A Clockwork Orange

Hey, sure, why not? Let's make it another Stanley Kubrick night.

This was a great movie. It was based on an even better novel. Actually, I read A Clockwork Orange only a few months before starting this blog, and since the movie was so faithful to the book in general, I'll just use this opportunity to talk about both versions of the story. The book is over 50 years old now, and the movie more than 40, so I don't think it can be considered a spoiler if I outline the plot a little bit. Here it goes.

The story takes place in a near future dystopian London in which violent crime runs rampant. Alex, the protagonist, leads a gang of teenage delinquents. We're not talking graffiti or drugs, either, but like, full on breaking and entering, assault and battery, and rape. In the book, Alex even rapes some ten-year-old girls. Did I mention that the subject matter here was (and still is) extremely controversial? Anyway, Alex and his friends just seem to get their rocks off by cracking heads, spilling blood, and forcibly penetrating women. The first act concludes when Alex's friends betray him by beating him down and leaving him at the scene of an accidental murder - a simple rape and battery gone too far, you see.

The very distinct second act, which contains the book and movie's most iconic scene, takes place in prison. The sort-of-totalitarian government is testing out a special program designed to rehabilitate violent criminals in no time at all: the Ludovico Technique, in which the patient is strapped to a chair and shown violent images and film clips while being put through a great deal of pain and discomfort. The process is repeated many times and, if successful, conditions the patient to become terribly uncomfortable at even the mere thought of violent behavior. Alex, naturally, is its guinea pig. The Pavlovian scheme works perfectly, and Alex proves incapable of fighting back when slapped around, kicked, and stepped on by an assailant. He then vomits profusely at the sight of a naked woman, his instinct to sexually assault her being overcome by his revulsion at the thought of doing so; Alex is cured.

The third and final part of the story is the longest and the most thematically interesting. It shows us how Alex struggles to adjust once he's let back out into the real world, completely incapable of defending himself from harm or becoming sexually aroused. I won't go into every detail and encounter, but I'll say that the most compelling moral ambiguity here arises - much more so in the book - when you start to question whether Alex has become a better person or not. He's no longer a violent criminal, but he clearly hasn't changed for the better through his own free will. Has Alex really been redeemed, then? Or is it his intentions, and not his actions, on which we should pass judgment? I haven't made up my mind, and neither the book nor the movie really pushes you in one direction or the other. Pragmatically, I can see how such drastic measures (if effective) would rehabilitate criminals and perhaps be better for civilians and criminals alike than prisons. But I'd also be concerned with the real life implications of such a system that saps the free will from its patients. No doubt, it's better for the rest of us if violent criminals were tamed and rendered incapable of further violent crime, but the slippery slope ramifications - what if the government began to give behavior-altering treatments to all citizens as a preemptive measure? - give me doubts, too.

The biggest difference between the book and the movie - and it drastically changes the story's message - is the ending. Read on if you'd like. Alex, distraught over how shitty his life has become, attempts suicide. Since his revolutionary treatment had been made into national news, so too is the story of his suicide attempt. The public at large rallies against the treatment and cries that the somewhat-totalitarian regime has overstepped its boundaries by administering such a cure. In order to save face, the government offers Alex a low-end bureaucratic job and offers to reverse his treatment if he'll agree not to speak out about the treatment. As the movie ends, Alex begins to fantasize about violent sex again, and it's clear he hasn't been redeemed at all. But! The original novel does not end here, but rather includes an epilogue in which an older Alex, still a violent criminal, reflects on his life decisions and begins to soften up a bit. He runs into one of his old gang-members, now married with a family of his own, and seems inspired to "grow up" himself. So where the movie ends on a dark note - criminals don't really change their ways - the book offers a much more optimistic and forgiving outlook where people can reach a maturity where they've grown out of their juvenile violent ways. The drastic difference led to a falling out between director and author, with Burgess angry that people who saw the film wouldn't understand what his original outlook was, and Kubrick arguing that Burgess's ending was far too cheerful and unrealistic. While I liked the book and its ending better than the movie, I kind of agree with Kubrick here. There are far too many middle-aged rapists and murderers for me to believe that aggressive behavior is "just a phase" that it's easy to grow out of.

We're running long here, so let me just drop in a few more reactions to the film. Awesome soundtrack. Seriously, just so fitting. Sort of alien, sort of futuristic, plenty eerie. Also, a fantastic job by Malcolm McDowell in portraying Alex. Book Alex becomes a sympathetic character for the readers because we're in his head and following his thoughts, but to any outside observer it's clear that he's a sociopathic monster. McDowell provides enough charisma - and plenty is needed - to keep Movie Alex from being entirely unlikable. And, as always, Stanley Kubrick just aces it visually, creating all kinds of moods and eliciting reactions with his shots alone. Watch this movie, read the book that inspired it, and thank yourself for doing so.