A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971): England, USA

Reviewed by Andrea Uttenthal. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, 2012

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Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” , which is based on Anthony Burgess novel of the same name (1962), features disturbing and violent images, facilitating its social commentary on psychiatry, youth gangs, and other social as well as political and economic subjects in a dystopian futuristic Britain.

Alex, the main character, leads a gang of thugs whom he calls his “droogs”. These droogs are also known as Dim, Georgie and Pete. Together they are one of many youth gangs in the decaying metropolis set in London. The language spoken by Alex and his droogs is the author of the novel, Anthony Burgess’s, own invention. He calls it “Nadsat”, which is basically English with some borrowed words from Russian. It also contains influences from Cockney rhyming slang. Sometimes this invented language made it hard to understand what was being said, but it painted a picture of the teen subculture.

In the opening scene we see Alex and his droogs sitting in their favorite hangout place, the Korova Milkbar, intoxicating themselves on milk-drug cocktails, called “milk-plus”, to hype themselves for the night’s mayhem. “This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence”, introduces Alex in his first line. And they indeed engage themselves in an evening of “ultra-violence”, including beating an elderly vagrant and fighting a rival gang. Before this horrifying night ends, the gang steels a car driving with overwhelming speed to the countryside, where they break into a home. Here they beat the owner, Mr. Alexander, to the point of crippling him for life, and Alex then rapes his wife, while singing his signature tune “Singin’ in the Rain”.

One night, Alex’s life turn upside down, since things doesn’t turn out as planned. While his droogs are waiting outside, Alex breaks into a wealthy woman’s mansion bludgeons her vividly. Her home possesses a great deal of sexual artwork, including a rocking penis sculpture with which Alex delivers the killing strike. When hearing the police sirens, Alex attempt to run away but is betrayed by his droogs, who smash a pint bottle of milk in his face, leaving him stunned and bleeding on the ground. Alex is sentenced 14 years in prison for murderer.

Alex is characterized as a sociopath and a hardened juvenile delinquent, but there is more to it. He is nonetheless intelligent and quick-witted, has good manners and a sophisticated taste in music. He is particularly fond of Beethoven, or “Lovely Ludwig Van”. Alex often plays classical music at top volume while he fantasize even more orgiastic violence. This is what he quotes one night, when he gets back from a night of ultra-violence: “It had been a wonderful evening and what I needed now, to give it the perfect ending, was a little of the Ludwig Van”.

After two years in prison, Alex readily volunteers to be the subject of an experimental aversion therapy that should rehabilitate criminals within two weeks. During this therapy Alex is forced to watch violent movies, while be strapped to a chair with his eyelids propped open. No matter how terrible the movies are, and how badly he wants to close his eyes and not see the horrifying things on the big screen in front of him – he can’t. And to make matters worse, the background music played during these movies is his lovely composer, Ludwig Van. He becomes nauseated, feeling illness and fear. The aversion therapy has destroyed Alex’s ability to enjoy music, but ameliorates him in other ways.

Kubrick use a lot of fast and slow motion in this film. For instance these kinds of editing are used to convey the mechanical nature of the bedroom sex scenes and to stylize the violence in a manner. There is also a great use of very long takes and zoom throughout the whole film. After reading about Kubrick’s direction in this specific film, I learned that he had been filming with extreme wide-angle lenses to achieve and convey the fantastic dream-like quality of the story. This is a quality that really works!

Malcolm McDowell deserves a round of applause for his performance in this film. He plays the role of the twisted Alex with great intensity that really gets to you – wether you like the film or not. And especially that question is hard to answer. The whole story combined with the mise-en-scene, the editing etc. isn’t something you see every day. It’s kind of strange and it leaves you in a disturbing feel, but with that said, I also think this film is on the list of films you must see before you die. I can be hard to handle Kubrick’s use of harsh visuals and extreme sexual violence, but if so, it’s only for 136 minuets.