A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)

Country: U.K. / U.S.A.

Genre(s): Comedy / Crime / Sci-Fi

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Cast: Malcolm McDowell / Michael Bates / Patrick Magee

Plot

Sometime in the not-too-distant future, all-around hoodlum Alex is selected by the British government to undergo an experimental treatment intended to eliminate his immoral impulses.

What I Liked

The novel “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess is one of my very favorite novels.  Apparently Burgess was none too impressed with director Stanley Kubrick’s interpretation of his most famous work.  Speaking for myself, outside of a few exceptions, I found the film to be a pretty dead-on interpretation of the book, capturing everything that I admire about Burgess’ text.  It’s also a satisfactory blend of political satire and science fiction, two genres at which Kubrick had already proven himself to be a master by 1971.

One of the novel’s most obvious and impressive features is the invented language – called Nadsat - which the author gives to main character Alex and the other young delinquents with him he spends his time.  By using this language for Alex as he tells the story in first person, Burgess allows the reader to unintentionally sympathize with a set of characters one would otherwise find repulsive; by the time I got toward the end of it, I found myself occasionally even thinking in Nadsat.  Kubrick too allows Alex to narrate the movie in Nadsat.  However, since the need for narration is much less frequent in a visual medium like film, the language has less opportunity to induce the same effect on the viewer as it does on the reader.  Nonetheless, the use of the invented language still allows the viewer to feel as if he has a special insider’s knowledge of Alex’s mind which is unavailable to other characters in the movie.  It is almost as if one can feel Alex nudging us with his elbow at some inside joke each time he whispers his thoughts to us.

As Alex, Malcolm McDowell is perfectly cast.  There is a constant and murderous delight in Alex’s eyes throughout, which became something of a signature of McDowell’s performances after this film.  Thanks to McDowell and Kubrick, the character is convincingly maniacal, sarcastic, and intelligent all at once, exactly as he should be.  Though Alex is surrounded by supposedly educated authorities and institutions, virtually all of these are bumbling, cartoonish, or completely impotent.  Alex is easily the most aware and intelligent character we come across in the film.

Incidentally, my personal favorite character is that of the head prison guard played by Michael Bates.  He’s basically a uniformed imbecile who loves for nothing else but stomping his boots and speaking in terse, staccato barks.

What I Didn’t Like

As much as Kubrick successfully captured the novel’s themes and satirical nature, in the end this movie lacks one of the components essential to any first rate film: emotional impact.  The dark humor is there, yes; but outside of that, as a viewer I’ve never felt any real emotional investment in or connection to what is happening on screen.  Perhaps that’s why I’ve only bothered to watch the movie twice, when I love the novel so much.  I just kind of watch it and think about, smirking occasionally, while waiting for it to end.

Most Memorable Scene

Maybe the most iconic scene of torture in all of cinema history, the scenes where Alex is in a theater, forced to watch films of violence and Nazism, are easily the most imitated and influential images from the movie.  That said, the home invasion followed by a gang rape, incredibly graphic for 1971, is a close second for sheer memorable impression.

My Rating: 3 out of 5