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| Original, iconic poster for Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange |
QUICK REVIEW:
A Clockwork Orange is one of American cinema master Stanley Kubrick's (The Shining (1980)) most unusual works, an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' 1962 novella of the same title.
Many film scholars have named dehumanization as the central theme of Kubrick's films, but I feel that guilt and multifarious forms of abuse are more appropriate, certainly in the case of Clockwork, wherein the protagonist Alex already from the beginning of the film must be considered dehumanized. From then on he commits horrific acts of abuse and assault, and once the futuristic British system catches him, SPOILER the roles are then turned around, and he becomes the pawn of someone else's perverse persuasion.
The story in itself is somewhat unsatisfactory, because we never learn any reasons for Alex's appetite for destruction and "ultra-violence", but I suppose that was irrelevant in Kubrick's eyes, since the acts of abuse mostly just, - despite their often shocking content, - act as catalysts for the story.
The youths of Clockwork are a very upsetting image of a youth completely in the fatal throes of a mixture of boredom and apathy, and it must have been the intensity of this impression that made the film so controversial, I think. The film was X-rated in the UK, and was accused of contributing to at least three violent assaults there in '72 and '73, which led to protests and pressure on Kubrick, who eventually withdrew Clockwork from British circulation in 1973 and for the rest of his life. (The film was re-issued in the UK and also distributed for the first time there on VHS and DVD in 2000 following his death.) In America, however, although naturally still a controversial film, Clockwork was a hit and 4 times Oscar-nominated, (for Best Picture, Director, Adapted Script and Editing.)
Some scenes of the film I simply don't understand: The somber interior of the milk bar and the internal language in the group of 'droogs' for instance.
But the iconography, the images, the contrapuntal music and the Kubrickian, madly unpleasant scenes, which makes the cold sweat jump from one's palms, (like Alex's 'treatment' or the bathroom scene Singin' in the Rain) all make A Clockwork Orange the anti-systemical, anarchistic, psychedelic cinematic monolith that it is.
Related reviews:
Stanley Kubrick: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) - A robot fairytale with both heart and mind (concept only)
The Shining (1980) - Kubrick's descent into madness is a timeless masterpiece
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) or, Humanity and Space
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| Malcolm McDowell as Alex in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange |
Watch the notorious, Beethoven-underscored trailer here
Budget: 2.2 mil. $
Box office: 26.5 mil. $
= Huge hit
What do you think of A Clockwork Orange?
What does the film say in your interpretation?
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