A Clockwork Orange (My Favorite Movies)

“What’s it going to be then, eh?”

This above question is repeated many times throughout Anthony Burgess’ novel A Clockwork Orange. It’s asked like an authority figure looming a kid who has been sent to the principal’s office. What’s it going to be? When are you finally going to grow up and get your life in order? In A Clockwork Orange, the child in question is Alex, one of the strangest, and most repulsive, protagonists ever committed to fiction. On the page Alex’s tales of violence and rape were horrifying enough, but in 1971 Stanley Kubrick brought it to the screen for all to see. To this day A Clockwork Orange remains one of the most controversial pieces of art ever created.

The first act of the film follows Alex and his three “droogs” (Pete, Georgie and Dim) as they run about town engaging in all sorts of abhorrent acts. They begin by finding an elderly inebriate lying under a bridge, and after a brief discussion about the state of humanity and all that they proceed to beat the crap out of him. Next they have a brief rumble with a rival gang who was in the midst of trying to rape some poor woman. Finally, they drive out to the countryside, invade the home of a peaceful, happy couple, and proceed with the beatings and assault.

I realize this all may not sound like a swell time at the movies, but Kubrick is able to render the unwatchable watchable, if still wholly unpleasant. The first act of A Clockwork Orange is nearly unrivaled in shock value and manic energy, remaining simultaneously joyful, beautiful and ultimately repulsive. Kubrick handles this dynamic impressively throughout the entire film, often including something beautiful and something horrifying in the same shot. In the scene before Alex starts the fight with that eunuch jelly Billyboy, we begin on a piece of architecture in front of a nice little painting. The camera pans back to reveal Billyboy’s gang assaulting an innocent woman, all the while soaring classical music plays on the soundtrack. Welcome to the world of A Clockwork Orange, where a world of beauty is being torn apart by rebellious, violent kids.

Then, when Alex’s gang arrives at the home of Mr. Alexander, the audience experiences the most famous of these early scenes. As the droogs prance about destroying the house, beating the residents and undressing Alexander’s wife, Alex begins belting out “Singin’ in the Rain.” There is a glee to the proceedings despite the absolute atrociousness of the acts onscreen. It’s meant to shock, and it does so effectively, but in a world of unhappy adults these kids are just having fun. In their own minds, they are hardly doing anything wrong. It’s just a night out.

Of course, things all change for Alex once he is eventually arrested for murdering a cat woman with a giant phallus. When he is sent to prison, Alex falls in love with the Bible. Not because of the messages inside of the book, but instead all the violence and sex really intrigued him. Ultimately, though, he just wants a way out. He is given an opportunity when the government decides to try the Ludovico technique.

The basic gist of this technique: Alex is strapped to a chair with his eyelids held open. He is forced to watch endless footage of extreme violence, all while under the influence of unpleasant drugs. The result: Alex feels painfully sick at the mere thought of violence or sex. To the government, he is cured. Thus, Alex is a free man, but the outside world will not be kind to him. Despite his new life, his past demons will catch up with him.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Fundamentally, A Clockwork Orange is a story about choice. Is it better to become good by choice or be forced into it? The film and the book argue the former, but to two very different ends. In Kubrick’s film, the story ends after Alex nearly jumps to his death. In his hospital bed, he realizes that he is no longer under the influence of the Ludovico technique. With a menacing sign-off (“I was cured, alright!”) the film ends. To many readers, particularly in America, this was the ending as well.

However, Anthony Burgess saw a different ending, as his original novel includes a final chapter which features Alex deciding to leave his violent ways behind him. In a way, this chapter brings the story full circle. Years after Alex was forced to become a right-minded adult, he finally decides to become one himself without the Ludovico technique. It becomes clear that Burgess’ novel is much more about maturation than what Kubrick believed. The final film of A Clockwork Orange is much more cynical, but as this was the film Kubrick was making, I have no objections. Both the book and the film are great with or without the final chapter.

That was likely the only case where Kubrick made the film a harsher experience than the book. In the film, Alex has a consensual threesome with two girls his age while in the book he gets two girls of a much younger age drunk and violates them. Even to such a perpetual risk-taker like Kubrick, there is a line.

In the latter part of Stanley Kubrick’s career, his films focused a great deal on the dehumanizing of society. His films tend to take seemingly normal people and break them down to nothing. The most obvious example (besides A Clockwork Orange) might be Full Metal Jacket, which takes its soldiers and makes them into killing machines which fight in the name of the United States. By the end of that film, Matthew Modine’s Joker kills a young girl. (Also notice: most of the soldiers merely go by nicknames. They are not people but products.) A Clockwork Orange takes a terrible man and makes him a not-so-terrible shell of a man. Perhaps it is better to be human than half-human.

Another trademark of Stanley Kubrick is that he never wastes a shot, going for broke each and every time he pulls out a camera. He wants every image in A Clockwork Orange to haunt you until the day you die, and he accomplishes just that, all with the help of a certifiably insane but unforgettable performance by Malcolm McDowell in the lead role. Like the film itself, he is fearless and uncompromising.

In an age where gory torture films seem to come out every month, leave it to something like A Clockwork Orange to still leave the viewer in haunted shock. For a film to pack a punch it must not only be violent, but it must tap in to the fears of humanity. I don’t see a man with a chainsaw running at me anytime soon, but something as simple as a break-in can, frankly, happen to anybody. Despite the cartoonish universe Kubrick creates, the dangers are real and disturbing, from the kids who commit the acts of violence to the government that will go to any length to stop it. It’s a universal and prophetic nightmare, and even though it’s 40 years old, once A Clockwork Orange is witnessed you will never be able to shake it.