Film adaptation of story's written as novels has always been tremendously profitable, but at the same time controversial. Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange does indeed represent the idea's behind Burgess' book well, but at a cost. Considering that violence is tremendously intense in Burgess' novel, Kubrick was undoubedtly limited in how explicit he could afford to be in his film. In the end, certain things simply could not be presented in their entirety.

In the novel, Alex drugs and rapes two 10 year old girls. But as seen in the scene above, Kubrick softens the violence and explicitness of this part of the narrative, and perhaps weakens the characterization of Alex that Burgesswishes presents in the novel.

While compressing a 150 page novel into a much shorter and presentable screenplay undoubedtly weakens the complexity of the story, there are some elements of the story that are fundamentally more powerful in film than in writing.

Nasdat, is entirely more understandable and compelling when it is actually heard. Also, simply writing about Beethoven's music might create the idea of it in the reader's mind, but when it is actually presented in sound it has a much more profound impact.

In the end, both mediums are able to effectively present the themes that they intend to. Both are effective pieces of art, but in the end I think more value lies in where the story originates. Burgess creates a story that Kubrick is able to take and effectively reinterpret, but the fact remains that it is not his story so he cannot be the one to most effectively present it. This is confirmed in the fact that Kubrick ignores the original three part structure of the Burgess' novel, and by completely eliminating the ending, he changes the story to fit the message that he wants to get across instead of preserving Burgess' intent.