A Clockwork Orange (1971)

         Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange can never be unseen. This sounds like a negative comment, but it is a cinematic feat unlike anything else that is so powerful, and strong that it cannot be watched and then forgotten. Alex DeLarge, a delinquent youth in a totalitarian futuristic version of London spends a large part of the beginning of the movie terrorizing the public with acts of “ultra-violence and rape” with his cronies. Obscene and often over the top instances of this violence sets the stage, and the character of Alex up to be hateful and impossible to sympathize with. He is cruel to the extreme, with the terrifying quality of complete sanity, control, and rationalization. Finally he is put in jail when his cronies leave him out to dry after Alex kills an old cat woman while trying to steal her money. After a small amount of his jail time is completed, he volunteers to be a test subject for a politician who believes he can cure evil for the sa

ke of his campaign. While in jail, Alex pretends to eat up the word of God and wins brownie points wherever he can, so when he volunteers as a test subject, he can get out of prison earlier. As the subject, Alex is made to watch brutally horrific videos after being given a medicine to induce incredible pain and nausea. After a while he associates the acts of violence and sex with the induced pain and is, effectively, cured of evil. When he is released back into the world, he encounters many of the people he wronged, but is helpless to defend himself because the sickness pain is too great to commit any act of violence. You begin to do the impossible and feel for him. Eventually, he attempts to kill himself and fails. Upon waking, Alex discovers he no longer experiences the pain from witnessing violence, but pretends to still be “cured.”

         Many interesting ideas are brought up in A Clockwork Orange: can evil be cured? Can anyone ever really change? The flaws brought up by the method used to “cure evil” and how it was only being “cured” to help out a politician. This “band-aid over the bullet wound” attempt at curing evil in the name of better crime statistics is incredibly thought provoking. Clearly the method of “curing evil” does not take into account self defense, and leaves the “cured” delinquent as an empty shell of a person, only incapable of not doing wrong, as opposed to doing good or stopping evil. Although it does effectively “cure” evil, it is done in the wrong way. A lot of these excellent ideas and concepts, however, were dulled and put to the wayside by the beginning and the overly emphasized acts of “ultra-violence.” Graphic acts are more powerful when they stand alone, or are isolated, but the beginning of the movie was a bloodbath of rape and violence that was a little stronger than it needed to be. It was well done to achieve what it was aiming for, and established Alex as a character who you hated, which makes it all the more shocking when you begin to feel pity for him. It is a stylistic choice, however, and ninety percent of the reason it sticks with you so long after the credits roll. A Clockwork Orange is highly effective at bringing up the complicated issues, but could have toned down the “shock factor” that a large portion of the movie strives after.