A Clockwork Orange (film)
*A Clockwork Orange* is a science fiction thriller directed by Stanley Kubrick, set in a dystopian future where youth gangs wreak havoc on society. The film explores the theme of free will through the story of Alex, a young delinquent who undergoes aversion therapy meant to condition him against violence. This treatment strips him of his capacity to choose between good and evil, raising ethical questions about human nature and autonomy. The film, adapted from Anthony Burgess's novel, faced significant controversy upon its release in 1971 due to its graphic depictions of sex and violence, leading to an initial X rating and protests from conservative groups.
Despite mixed critical reception, with some praising its innovative visuals and others criticizing its portrayal of violence, *A Clockwork Orange* achieved considerable acclaim and is now regarded as a classic of cinema. It was nominated for several awards, including Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and is noted for its impactful use of music, particularly Beethoven, which enhances its thematic depth. Over the years, the film has garnered a place in the canon of significant American films, illustrating Kubrick's unique cinematic vision.
A Clockwork Orange (film)
- Release Date: 1971
- Director(s): Stanley Kubrick
- Writer(s): Stanley Kubrick
- Principal Actors and Roles: Malcolm McDowell (Alex); Warren Clarke (Dim); Carl Duering (Dr. Brodsky); Patrick Magee (Mr. Alexander); James Marcus (Georgie)
- Book / Story Film Based On: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Clockwork Orangeis a science fiction thriller set in a dystopian future in which youth gangs room the streets of Britain at night, beating and raping innocent people, the novel is an exploration of theme of free will. Director Stanley Kubrick clearly saw that as the focus of his movie, telling Philip Strick and Penelope Houston in an interview, "It is necessary for man to have choice to be good or evil, even if he chooses evil. To deprive him of this choice is to make him something less than human—a clockwork orange." The phrase "clockwork orange," novelist Anthony Burgess once explained in his essay "The Clockwork Condition" in the New Yorker, is a British slang term for "a queerness or madness so extreme as to subvert nature."
In the 1950s and 1960s, British officials decried what they saw as a rash of youth violence, and Burgess had read a suggestion that aversion therapy be used to cure violent impulses. In aversion therapy, a person is given extreme behavioral conditioning to reject undesired actions. Appalled, Burgess wrote his novel of a futuristic world in which a young thug is captured by the authorities and given this therapy. Nearly ten years after the book’s publication, Kubrick decided to film the story.
The project was controversial. British film officials rejected the initial script as too violent, and Kubrick undertook the rewrite. Both the British and American film rating boards gave the movie X ratings due to its graphic depictions of sex and violence. Conservative groups in both countries protested the film, and it played in only one London theater for all of 1972. Several American newspapers refused to run ads for the movie, and the X rating in that country hurt ticket sales. Kubrick eventually released a differently edited version that gained an R rating in the United States and opened the door for more screenings.
That violence bothered many critics when the film was first released, and not just members of conservative groups. Pauline Kael, influential New Yorker critic, called it "a porno-violent sci-fi comedy" and complained that it celebrated the violent protagonist, Alex, played charismatically by Malcolm McDowell. Other critics rated it highly. Vincent Canbyof the New York Times hailed it as "a tour de force of extraordinary images, music, words and feelings, a much more original achievement for commercial films than the Burgess novel is for literature." Most critics sided with Canby. The film won many critical awards internationally, and film historians generally regard A Clockwork Orange as a piece of superior filmmaking.
Plot
Alex is the leader of a gang with three followers. Emboldened by drug-laced milk that induces extreme violence, they beat an old beggar and then beat a rival gang. The four reach the home of writer Frank Alexander and his wife, where Alex beats Alexander while singing the song "Singin’ in the Rain" before he rapes the man’s wife as the brutalized man is forced to watch.
The next day, Alex fights two of his gang when they challenge his authority. That night they break into the home of an elderly woman, whom Alex bludgeons repeatedly with a statue. When the police arrive, his gang beats him and leaves him for capture. Alex is convicted of the woman’s death.
Alex volunteers for aversion therapy. The therapy, called the "Ludovico technique," consists of giving him a drug that induces nausea while he watches constant images of violence and sex—to the accompaniment of Beethoven’s music—so that he will associate feeling ill with violence. Alex, horrified that the music he loves will be ruined for him, begs release, but the treatment continues for two weeks. He is then paraded before government officials as cured.
Released, Alex finds himself homeless and friendless. He is beaten by the poor man from the opening scene and then rescued by two former followers, who throw him in the river. Seeking shelter, Alex stumbles on the Alexanders’ home. The writer recognizes Alex as the victim of the government’s conditioning and his and his wife’s attacker. He torments Alex by tying him to a chair and playing Beethoven’s music. In pain, Alex throws himself from a window and suffers injuries in the landing.
In the hospital, Alex is visited by the interior minister, who offers to show contrition for the government’s treatment in return for Alex’s cooperation. The movie ends with Alex—while telling the press that he is cured of violent tendencies—imagining horrific acts of violence and sex.
Significance
Kubrick’s screenplay was fairly faithful to Burgess’s book, although it omitted the novel’s last chapter, in which Alex actually reforms. That chapter had not been in the original American version of the novel that Kubrick had initially read. When he became aware of that chapter, he dismissed it as "unconvincing and inconsistent with the style of the book," as quoted in Stuart McDougal’s book about the film. Kubrick fused Alex’s love of music—an element in the novel—to the action, making a richer cinematic experience and, in the words of film historian Jennifer Kirby, giving the music "more visceral punch." One other difference between film and book was a function of medium. To some critics, the violence and sex were more graphic and inescapable in the film than in the book because in the book they were obscured somewhat by the difficulties of understanding Alex’s first-person narration, given in an invented language called "nadsat." In the film, however, the scenes are explicit and unmistakeable.
Critics that admire the film praised it for its visual effects, use of classical and popular music as the background for choreographed violence, and use of wide-angle and overhead camera work to affect the viewer’s point of view. Canby, for instance, thought the use of wide-angle shots one of Kubrick’s achievements, saying the effect is to "distort space relationships within scenes, so that the disconnection between lives, and between people and environment, becomes an actual, literal fact."
The movie was nominated for the 1971 best picture Academy Award, Kubrick himself was nominated for his directing and for his adapted screenplay, and Bill Butler was nominated for editing. It won none of those awards. It also earned three Golden Globe nominations and several international awards. A Clockwork Orange has stood the test of time, however. It was named to the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest American films, ranking number seventy in the tenth anniversary listing from 2007.
Awards and nominations
Nominated
- Academy Award (1971) Best Film Editing ()
- Golden Globe (1971) Best Actor (Drama)
- Golden Globe (1971) Best Director
- Academy Award (1971) Best Picture
- Academy Award (1971) Best Director: Stanley Kubrick
- Academy Award (1971) Best Screenplay (Adapted): Stanley Kubrick
- Golden Globe (1971) Best Motion Picture (Drama)
Bibliography
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Ciment, Michael. Kubrick: The Definitive Edition. Trans. Gilbert Adair and Robert Bononno. New York: Faber, 2001. Print.
"A Clockwork Orange (1971)." TCM. Turner Entertainment Networks, 2015. Web. 7 Dec. 2015.
Daniels, Don. "Essay: A Clockwork Orange." From Sight & Sound, Winter 1973. Stanley Kubrick 1928–1999. Visual-Memory, n.d. Web. 7 Dec. 2015.
Ebert, Roger. "A Clockwork Orange." RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital, 11 Feb. 1972. Web. 7 Dec. 2015.
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Kubrick, Stanley. Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange: Based on the Novel by Anthony Burgess. Southwold: ScreenPress, 2000. Print.
McDougal, Stuart Y. Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. Print.
Matthys, Wim. "Observe All: On the Staging of Fundamental Fantasy, Jouissance, and Gaze in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange." American Imago 70.2 (2013): 225–247. Print.
Kirby, Jennifer. "A New Gang in Town: Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange as Adaptation and Subversion of the 1950s Juvenile Delinquent Cycle." Literature Film Quarterly 43.4 (2015): 291–303. Print.
Strick, Philip, and Penelope Houston. "Interview with Stanley Kubrick Regarding A Clockwork Orange." From Sight & Sound, Spring 1972. The Kubrick Site. Visual-Memory, n.d. Web. 7 Dec. 2015.