SYNOPSIS:
Stanley Kubrick's darkly satirical cinematic adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 futuristic novel of the same name, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE is the story of Alex (Malcolm McDowell), a charismatic, psychopathic delinquent whose pleasures are classical music (especially Beethoven), rape, and ultra-violence. The film follows the horrific crime spree of Alex and his gang of thugs, his capture, and attempted rehabilitation via a controversial psychological conditioning technique, and features disturbing, violent images, to facilitate social commentary about psychiatry, youth gangs, and other contemporary social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian, future Britain.
The highly stylized, luridly-colorful set and costume design, the fusion of classical music and synthesized electronic compositions in the score, the innovative cinematography, and the hybrid, jargonistic, pun-filled language of Burgess' novel known as Nadsat - an onomatopoetic, expressive combination of Slavic, English, and Cockney rhyming slang, produce a striking, unforgettable film.
REVIEW:
Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) is the leader of a quartet of "droogs" who spend their nights engaged in a number of unsavory activities. They beat up helpless drunks, break into houses and rape the women who live there, and brawl with rival gangs. One day, however, fissures develop in the group. Two of the four members, Dim (Warren Clarke) and Georgie (James Marcus), express an unwillingness to continue to blindly follow Alex's lead. His response is to thrash both of them. After that incident, they bide their time and nurse their wounds until the opportunity arises to set up Alex. They strike at the scene of a botched burglary/murder, knocking him senseless and leaving him for the police to find. He is tried, convicted, and sentenced to 14 years in prison. While there, he plays the role of the model prisoner, earning the chaplin's trust. After learning about the government's experimental rehabilitation program, he aggressively pursues becoming a candidate. He is eventually selected and subjected to the procedure, then sent back helpless into the violent world that he is a product of. He soon becomes a pawn between those seeking to bolster the government's actions and those who want to topple it. reelviews
Dehumanization is at the heart of almost every film by Stanley Kubrick, but none so much as his masterfully disturbing and ultimately edifying A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. What makes it troublesome is not the violence itself, but the film's suggestion that violence is an inherently human characteristic, and to take that potential away from someone is to, in effect, make him less than human. That's hardly a pleasant thought, and you have to wonder if it's the theme of this film, not so much the actions portrayed on screen, that generated such controversy when it was first released in 1971. qnetwork.com
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE is a film that, from beginning to end, drips irony from its tongue. It is a brilliant, darkly poetic work that is able to both enrapture and disgust. filmcritic.com
