.

Never to get reelected. No, so you know, but that's just me as the political professional, thinking, well, he's got it, he's got a shelf live, so why don't we just let him out his shelf life and then he'll move on.

What would you give a clockwork orange at a five?

Three and a half, three and a half, three and a half stars?

I reckon, I probably occur.

Maybe i'd give it three and a half because it's a classic, because it changed cinema. Yeah, because it talked about the time. But I would mark it down because it was rough.

I'm gonna give it four. I'm gonna give it four, but you know we're in the same ballpark. Thank you so much for being a guest on. You ain't seen nothing yet. Keep watching movies, keep crying, keep putting yourself out there, and we'll happily catch up with you soon.

Now here's the scene from Working Girl.

That was a fun chat. And that was actually the first episode I had actually recorded of this podcast. We rolled about as episode six, but with the first piso Christopher Payine, former defense minister, and I thank him for leaping into the unknown with me on my podcast. Journey. He has a new book out called The Insider, which I haven't read, but I'm sure it's a riveting read. He's good company, Christopher, so check it out if that's

And so we leave old Pete say fan sut and to our friends of the radio audience, we've been a pleasant good name