A Clockwork Orange
Composite Score: 86.87
Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Warren Clarke, Adrienne Corri, Carl Duering, Miriam Karlin, Godfrey Quigley, Sheila Raynor, Madge Ryan, and Philip Stone
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writer: Stanley Kubrick
Genres: Crime, Sci-Fi, Dystopian
MPAA Rating: R
Box Office: $27.03 million worldwide
My take on Watching This Film:
A Clockwork Orange is Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Anthony Burgess about a young delinquent living in a dystopian future version of Britain. The film stars Malcolm McDowell as the villainous protagonist and narrator Alex DeLarge, whose penchant for rape, theft, and “ultra-violence” is only matched by his passion for “Ludwig van” (Beethoven). His crimes and general degeneracy comprise most of the film’s first act, while the state’s attempts at punishment and reform feature prominently in the second, closing with a final act that highlights the shortcomings of all involved – Alex in learning anything of value from his misadventures, the state in providing any kind of true reform program, and society in propping up these failed figures as anything other than the failures that they are. Though highly controversial due to its explicit subject matter, the film is still considered one of Kubrick’s best and even received four Oscar nominations the year that it released – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Editing. For my money, the best part of the film, McDowell’s performance, went snubbed in that run of awards, but that’s neither here nor there.
I’m always a bit torn when talking about the merits of A Clockwork Orange because of how generally explicit its content is. Indeed, it does feel like a prototype film that “dudes” miss the point of, predating the most notorious of that brand of film (Fight Club and American Psycho) by more than twenty-five years. On the surface, it could be easy to watch this film in a way that focuses on Alex’s nature as a victim of misguided state attempts at reform and view him as a sympathetic figure worth rooting for and sympathizing with because most mainstream audiences need a clear rooting interest in a film and will create one where there often is an absence. Clockwork is one of those instances where there should be no rooting interest, but people have created one, nevertheless. Alex DeLarge is the quintessential charismatic sociopath with no remorse whatsoever for his actions and no true indication that he ever intends to actually change his wicked ways, yet there are still those who are willing to look past that (and some who even celebrate him for it) simply because he was wronged by the state. Look, I’m all for sticking it to the corrupt government officials and their systems that protect violent police while targeting the less fortunate, but this is not one of those films. The reason why this film is so great is because it presents the paradox of societal corruption – that when society has failed its youth, the government also will fail, and the youth will still be in need of some alternative form of socialization, but no one will want to offer it. Because Alex and his “Droogs” have no real socialization, and their parents and education system have left them to it, they are doomed to remain degenerates their entire lives, living out their misogyny and desire for violence without real reprise for the rest of their lives, especially as the government becomes more desperate to create some semblance of “law and order”, resulting in the acceptance of these degenerates into structures where their degeneracy can be directed at the “correct” victims – the poor and undesirables. Unfortunately, instead of viewing this film as some sort of indictment of the potential of existing systems, we either choose to celebrate Alex as this flawed counterculturalist or push it off as a compelling, but ultimately unfounded, look at a future that could never occur. So, while the film’s explicit portrayals of violence, both physical and sexual, should be warnings for certain audiences, the actual downfall of the film is that it portrayed its reality in too unbelievable of a way for viewers to realize the potential for this outcome in the real world, minus the dialectical oddities most likely (though skibidi rizz certainly tends in that direction).
A Clockwork Orange is this rich warning of the potential ills of a society that abandons its young people, headed by a stellar performance by its villain and protagonist Malcolm McDowell as Alex, more than deserving of recognition for greatness. Tragically, it falls short of its full potential because of how it overestimates its audience and puts too many shiny distractions in front of them, like its more explicit scenes, which allow them to downplay its all-too-important messages. Still, if you’d like to watch it again or for the first time with this new perspective, you can currently rent it on most streaming platforms.
