Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange is one of the finest films ever made. It combines themes of great depth and continuing relevance with stunning visuals, great editing, a magnificent soundtrack, outstanding casting, and fine performances. You can enjoy it simply as an extraordinary work of art or as food for thought in relation to a fundamental aspect of human nature: aggressiveness and violence. You can also use this film as a springboard, as many have before you, for thinking about or discussing such questions as what is and is not pornographic, obscene, or exploitive in the media and in the arts.

Historical Background: Stanley Kubrick was at the height of his professional prestige, in 1971, when he set out to film A Clockwork Orange. His film Lolita (1962) had gained him international notoriety, with its combination of cynicism and black humor. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) was a huge success and reaffirmed Kubrick innate distrust for human institutions and governments. Then, in 1968, Kubrick made the momentous science fiction landmark, 2001: A Space Odyssey (probably the only Kubrick film that I admire less than the average of other critics), which earned four Oscar nominations and won the trophy for Best Special Visual Effects.

For his next film, Kubrick turned to a controversial novel by Anthony Burgess, a satirical and futuristic exposition of the world of drugs, sex, and violence. Kubrick has often used novels as source material, but seldom concerns himself with "faithfulness" in adaptations. Kubrick actively reshapes such materials to suit his own particular vision of the subject matter. In fact, Kubrick has played a role in drafting screenplays for a dozen of his sixteen films.

When A Clockwork Orange was initially released, it was given an "X" rating in the United States. It has since been re-rated as "R," in keeping with modern standards. There is lots of sex and violence in the film, though it is not especially graphic. It is the combination of sex and violence (i.e., rape scenes) that most raises criticism in relation to this film. The film was banned altogether in Britain, for a couple of years. Britain had a newly elected conservative government, in 1971, which wanted to reverse recent liberal decisions in relation to censorship. Then, in addition, there were some tragic copycat assaults based on episodes from the film. The arguments in relation to A Clockwork Orange can serve as a virtual history of ideas related to obscenity .

Some reviewers accused the film of being violence for its own sake with no moral. A review in the Village Voice, for example, called the film "a pointless futuristic fantasy." Today, critics widely recognize that A Clockwork Orange is unusually rich in themes and excites much intellectual debate. Interestingly, the attacks on the film's morality came from both the left and the right sides of the political spectrum. Fred M. Hechinger, for example, claimed that an "alert liberal . . . should recognize the voice of fascism" in the film. A second line of attack against the film related to perceived misogyny. This argument cited the ugly and brutal acts against women depicted in the film as well as the parts of the décor based on the female form. Feminists took special exception to such episodes of violence against women being treated somewhat comically. This concern was also representative of the political climate and cultural scene that existed at the time of the film's release. The gender politics of the sixties and the counter-cultural revolution had modified thinking about what was obscene. With the U.S. government enmeshed in Vietnam, the counter-culture objected to the idea that depictions of sex were considered obscene, while violence was not. Protesters had adopted such slogans as "Make love, not war!" Here, however, was a film that featured sexual violence, linking the two issues together.

The term "pornography," which came into vogue in the mid-nineteen century, originally meant descriptions of prostitution or the lifestyles of prostitutes or their patrons, but soon it came to mean "obscene or unchaste subject in literature or art." When, inevitably, the concept met with the law, it became necessary to operationally distinguish when sexual material was "chaste" versus "unchaste." One early argument was based on the distinction between high (or serious) art versus low (or frivolous) art. That distinction proved fraught with difficulty, since personal tastes inevitably define which art is serious and which frivolous. Soon, many works challenged by would-be censors were being exempted on the grounds that they were works of art and therefore could not be obscene.

Theorists next turned to arguments about intent and effect. Did the material have "the tendency to corrupt the minds and morals of those" encountering it. This became known as the "Hicklin Test," but it was based on guessing the effect that materials had on viewers or readers, since little real evidence existed about how viewers responded to artistic representations. Moreover, it assumed a relation between intent and effect, which is often not the case. An exemption to the Hicklin Test, introduced in the 1920's, stated that a work could be lewd in part but not lewd taken as a whole. Later, in 1957, the U.S. courts introduced the so-called "Roth test" which argued that material was obscene only if it "deals with sex in a manner appealing to prurient interests." A 1973 revision of the "Roth test" introduced the phrase "patently offensive." Still, none of these phrases had particularly clear meaning.

When A Clockwork Orange first came out, Roger Ebert wrote a scathing review, denouncing the film as "an ideological mess." His argument, basically, was that Kubrick was using a variety of script and cinematographic techniques to make Alex appealing, heroic, and someone with whom viewers would identify. Ebert himself found Alex disgusting and accused Kubrick of wanting us to weep and sob for him and make excuses. Ebert claimed that Kubrick was arguing, "In a world where society is criminal, the citizen might as well be a criminal, too." Ebert's argument comes under the general category of an effects argument, but it's based on a misreading of Kubrick's message, which might be stated as follows: "We need, as a society, to develop institutions that are less criminal and which promote opportunity, partly because individual citizens will act criminally if they see no reason to invest in the society." Kubrick doesn’t so much want us to side with Alex as to ensure that we see ourselves in Alex. Kubrick was not going to give viewers the false comfort of distancing ourselves from the violence in Alex or in the institutions of society that dealt with him.

Pauline Kael also based her critique of the film on an effects arguments when she declared it could have the effect of "desensitizing us" to violence, but Kubrick's implication of the audience in the violence ensures the opposite. Kael claimed that Kubrick was making "the attacked less human than their attackers, so you feel no sympathy for them." Alex, however, is both the attacker (in the film's first half) and the attacked (later on). Since Kubrick's intent is to show the parallel between the violence undertaken by Alex and his droogs and that initiated by social institutions, he needed his audience to see Alex as human, despite his violent propensities. Otherwise, viewers could dismiss the violence done to Alex by society as unimportant. There's a kind of bias operating among reviewers in relation to the two kinds of violence illustrated in A Clockwork Orange. Most nationally known reviewers are fully integrated into the establishment and thus are more upset by antisocial behavior directed against society by individuals than the criminal activities of establishment institutions directed against disadvantaged individuals.

A reviewer in Films in Review argued that A Clockwork Orange sinks to the depths of buck-chasing (sex scribblings on walls; total nudity; sight-gags for perverts)" and another declared it "commercial cynicism." Those arguments come down to a contention that the film is not-Art, and therefore obscene. Others, however, defended the violence in A Clockwork Orange as art because it was "totally stylized, dreamlike, absurd." Today, most reviewers recognize A Clockwork Orange as cinematic art of the highest order.

The Story: The time is slightly futuristic, in a world that is recognizable as our own yet subtly dissimilar. The location is an unspecified English city. Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell), with one eye ringed by false eyelashes, and his three droogs (associates or gang members), Georgie (James Marcus), Dim (Warren Clarke), and Pete (Michael Tarn) have gathered together once again at the Korova Milk Bar, in order to prime themselves for a night of ultraviolence, by imbibing milk laced with stimulants, such as vellocet, synthemesc, or drencrom. These young men are dressed in white trousers with suspenders, exterior jock straps, and black top hats. The bar's décor consists of plastic, erotic forms of nubile women in various submissive and provocative postures. When a coin is deposited in the "slot" of one such device, a milk drink then emanates from the nipple of a drooping breast.

Heading out onto the streets in their drug-hyped state, Alex and his gang encounter a tramp (Paul Farrell) lying under an overpass, wistfully singing old ballads. Having nothing better to do, Alex and his droogs pummel and kick the man to within an inch of his life. Later, Alex and his droogs rumble with another gang of five, led by Billy Boy (Richard Connaught), in an old theater where Billy Boy and his droogs are in the process of raping a young "devotchka" (i.e., wench) (Shirley Jaffe). Alex's gang prevails and, leaving their rivals unconscious, they split before the police arrive. Next, they steal a Durango 95 and speed down the wrong side of some country roads, playing "hogs of the road," driving a series of other vehicles and pedestrians off the highway.

Next, Alex and his droogs decide to play "surprise visit," randomly choosing a plush rural home to invade. The one selected belongs to a writer, Mr. Alexander (Patrick Magee), and his wife, Mrs. Alexander (Adrienne Corri). Alex tricks Mrs. Alexander into opening the door on the pretext that there's been an accident and he needs to use their telephone to call for emergency help. Once inside, wearing grotesque masks, Alex and his droogs brutally assault the husband and force him to watch as Alex rapes Mrs. Alexander. The woman is wearing a red knit suit and Alex first uses a pair of scissors to make cutaways to expose the woman's breasts, thus symbolically objectifying her. Alex does a song and dance version of "Singing in the Rain" as he prepares to rape Mrs. Alexander, periodically kicking Mr. Alexander, during the soft shoe routine.

As the evening winds down, Alex and his droogs return to the Korova Milk Bar for a nightcap, having worn themselves ragged from their evening of violent exertion. A sophisticated woman at a neighboring booth begins singing a few bars from the choral segment of Beethoven's 9th Symphony for her tablemates. At Alex's table, Dim begins to mock the woman, but Alex, who is a music lover (especially Beethoven), silences Dim with a quick blow with his nightstick to the midsection, while demanding that Dim show some respect. Alex and his droogs then set off for their separate homes.

Alex lives, incongruously, with his dada and mum in a graffiti and trash littered municipal flat. In his room, which is strewn with erotic and violence-related paraphernalia and wall hangings, Alex puts on a recording of the Ninth, by "Ludwig Van," as he says. The camera focuses briefly on a series of four gruesomely violent crucifixes lined up like a chorus line. Alex muses to himself about the evening: "It was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh." In the morning, Alex is unable (or unwilling) to get out of bed for school, having, he says, a pain in his gulliver (i.e., head). At the kitchen table, his parents wonder about him to one another. His father muses, "I wonder where exactly is it he goes to work of evenings." His mother, who has punk-purple hair and works in a factory, responds, "Well, like he says, it's mostly odd things he does. Helping-like, here and there, as it might be."

When Alex does finally arise for the day, his parents have gone to work but his juvenile parole officer, Mr. P.R. Deltoid (Aubrey Morris), is awaiting him. Alex is dressed only in a pair of briefs. Mr. Deltoid pins Alex down on a bed, warns him that he'll be headed for prison soon if he doesn't straighten up, and finishes his lecture by smacking his fist into Alex's groin.

Alex heads down to a record shop, dressed like the Count of Monte Cristo, apparently intent on ensuring that his apparatus is still functioning after Mr. Deltoid's unwelcome assault. Alex manages to smooth talk a couple of fine ladies, one blond and one brunette, into returning with him to his room. There, they engage in a ménage à trois, filmed at high speed. After undressing, they spray one another with antiperspirant in their armpits. They wrestle together a bit on the bed, then Alex continues with the blond as the brunette starts dressing. Alex isn't through, however, and undresses the brunette again, and takes her to bed as the blond dresses. Alex then undresses the blond again and takes her back to bed as the brunette dresses. Then, finally, he goes for both together again. Obviously, this is a man with a hearty appetite.

When Alex is done with this cavorting, he encounters his droogs awaiting him in the lobby of his apartment building. Two of them, Georgie and Dim, have decided that there needs to be "a new way" in the gang. They're tired of taking orders from Alex and have decided to stage a bit of a rebellion. The change in rules are to include "no more picking on Dim" and doing "a man-size crass," meaning a major robbery instead of their usual petty thefts. As they walk along the flatblock marina, Alex decides that order needs to be restored. He whacks Georgie with his club and kicks him off the walkway into the adjacent water. Then he ducks Dim's counterattack, throwing him over his shoulder into the drink as well. He then pretends to offer Dim a hand, but uses a knife hidden behind his back to cut a vein on the back of Dim's hand. Soon, Alex has the pair of rebels agreeing that everything will be "just like before." Alex is, however, interested in Georgie's idea for a major "crass."

Georgie has heard about a health farm, a ways out of town, where a woman, Miss Weathers (Miriam Karlin), lives with a bunch of cats. The facility is shut down for a few days and she's there alone. Miss Weathers (a.k.a., the "Catlady") is a feisty woman and doesn't fall for Alex's ruse about a highway emergency. Alex has to let himself in through an open second story window. As a result, he encounters the Catlady one-on-one. Unbeknown to Alex, she has already called the police. Alex parries the lady's efforts to attack him with a giant plastic phallic-shaped art object, but she still manages to land a solid blow to his nose. Alex then whacks the woman emphatically with the phallus. When he then departs via the front door, his two rebellious droogs take their revenge, hitting Alex over the head with a bottle of milk. Alex is temporarily blinded and unable to escape before the police arrive. Miss Weathers later dies in the hospital, so Alex is charged with murder. Alex is treated brutally by the interrogators, who tweak his broken nose and beat him. Mr. Deltoid arrives and spits in Alex's face.

Soon, Alex is incarcerated in prison. During check-in, the guards, led by the Hitler-like Chief Officer Barnes (Michael Bates), give him a number, confiscate his belongings, subject him to a demeaning physical examination, and begin to teach him about prison discipline. Later, the Prison Chaplain (Godfrey Quigley) has a go at Alex and the other prisoners with a fire and brimstone message about eternal damnation and the horrors of hell. Alex, being both young and attractive, has to worry about leering criminals and perverts and decides that his best strategy is to attach himself to the Chaplain by feigning religious conversion. He pretends to study the "good book," while mainly relishing the sadistic descriptions about scourging and the crowning with thorns. He pictures himself dressed in fine Roman fashions killing enemies and climbing into bed with his wife's handmaidens.

Alex soon hears about a new experimental treatment, the Ludovico technique, which can turn bad people into good. The new technique wins the backing of the Minister of the Interior (Anthony Sharp) for the new conservative government because they need more prison space for political prisoners, instead of the common criminals. Alex, facing another fourteen years in prison, is quick to volunteer. During the "treatments," Alex is put in a straightjacket, drugged with a nausea-inducing agent, his eyelids are clamped open, and he is forced to watch films showing grotesque examples of general and sexual violence. The idea is for Alex to associate violence with terrible feelings of nausea and dread, so that he will be physically incapable of exhibiting aggressive or sexual behaviors. Dr. Ludovico boasts, "Criminal violence is soon to be a thing of the past." Unfortunately, there is some background music in one of the films, from Beethoven's Ninth, and Alex is conditioned inadvertently to experience nausea in response to the music. "It's a sin," he says vehemently. "Beethoven never hurt anyone."

At the end of the fortnight of treatment, Alex is presented to the law-and-order community as a "cured" man. To demonstrate his progress, Alex is taunted by an aggressive man and made to lick the man's boots, literally. Alex tells us that he "pushed out his red yabzick a mile and a half to lick the grahzny, vonny boots." Next, Alex is approached by a gorgeous, naked woman, looking every bit the light of heavenly grace, but Alex is unable to act on his impulse to do the old in-out with her, right there on the floor of the stage. "Did I do well, Sir?" he inquires to the Minister. Only the prison Chaplain is unimpressed, calling it self-debasement rather than free choice. The Minister counters, "He will be your true Christian. Ready to turn the other cheek. Ready to be crucified, rather than crucify. Sick to the heart at the very thought of killing a fly."

Alex is released and returns to his home. There he discovers that his parents, Pee and Em as he calls them, have let his room to a lodger, Joe (Clive Francis), whom they now treat as a son. Joe suggests to Alex, "It's only right you should suffer proper." Thus, cast out of his old home, Alex heads out onto the street. There he encounters the same tramp he had beaten two years earlier. The tramp recognizes Alex and summons a bunch of fellow dirty old vagrants to beat up Alex. Alex is rescued by a couple of policemen, but they turn out to be Georgie and Dim, whose violent impulses are now fully integrated into mainstream society. They take Alex to a remote wooded spot and beat him severely, while sticking his head in a pig trough full of water. Alex then struggles down the country road and comes to the very home that he and his droogs had once invaded. Mr. Alexander is still alive, tended to by a bulky male nurse and bodyguard (David Prowse), but Mrs. Alexander succumbed just a month after being raped. Mr. Alexander doesn't recognize Alex as the perpetrator of the crime at his house, but recognizes him from the newspapers as the man who received the controversial Ludovico treatment. Alexander is a political leftist, opposed to the conservative government, and recognizes Alex's present condition as an opportunity to discredit the government he opposes.

Alex is fed and offered a warm bath. As he is bathing, he begins crooning "Singin' in the Rain," and now Mr. Alexander recognizes him as the assailant responsible for the rape and, indirectly, death of his wife. He plies Alex with wine, laced with a sleeping agent, while Alexander and some fellow liberals gather information to be used against the conservative government. Alex finally passes out from the drug and later awakens in a sealed third-story room, with Beethoven's Ninth blaring from speakers in the room beneath, pointed upward. Alex can think of nothing but death and attempts to "snuff it" (kill himself) by leaping from a window.

Alex suffers numerous broken bones but survives and awakens some time later in a hospital. There he is given free-association treatment by a mild-mannered psychiatrist, which gradually undoes his Ludovico conditioning. His violent and libidinous thoughts begin to reemerge, unfettered by nausea, and the nurse declares him well on his way to recovery. The Minister of the Interior arrives, offering Alex his "friendship," which will include a plush job with a good income, in exchange for a few photo opportunities of Alex smiling beside the Minister, in order to turn around public opinion. "Do I make myself clear?" the minister inquires. "As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer," replies Alex. Soon, Alex is able to declare to the audience, "I was cured all right."

Themes: A Clockwork Orange is an incisive exploration of human nature and, in particular, that part of human nature which includes the constructs of aggression and sadism. What exactly does this film have to say about those issues? One point that comes through loud and clear in this film is that aggression is a universal human impulse, with limitless destructive potential, but also absolutely necessary for survival. Aggressiveness is what sometimes drives people to dominate or damage other people, to murder or rape, but it is also what motivates people to rise up against aggressors to protect themselves. Near the end of A Clockwork Orange, Alex has been both defanged and declawed by his treatment and is easily exploited by his parents and their lodger, the tramp, his old droogs, and Mr. Alexander. Capacity for aggression is often required to counter aggression attacks, as in the "balance of power" concept.

Aggressiveness and sadism are expressed at all levels of human society, as much (or more) by the established social structures as by the counterculture or criminals. Alex and his friends engage in aggressive, antisocial activities because they have no investment in the society in which they live. They resent the comfortable existence of the middle and upper classes. The social institutions, on the other hand, use aggression, intimidation, and coercion to maintain "social order," i.e., the privileged position of those at the top of the social hierarchy. Examples of aggressive activities of the established society against Alex, illustrated in A Clockwork Orange, include the parole officer whacking Alex in the groin and spitting on him, the police brutality, the Nazi-like discipline demanded by the prison guard, the threat of eternal damnation preached by the Chaplain, the Biblical images of brutality and sadism, the brutal Ludovico treatment, and Alex's post-treatment debasement by those whom he had previously harmed. If you are tempted to argue that he is simply getting what he deserved, in one of more of those instances, you are simply taking satisfaction in his suffering and, thus, engaging in the same kind of sadistic impulses that Alex so grotesquely exhibited. Another example of social violence, not specifically directed at Alex, was the aggressive conflict between the conservative political party (represented by the Minister) and the liberal opposition (represented by Mr. Alexander and his friends).

Kubrick's point here is that violent, antisocial activity doesn't occur despite positive social influences and modeling; it mimics the practices and models of the corrupt social institutions. Consider, for example, that far more people die from the violent initiatives of governments than from criminal violence. Hitler's Nazis, Italy's fascists, Japan's campaign of conquest prior to World War II, the colonialism of Britain, Spain, and France, and American imperialism are institutionalized forms of aggression that pose far more threat to humanity at large than all the psychopaths like Alex and Charles Manson combined. Or, consider deaths related to drug abuse. All of the criminal trafficking in illegal drugs, such as methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and ecstacy, contributes about 10-20 thousand deaths per year in the U.S., while the government protected tobacco industry alone causes about 460,000 deaths per year, in the U.S., and over 5 million worldwide. Tobacco will kill over one billion people in the twenty-first century, yet our government subsidizes the industry. The U.S. government allows the tobacco industry to spend about 8 billion dollars a year in advertising aimed at encouraging American children to take up a habit that will addict them and ultimately kill them. The U.S. government wages police actions against illicit drugs mainly to divert attention from the drugs (tobacco and alcohol) produced and marketed by establishment interests. It is hard to interest citizens in respecting the law when the law itself suborns institutionalized criminal behavior on a far larger scale than that undertaken by individual citizens. What goes around comes around.

Sadism is only slightly less universal in human nature than aggressiveness. Sadism, which means taking pleasure in causing pain to others, is Alex's least appealing quality, but note that sadism is also revealed by A Clockwork Orange through the Chief Guard's behavior, the police who take pleasure in beating Alex, the lodger who says, "It's only right you should suffer proper," and the obvious enjoyment that Mr. Alexander takes in torturing Alex by blasting Beethoven's Ninth. There are a few individuals who don't have sadistic impulses whatsoever, but the vast majority of people take pleasure in the suffering of people whom they hate.

Incarceration and other legal punishments have less to do with prevention of crime or rehabilitation than with desires for vengeance, which are examples of sadistic impulses. The threat of incarceration does have some preventative influence on criminal activities, but relatively little for folks whose lives on the outside are little better than incarceration. I agree with George Bernard Shaw, who said, "While there are prisons, it matters little which of us are on the inside and which on the outside." Since incarceration is almost devoid of any rehabilitation component, it amounts to no more than an exercise of aggressive power by established interests and reflects as poorly on human nature as did the criminal activity of those incarcerated.

The aggressiveness of a person or animal is regulated by brain chemistry. Aggressive (and defensive) behaviors are controlled by a part of the brain's limbic system called the amygdala. The amygdala is activated by the neurotransmitter dopamine. Every year, we demonstrate for the pharmacy students, using laboratory animals, the relationship between brain chemistry and aggression so that they will understand the powerful potential influence of drugs and medications on behavior. We administer a drug to rats that stimulates the amygdala and, within a few minutes, the rats begin fighting violently with one another, despite having no prior gripes and having been housed together previously without incident. After a while, we administer another drug that suppresses the amygdala and the aggression stops. Imagine what would happen if an animal pacified in this way was caged with another hyper-aggressive one. That, in effect, is what Kubrick asks you to imagine in relation to people. What would happen if all of the disadvantaged members of society were rendered "non-aggressive" by some treatment? Wouldn't the exploitation of such people by the well-heeled power brokers further increase? Stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamine (and the drugs obtained by Alex and his droogs at the Korova milk bar) are among those that can stimulate the amygdala. Not convinced? Picture, for a moment, the smiling, happy, O.J. Simpson that you once saw as a television commentator! That was the man drug-free. The O.J Simpson who brutally murdered his wife was hyped up on cocaine. It's all well and good to talk about voluntary control of aggression, by the exercise of "free-will," but I guarantee that there are drugs that could turn you – yes, you – into a psychopathic killer.

Technologies already exist for controlling the level of aggressiveness in criminals or any other human being. The Ludovico technique portrayed in A Clockwork Orange is a bit far-fetched, but there are existing technologies (and have been for decades) by which criminal aggressiveness could be controlled, for better or for worse. Haloperidol and similar drugs are used for that purpose in mental institutions (the so-called chemical straightjacket effect). Lesions of the amygdala can completely tame "wild" animals, like tigers, and could be performed in people. Lobotomies can eliminate willful aggressive tendencies.

A humane society should want to channel and sublimate aggressive impulses to a reasonable extent. Aggressiveness is a necessary quality of human nature. It is sometimes the difference between a sport's hero and a mediocre player. It is sometimes the difference between a successful corporation and one that goes bankrupt. It can be the difference between a nation, a people, or a way of life that moves forward into the future and one that is obliterated. Our society rightly allows one company to defeat another, one team to wallop another in a sports contest, or one political party to defeat another in an election, but we do not want to permit aggression to manifest as murder, rape, or physical beatings. If society implements tactics to suppress the amygdala in some individuals, the technique will suppress both the positive and negative manifestations of aggressiveness. How can a society suppress unacceptable manifestations of aggressiveness without also suppressing the valuable ones? It requires the agency of volitional choice (or free-will for religious types) to make that differentiation.

Aggression is part of how repressed groups resist being exploited by more established groups. A humane society should fear and reject suppression of subconscious aggressive impulses (through tactics such as conditioning, drugs, brain surgery, etc.) in any subset of the population because such tactics could be used as a device for the exercise of aggressive exploitation and control. Instead, a humane society should want the management of aggression to be governed primarily by the exercise of individual, conscious, volitional oversight. The frontal lobe of the cerebrum is responsible for volitional activity (the closest biological equivalent to the religious term "free will") and for suppressing limbic system influences, when appropriate. The obvious "cure" for violent aggressive impulses and sadistic tendencies, therefore, is ensuring that each person has the will to control such antisocial outbursts. That, in turn, requires that each person be invested in the society. People will exert conscious control over their aggressive impulses, most of the time, if they have something significant to lose. People with good jobs, property, and opportunity are loath to throw those things away on random acts of aggression. Ask yourself, which people are engaging in looting in New Orleans with the breakdown in law and order? It is the ones who live in poverty and who have little hope and, thus, little to lose.

At the end of A Clockwork Orange, Alex can finally say, "I was cured all right." The Minister had given Alex a piece of the good life. We can't go around simply giving away plush jobs with inflated salaries, but we can give each person real equality of opportunity: enough food to eat, basic shelter, health care, educational opportunity as far as their ability can take them, and jobs that earn enough to provide at least subsistence living. If, instead, we concentrate 95% of our wealth in the hands of less than 5% of the people while others live in poverty even with a job, criminal aggression will inevitably follow. The reality of our society is something like what Kubrick shows us in A Clockwork Orange, only worse. We isolate the lower classes in ghettos, mollify them with heroin and/or Christianity, murder then with cigarettes (but no healthcare) for profit, send them to schools without resources, pack a tenth or so of their men into prisons, and turn our backs as they kill off one another.

Production Values: A Clockwork Orange wears its years far better than most films. It is far less dated than others films of its era. Kubrick had such a revolutionary vision in relation to filmmaking that his films were often way ahead of their time. The sets and the cinematography still give this film a futuristic look. Style was always a strong point with Kubrick and this film is perhaps his most stylish of all. In addition to the marvelous set design by John Barry and art direction by Russell Hagg and Peter Shields, the film's language (called Nadsat), integrating English vernacular, Shakespearean English, anglicized Russian, and Gypsy dialects, gives the entire film a kind of alien sound. Then, add the delirious collage editing, splendidly intense colors, speeded up and slow motion segments, and the extensive use of a wide-angle lens to produce close-ups distorted around the edges, and the result is an amazing tour de force of dialog, images, and music. Meanwhile, the script just drips with irony and cynicism.

The soundtrack is an especially strong part of the film, with the dramatic integration of classical music from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (performed both in the traditional orchestral and choral form and on a synthesizer), Rossini's William Tell Overture, Henry Purcell's Music Composed for Queen Mary's Funeral, and the popular song, Singin' in the Rain.

As a character, Alexander is simultaneously frightening and pathetic, victimizer and, later, victim. Malcolm McDowell is magnificent as Alexander, effectively portraying a huge range of emotional states. He had already appeared in If… (1968) and went on to star in such films as O Lucky Man! (1973), Time After Time (1979), and The Company (2003). Patrick Magee's eyes, as he watches his wife being raped, are unforgettable. His extensive resume as an actor includes appearances in such films as Dementia 13 (1963), The Servant (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), and Barry Lyndon (1975). Michael Bates, who played Chief Guard Barnes, also appeared in Patton (1970) and Frenzy (1972). David Prowse, who played the small part of Alexander's male nurse, went on to play Darth Vader (though not his voice) in Star Wars (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Otherwise, the cast was composed mostly of little known actors. Kubrick was widely acknowledged as a master at eliciting stellar performances from his actors.

Bottom-Line: A Clockwork Orange was chosen by the New York Film Critics as the top film in 1971. Kubrick was given the Best Director Award as well. The film then garnered four Oscar Nominations, six BAFTA nominations. and three Golden Globe nominations. The Warner Brothers DVD from the Stanley Kubrick Collection provides a video transfer from a restored digital master and an audio soundtrack newly remastered in Dolby digital 5.1. Extras included the theatrical trailer, scene access, dialog in English or French, and optional subtitles in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. For English language viewers, I recommend watching the film with English subtitles on. The film's running time is 137 minutes. A Clockwork Orange is cinematic art of the finest order. I give this film my highest recommendation.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age