3 famous "prison" movies

A Clockwork Orange (10/10)

Edited by Larkstongue41 - April 19 2017 at 14:09

A Clockwork Orange, although it's not exactly a prison movie. How about Papillon or Birdman of Alcatraz? Cuckoo and Shawshank are both decent, but killed by being overly simplistic. The two villains in Shawshank are obnoxiously one-dimensional, almost as much as the antagonist from The Green Mile. I'm don't think Darabont trusts his audience to understand conflict if there isn't an obvious villain waved in ones face. 

I was expecting Midnight Express.

Irregardless of prison movie labels, it's not that easy for me to choose between A Clockwork Orange and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. Both of those films had a huge impact on me (enjoyed the books too). The Shawshank Redemption didn't affect me much.

I used the term "prison movie" just to have a clickbait title link the 3 movies, I know that only Shawshank would qualify as one. All three movies have a significant portion of the narrative set in a jail/mental institution. 

Edited by Larkstongue41 - April 19 2017 at 18:00

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is my pick.
Shawshank is average at best.
A Clockwork Orange is a disaster. How many books has Kubrick ruined? The Shining, 2001, A Clockwork Orange...I'm pretty sure Kubrick didn't understand the novel at all. It's so bad in fact that the message is actually the complete opposite of the book. Go read the novel, it's quite good.

Upbeat Tango Monday wrote: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is my pick. Shawshank is average at best. A Clockwork Orange is a disaster. How many books has Kubrick ruined? The Shining, 2001, A Clockwork Orange...I'm pretty sure Kubrick didn't understand the novel at all. It's so bad in fact that the message is actually the complete opposite of the book. Go read the novel, it's quite good.

I don't think that A Clockwork Orange was an easy one to translate to screen, and he did have his own vision for it.

I've read the books/ stories that those Kubrick films were based on and I don't think he ruined any of them. With 2001 he collaborated with Clarke and based it on the short story The Sentinel. Later on Clarke wrote the novel of the same name which explained things more. I prefer the film version. The Sentinel is a fine short story, though not my favourite Clarke work. As for the Shining, yes King didn't like it for moving away from the supernatural elements and making lots of changes to the story, but I prefer the film version (and I love lots of Stephen King books). Stephen King had a miniseries made (wrote the teleplay) that was truer to his vision and I thought it poor. King has called Kubrick's The Shining the worst adaptation of any of his books, but it's by far the best that I've seen. It's not that faithful, but I don't see that as a negative.

As for A Clockwork Orange, it is terrific novel, and I understand why Burgess didn't like the adaptation thinking that it glorified sexual violence. I don't see it like that.

In all of those I like that Kubrick put his own slant on things, and one can both enjoy the books and the movies. Sometimes I don't get the furor that people make when adaptions are not very faithful as often I like to read the books and watch and enjoy that they are different. A good example for me would be Truffaut's version of Fahrenheit 451. Sometimes I don't like the changes they make....

As for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, of which I've also read the book, plenty of changes though the message did remain the same. Midnight Express, my prison pick not on the list was still a good film despite the liberties it took with the source material (which in itself was not that accurate).

I don't consider Clockwork to be a prison movie... Neither is Cuckoo's Nest (it's an asylum)

Midnight Express and Concrete Jungle are prison movies

But Shawshank Redemption is one of the top Hollywood movie ever

Papillon...the best ever!

Cuckoo's Nest out of these ones.