Considered one of the defining filmmakers of his generation, Stanley Kubrick left his signature imprint on the world of film with movies such as Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and The Shining. I’ve even written about some of what are (in my humble opinion) Kubrick’s best films, from Paths of Glory and Spartacus to Full Metal Jacket. But he’s a filmmaker who I very much have a love-hate relationship with. And the one film from him that might have just as much good qualities as bad ones is the 1972 dystopian crime film A Clockwork Orange (an adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s novel of the same name).
I’m surely not the only one who has problems with the movie. Many notable critics at the time, including Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert, lacked much enthusiasm for perceiving it as having a confused ideological message and teetering too close to the line of dehumanizing the victims while trying to evoke empathy from the audience for its psychotic protagonist. But as the years have gone by, the film has acquired a kind of cult status with some identifying it as prescient for times to come due to its exploration of dehumanization and corruption. Yet at the time, the movie received four Oscar nominations (including Best Picture). Clearly, enough people within the film community deemed it worthy of significant praise. But I have to ask…why isn’t A Clockwork Orange great? [NOTE: This blog will contain spoilers for “A Clockwork Orange.” You have been warned.] What’s It About The film takes place in a dystopian Britain, and mostly follows the devious misadventures of Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) and his young gang of “droogs” who get drunk, fight other gangs, and sadistically assault, rape, and torment innocent people. All for fun. Despite warnings from his probation officer, Alex gives into pressure from his fellow delinquents by invading a wealthy woman’s home and knocking her unconscious in order to steal from her. Alex tries to flee, but one of his “friends” beats him down so that he can take the fall for them. The wealthy woman dies, and Alex is sentenced to 14 years in prison for murder. After two years behind bars, Alex accepts an offer to become a test subject for an experimental aversion therapy called the “Ludovico technique” designed to rehabilitate criminals in two weeks’ time. The therapy involves Alex being strapped to a chair, his eyes being clamped open, and forcibly watching films with sex and violence while listening to the music of Beethoven (his favorite composer). The process induces nausea in Alex, and he begs for the treatment to end out of fear that hearing Beethoven will forever make him sick. The positive effects of the treatment on Alex are demonstrated before a group of government officials (via cowering before an attacker and falling ill seeing a topless woman). Despite some protest about Alex’ free will being stripped from him, the Minister of the Interior (Anthony Sharp) successfully defends the treatment by claiming it will cut crime rates which will alleviate the overcrowding issue many prisons in the country have been dealing with. Upon release, Alex returns home to see that all of his possessions have been sold and his parents (Sheila Raynor and Philip Stone) are renting his room out. As a free man, some of Alex’s old victims assault him to seek revenge and is only saved by his former “droogs” (now policemen) who drive him to the countryside, beat him, and nearly drown him before leaving him alone. Alex gets to a nearby home before losing consciousness, only to learn upon waking up that he is in the home of Frank Alexander (Patrick Magee), the man whom he and his friends assaulted and whose wife they raped. Frank now uses a wheelchair due to the injuries caused by Alex and his “droogs,” but does not recognize Alex’s true identity until he hears the young man’s rendition of “Singin’ in the Rain” that he sang while assaulting his wife. With help, Frank drugs Alex, locks him in a bedroom, and tortures him by playing Beethoven. Unable to stand the pain, Alex jumps out the window in an attempt to end his own life. While in the hospital recovering from his suicide attempt, several tests are administered on Alex who learns he no longer has physiological aversions to sex and violence. The Minister visits Alex, apologizing and offering to get him work in exchange for Alex supporting his election campaign and public relations efforts surrounding the “Ludovico technique.” The film ends with Alex in bed imagining himself doing violence and having sex before thinking to himself, “I was cured, all right!” What’s Good About It Despite my many reservations about and problems with A Clockwork Orange, I cannot deny the sheer amount of creative passion and artistic commitment that went into making it. Front and center, of course, is Malcolm McDowell (Caligula, The Artist, Bombshell) whose eerily full-throated embracing of bringing the sociopathic delinquent Alex DeLarge to life is incredibly haunting and unsettling. Regardless of my opinions about Kubrick’s handling of the character’s arc from start to finish, it is evident from the get-go that McDowell never holds back crafting an unforgivable and (mostly) unsympathetic character while also keeping the story of Alex’s downfall (if you can call it that) engaging right to the very end. Behind the camera, Kubrick remains the master of his domain by putting his signature distinctive touch on many aspects of the production design. It’s clear from an early shot—the pan out of Alex and his gang of “droogs” in the club during a monologue from McDowell—that Kubrick pays attention to every minute detail in every shot so as to craft a distinctive dystopia with all the trademarks and characteristics of such a world. Similar to George Orwell’s novel “1984” (and the film adaptation of it), this movie’s setting and environment feels unique and specific to it and, therefore, really unlike anything seen in most other films of this genre. Finally, I do appreciate how much this movie commits to its central plot motifs of uncensored, excessive, sensational instances of violence. Simply put, the story of A Clockwork Orange would not work if Kubrick held back in any way, shape, or form in displaying the utter depravities committed by Alex, his gang, and the government doctors engaging in state-sanctioned violence against Alex and delinquents such as himself. While I’ll get to the double-edged nature of violence being used in this way later, I just do not think that this story would stick with you long after watching it if Kubrick held back in this regard. All that being said, however, I don’t think these positive elements outweigh the severe drawbacks of A Clockwork Orange. What’s Holding It Back I’d always heard that Burgess’s original novel had incredibly uninviting dialogue that’s difficult to read. But I didn’t believe it until watching A Clockwork Orange which confirmed it. While I get there are sometimes story reasons for characters to be damn-near inaudible, but I simply don’t understand it here. This is beyond strong British accents; this is slang and lingo that prevents my comprehension of the interactions between the various characters. Call me pretentious, but I need to know what the people in the movie are saying in order to care about what they’re saying (let alone what they’re doing). 😊 But this could be forgiven if the movie was easier to stomach. Which gets to that double-edged issue I mentioned earlier: the violence—while necessary to the story—is also often beyond uncomfortable. And I consider myself someone who can tolerate excessive gore and violence in film, so I can only imagine how the general audience would react to it. But, of course, Kubrick almost certainly didn’t make this film for most moviegoers and thus cared very little about pleasing the masses. That being said, in order to justify the portrayal of violence there has to be some kind of thematic payoff for all the violence. Specifically, I should feel by the end that Alex’s arc resolves in a way that makes sense and feels worthy of the character. Instead, I was underwhelmed by seeing Alex lying in that hospital bed having not only survived his suicide attempt but seemingly happy with how his life has turned out (particularly since the Ludovico technique has apparently failed in the end). Thus, I felt the audience was robbed of what could’ve been as close to a “happy” ending the movie could have gotten with Alex’s horrible actions during the first half of the movie finally coming back to bring his life to a violent end. But we didn’t get that. Which gets to perhaps my strongest agreement with some of the critics who derided the movie as lacking a clear message about the nature of violence. By allowing Alex to essentially live happily ever after (or as close to such an ending as he could get in this world), Kubrick loses any moral clarity about what exactly he’s trying to say. Is Alex’s story a warning to wannabe sociopaths about the impact such actions have on people and how they can ultimately work to screw you over in the end? Because then Alex should’ve been successfully driven to suicide and the movie end with him jumping out the window. Or is Alex’s story a warning to regular people about giving the government too much authority over medical treatment of the mentally ill without sufficient oversight? If that’s the case, than why does Kubrick let the government essentially “win” by convincing Alex to help them with public relations to clean up the mess they left together. See what I mean? But maybe I’m wrong, and A Clockwork Orange is truly a cinematic masterpiece. I suppose you’ll have to convince me otherwise. 😊 What am I missing about the dystopian drama A Clockwork Orange? Do you think it’s a great movie or do you agree that something’s holding it back from greatness? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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