Stanley Kubrick’s kitschy film adaption of Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel of the same name takes the audience on a futuristic and violent journey into the life of a depraved young man.
A Clockwork
The film takes place in a futuristic totalitarian super state with its youth culture becoming rampantly violent. Alex is the 15 year old protagonist and narrator of the film. He tells the story in a teenage slang known as ‘nadsat’, which contains elements of Cockney English as well as Russian.
He is the brutal leader of a street gang of criminals who should be in school, but would rather roam the night under a veil of darkness to rape and pillage the defenseless. The film’s tagline sums up Alex’s vicious yet artistic nature: ‘Being the adventure of a young man whose principle interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven.’
The Premise
To summarise this film is an intensely difficult task. The many themes that are tackled and brilliantly executed by Kubrick run deeper than most films. So before I get into the complex themes and cinematography of it all I will simply summarise the plot.
One night, while the boys are once again on a violent crime spree, the police are summoned by an elderly woman and Alex is caught and taken to prison. He is sentenced to 14 years in jail, where the chaplain befriends him after noticing Alex’s growing interest in bible.
Alex seems to be interested in Christianity, but he just enjoys the violence and sex that is described in the scriptures. He is allowed to spend his time in the chapel listening to his favourite classical music while reading the bible, which is bliss for him as he has always associated music with violence.
Dehumanisation of Alex
One day Alex is selected to be the first candidate for an experimental treatment called ‘Ludovico’s Technique’: a form of brainwashing and associative learning. After being injected with a liquid that makes him horrifically ill he is forced to watch violent films.
This is the iconic seen in the film where we see Alex hooked up to a machine with his eyes pulled open by pins as he watched the horrific films take place to his favourite music score. Once over, he now associates violence with severe illness such as nausea and headaches. Now, even the thought of violence makes him sick to his stomach.
He, too, can no longer enjoy classical music, which was a massive part of his life. The state deems his transformation a success and releases him into the world not only a harmless human being, but a defenseless one. His earlier victims begin to take severe revenge on him.
Revenge
After being beaten and left for dead in a field by one of his old gang members, Dim and a sworn enemy named Billyboy, Alex stumbles his way to a nearby home and is taken in by a physically impaired man who lets him spend the night.
However, this isn’t just any man, but a person whose wife was brutally raped and killed by Alex and his cronies while he was left a cripple by their violence. At first the man does not recognise Alex as he had a mask on that night, but when Alex begins to sing ‘singing in the rain’ while he lies in the bath tub, the man realises who he has let into his home.
You see, while raping and brutalising his wife all those years back, Alex narcissistically sang the song. The man, F Alexander, a political dissident, takes severe revenge on Alex. There is eventually some sort of change in Alex at the end of the film and he is somewhat redeemed for his cruelty and violence.
Themes
The set is garishly colourful and innovative; taking the audience into a futuristic, tacky world. The film’s violent scenes are horrific and jaw dropping, which was especially true for the 1971 audience.
It raises many thematic questions, such as ‘if we are deprived of our free will to choose between good and evil, do we lose our humanity?’ By doing so it facilitates social commentary about psychiatry, the youth and the social and economic subjects in a dystopian British future.
The film produced iconic scenes that will forever be a part of film history and embedded in pop culture’s mind.
Memorable Scenes
The most memorable scene of the film is the opening image, showing an eerie close-up of Alex’s staring eyes and terrifying smirk. He is wearing a bowler hat and donning one false eyelash on his right eye, while his cufflinks and suspenders are decorated with a bloodied eyeball.
Then, of course, as mentioned before, there is the brutal scene where Alex is forced to watch violent films while being made horribly ill. In this scene we see his twisted and contorted face screaming with pain while his eyes are forced open by a sadistic medieval-looking machine.
The rape scene, the dildo murder scene and the milkbar scene are all iconic and beautifully shot. The bright colours are juxtaposed to the darkness of the actions.
You Decide
Darkness versus light, good versus evil and free will versus a totalitarian state. A Clockwork Orange will leave you thinking about morality and, even though the film was made in the 70s, it is just as relevant to society today.
A Clockwork Orange is one of the most controversial films of all time, one of the most tantalising films of all time and one of the best films of all time.
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