Blog Post #3: A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Film Data:

Country: USA

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Writer: Stanley Kubrick (screenplay) | Anthony Burgess (novel)

Budget: $2,200,000

Gross USA & Canada: $26,589,355

Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $26,903,440

Production Company: Warner Bros

Release Date: February 2nd, 1972 (USA)

Runtime: 136 minutes

Genre: Crime, Drama, Sci-Fi

Film data found on IMDb (https://pro.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/details)

Synopsis:

   The movie takes place in a dystopian future in Britain. The movies opens with Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) and his droogs, Georgie (James Marcus), Dim (Warren Clarke), and Pete (Michael Tarn), stoned on milk laced with narcotics at a Korova Milk Bar.

   The 4 boys leave the bar for a "night of ultra-violence" and find a wino (Paul Farrell) at an underpass and proceed to beat him. Following this, the gang arrives at a run down theater where they encounter a rival gang about to rape a woman. The two gangs decided to fight - leaving Alex and his droogs triumphant. 

   Heading out to the country side for more action, the boys find a lonely country house with a sign outside that reads, "Home". Claiming to be a victim of a car accident, Alex manages his way into the home of the unsuspecting couple that lives there. Once inside, the gangs beat Frank Alexander (Patrick Magee) and gang rape his wife (Adrienne Corri) as Alex sings "Singin' in the Rain".

   The gang returns back to the Korova Bar as Alex rejoices in an opera singer singing Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Arriving to his apartment later that night, Alex fantasizes about violence while listening to Beethoven's 9th Symphony

   The following morning, Alex's mother, (Sheila Raynor) wakes up Alex for school but he uses the excuse of feeling ill as to not go. Later on in his apartment, Alex finds his probation officer, Mr. Deltoid (Aubrey Morris) in his parents bedroom. Deltoid warns Alex about his academic absenteeism and threatens him with jail time. Later on that day, Alex meets 2 girls at a local shopping mall store and brings them back to his house and has sex with them both in a sped up sequence while "William Tell Overture" plays in the background.

   In his apartment lobby later that day, Alex encounters his droogs. They bring to his attention that he has been treating the rest of the gang unfairly and that he has been taking more than his share in the robberies they participate in together. In order to make more money, Georgie proposes they rob an old rich lady in the country who owns a health farm. Although Alex found Georgies proposal as a threat to his leadership, he agrees in order to seem democratic. As they are all walking alongside a river bank outside Alex's apartment, Alex attacks Georgie and Dim to re-establish his dominance. 

   The gang arrives to the old lady's house and use the same trick they had used on the previous home invasion they did. The old lady (Miriam Karlin) is suspicious of the young boys story of being in a car accident, as she had heard on the news about this trick that was pulled on the previous victims of the home invasion. She proceeds to call the police. Alex decides to break into the woman's house and they begin to fight. Alex fits her with a large plastic phallus sculpture as the police sirens are approaching. The gang decides this is the perfect time to take revenge on Alex. As Alex runs outside to flee, Dim smashes a milk bottle on his head as him and the rest of the group escape. Alex is left alone and is arrested by the police.

   At the police station, Alex is told by Deltoid that the old woman from the health farm has died, making him a murder. Alex is then sentenced to 14 years in prison.

   2 years into his sentences, in order to receive favors, Alex fakes piety by helping the prison chaplain (Godfrey Quigley) with his services and reads the bible. Instead of finding forgiveness and redemption from religion, Alex daydreams about torturing Jesus and partaking in violent acts in an Old Testament setting.  

   The chaplain tells Alex of a new treatment called the "Ludovico Technique" which gets people out of prison. Intrigued by the idea of leaving prison, Alex manages to become a participant in this experimental treatment.

   The "Ludovico Technique" works by conditioning the subject into being actively repulsed at the thought or sight of violence or crime. Through an injection, the participant is subjected to deep feelings of terror and helplessness accompanied by nausea. Alex is given this injection while being forced to watch violent films as his head is held back in a restraining chair and his eyes are clamped open. The researchers even played Beethoven's 9th Symphony while showing Alex the films.

   After 2 weeks of treatment, it is concluded that Alex is "cured" of his evil and is released back into the real world. Once back, Alex finds that his life is significantly different as he physically gets nauseous at the idea of violence or even trying to partake in it. He has been thrown back into the same evil world he originated from.

   In order to embarrass the government with their "Ludovico Technique", a man named Dolin (John Savident) and a woman (Margaret Tyzack) (with the help of others) drug Alex and he passes out after confessing that the experiment did work and that he particularly falls into a deep depression when listening to Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Once he wakes up, he is found inside a second story bedroom in an unknown country house. Beethoven's 9th Symphony is being blasted from the room below, and Alex jumps out the window in a suicide attempt. 

   Surviving his suicide attempt, Alex wakes up in a full body cast at a hospital. The government is being vilified for its inhumane experimentation which strips participants freedom of choosing between good and evil. The Ludovico Technique is eventually reversed, and the Interior Minster promises Alex a good job and salary as long as he helps the government. 

   To reconcile their new bound, the Interior Minister brings in flowers and blasts Beethoven's 9th Symphony as Alex begins to fantasize about having an orgy in the snow as Alex is hear in the voice over saying: "I was cured, all right."

Synopsis (https://pro.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/details)

Genre Comparisons

   A Clockwork Orange (1971) can fit into crime, drama, and sci-fi. This movie can be categorized as having an imaginative, yet scientific plot which centers around crime and takes the audience on a series of exciting and unexpected events.

   Vinyl (1965) is director Andy Warhol's interpretation of Anthony Burgess book "A Clockwork Orange" which was published in 1962. Similar to the film adaptation to Burgess' novel, Vinyl tells the story of  Victor (Gerard Malanga) who is betrayed by his sidekick. He is captured by the police and is the tortured by The Doctor (Tosh Carillo) and then becomes a useful member of society.

   Although Vinyl can be categorized as an experimental film which explores non-narrative forms and alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working, Both Vinyl and A Clockwork Orange incorporate elements of scientific fiction while at the same time including elements of drama and psychological thriller undertones. 

(https://pro.imdb.com/title/tt0059880/videos)

Cultural Contexts

   A Clockwork Orange was written by Burgess on a trip he took to Leningrad in 1961where he "observed the state-regulated, repressive atmosphere of a nation that threatened to spread its dominion over the world". Burgess did regard communism as a flawed system, and A Clockwork Orange could be an attack on communism by expressing the idea that it takes away an individuals free will to solve social problems.

   In terms of psychology, the "Ludovico Technique" can be seen as satire on B.F. Skinner's operant conditioning experiments. Skinner proposed a method of learning that occurs through awards and punishments of behaviors. Through this process, and individual is able to make associations between a specific behavior and a consequence. Many individuals thought behaviorism offered such a vast potential to actually control human behavior. Operant conditioning had a big impact on many areas such as academia and also rehabilitation methods. In A Clockwork Orange, the Ludovico Technique is definitely a satire on behaviorism.  

  

(https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/clockworkorange/context/)

(https://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html)

Evil Incarnate

   Anthony Burgess published his novel "A Clockwork Orange" in 1962. The book as well as the 1971 movie adaptation heavily focus on fundamental issues of humanity and morality, and highlights the choice between good and evil as well as the idea of free will. Burgess was raised Catholic, and he believed that people were ultimately born evil, tainted by the original sin. We can see through Alex's character that Burgess intended for the audience to presume that he was simply born evil. There is no backstory to why Alex enjoys committing evil acts, he just simply does. This idea of being born evil contradicts many more modern theories surrounding evil such as Zimbardo's "Lucifer Effect", which theorizes that individuals are not born evil, but rather that everyone has the capability to do evil acts when given the opportunity and power to do so. 

   Keeping this in mind, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that Alex could in fact be classified as a psychopath. Given Burgess personal beliefs, if Alex were to be an individual who simply enjoyed evil, he would have had to have been born that way. Additionally, Alex truly does enjoy committing violent acts on others without any type of remorse. He seems to simply live his life according to his own free will without empathy toward anyone around him. 

(https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/clockworkorange/context/)

(Making Sense of Evil: An Interdisciplinary Approach by Melissa Dearey)