Why was the movie "A Clockwork Orange" named so?

Question

I watched it last night for third time and cannot see the link between the title and the story.

Answer 1

A Clockwork Orange is a speculative fiction novel by Anthony Burgess, published in 1962 and later the basis for the 1971 film by Stanley Kubrick.

Explanation of the novel's title
Burgess wrote that the title was a reference to an alleged old Cockney expression 'as queer as a clockwork orange'. ¹ Due to his time serving in the British Colonial Office in Malaya, Burgess thought that the phrase could be used punningly to refer to a mechanically responsive (clockwork) human (orang, Malay for 'person'). Burgess wrote in his later introduction, A Clockwork Orange Resucked, that a creature who can only perform good or evil is 'a clockwork orange—meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice, but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State'. The Italian title, Un'Arancia Ad Orologeria, was interpreted to refer to a grenade.

In his essay "Clockwork Oranges"², Burgess asserts that 'this title would be appropriate for a story about the application of Pavlovian, or mechanical, laws to an organism which, like a fruit, was capable of colour and sweetness'. This title alludes to the protagonist's negatively conditioned responses to feelings of evil which prevent the exercise of his free will.

Answer 2

Explanation of the novel's title
Burgess wrote that the title was a reference to an alleged old Cockney expression 'as queer as a clockwork orange'. ¹ Due to his time serving in the British Colonial Office in Malaya, Burgess thought that the phrase could be used punningly to refer to a mechanically responsive (clockwork) human (orang, Malay for 'person'). Burgess wrote in his later introduction, A Clockwork Orange Resucked, that a creature who can only perform good or evil is 'a clockwork orange—meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice, but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State'. The Italian title, Un'Arancia Ad Orologeria, was interpreted to refer to a grenade.

In his essay "Clockwork Oranges"², Burgess asserts that 'this title would be appropriate for a story about the application of Pavlovian, or mechanical, laws to an organism which, like a fruit, was capable of colour and sweetness'. This title alludes to the protagonist's negatively conditioned responses to feelings of evil which prevent the exercise of his free will.

Answer 3

Its from the book A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. There is a reference in the book, but I can't remember if its in the movie.

Answer 4

"There is, however, an English slang expression for a gambling device known as the "one-armed bandit" in the U.S.: a clockwork fruit (the gambling device typically is referred to as a "fruit machine" in the UK due to the depictions on its dials; clockwork in England is a word applied to a plethora of mechanical devices beyond just time-pieces). The anthropomorphic look of a "fruit machine" (thus, its name "one-armed bandit" in the U.S. for its roughly man-sized shape and "arm" giving it a humanoid appearance) may well have given rise to the term "clockwork orange" in Burgess' fertile mind as Alex, through conditioning, is turned into a robot (which a fruit machine resembles). Gambling also is a game of chance, and Alex literally is gambling with his soul. This is made explicit, particularly in the film, when Dr. Brodsky tells Alex -- who is upset over the use of Beethoven on the soundtrack to the atrocity films and claims he has been enlightened -- to take his chance, as he will be free in a fortnight (roughly the time an annual vacation in an English resort such as Blackpool -- the Las Vegas of Britain -- with its scores of fruit machines, would take)."

hope that helps :)

Answer 5

according to Anthony Burgess the author of the book that the film was based from it related to an old cockney phrase, ' queer as a clockwork orange'(!)

check wiki here for a full explanantion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clockwork_orange

Answer 6

I watched it for the first time last night and struggled to follow it hope the book brings some light to it for me

Answer 7

dno
that movie was banned ages ago werent it
maybe because it worked lyk clockwork and it involved dose orange chocolate ball things...terrys chocolate orange lol x

Answer 8

because of an old phrase that is, "as queer as a clockwork orange"

Answer 9

I was told it had something to do with coding a patient - orange meant something.

Answer 10

the novel has the same name.