intended to give it a "slightly futuristic" look. McDowell's role in Lindsay Anderson's if.... (1968) was crucial to his casting as Alex, and Kubrick professed that he probably would not have made the film if McDowell had been unavailable. Because of its depiction of teenage violence, A Clockwork Orange became one of the most controversial films of its time, and part of an ongoing debate about violence and its glorification in cinema. It received an X rating, or certificate, in both the UK and US, on its release just before Christmas 1971, though many critics saw much of the violence depicted in the film as satirical, and less violent than Straw Dogs, which had been released a month earlier. Kubrick personally pulled the film from release in the United Kingdom after receiving death threats following a series of copycat crimes based on the film; it was thus completely unavailable legally in the UK until after Kubrick's death, and not re-released until 2000. John Trevelyan, the censor of the film, personally considered A Clockwork Orange to be "perhaps the most brilliant piece of cinematic art I've ever seen," and believed it to present an "intellectual argument rather than a sadistic spectacle" in its depiction of violence, but acknowledged that many would not agree. Negative media hype over the film notwithstanding, A Clockwork Orange received four Academy Award nominations, for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Editing, and was named by the New York Film Critics Circle as the Best Film of 1971. After William Friedkin won Best Director for The French Connection that year, he told the press: "Speaking personally, I think Stanley Kubrick is the best American film-maker of the year. In fact, not just this year, but the best, period." Period and horror filming (1972–1980) Barry Lyndon (1975) is an adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's The Luck of Barry Lyndon, a picaresque novel about the adventures of an 18th-century Irish rogue and social climber. John Calley of Warner Bros. agreed in 1972 to invest $2.5 million into the film, on condition that Kubrick approach major Hollywood stars, to ensure success. Like previous films, Kubrick and his art department conducted an enormous amount of research on the 18th century. Extensive photographs were taken of locations and artwork in particular, and paintings were meticulously replicated from works of the great masters of the period in the film. The film