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| A Clockwork Orange (1971) | |
| Background
The luridly-colorful set designs by John Barry, costume design by Milena Canonero, the synthesized electronic score by Wendy Carlos [sometimes credited as Walter Carlos - her birth name until undergoing a sex-change operation in 1972 to became Wendy], the colorful and innovative cinematography by John Alcott, and the hybrid, jargonistic, pun-filled language of Burgess' novel (called Nadsat - an onomatopoetic, expressive combination of English, Russian, and slang), produce a striking, unforgettable film. Some words are decipherable in their contextual use, or as anglicized, portmanteau, rhymed, or clever transformations or amputations of words. Originally, the rock group The Rolling Stones were considered for the main cast roles of Alex and his droogs, until Kubrick joined the production. The controversial film's title and other names in the film have meaning. The title alludes to:
The film's poster and tagline advertised its themes of violence in a police state, teen delinquency, technological control, and dehumanization:
Originally rated X, A Clockwork Orange was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Screenplay, but was defeated in each category by William Friedkin's The French Connection (1971). It was one of only two movies rated X on its original release (the other was Midnight Cowboy (1969)) that was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award. To underline the assaultive nature of the film's content, much of its camera work is deliberately in-out, with few pans or much lateral/horizontal movement. Because of the copy-cat violence that the film was blamed for, Kubrick withdrew it from circulation in Britain about a year after its release. [Shortly after the ban was instituted, a 17-year old Dutch girl was raped in 1973 in Lancashire, at the hands of men singing Singing in the Rain. And a 16-year-old boy had beaten a younger child while wearing Alex's uniform of white overalls, black bowler hat and combat boots. Both were considered 'proof', after the fact, that the film had an influential effect on violence in society.] In preparation for a new 1972 release for US audiences, Kubrick replaced about 30 seconds of footage to get an R-rating, as opposed to the X-rating that the MPAA initially assigned to it. (The replacement footage was for two scenes: the high-speed orgy scene in Alex's bedroom, and the rape scene projected at the Ludovico Medical Center.) In the spring of 2000, an uncut version of the film was re-released to British screens. The frightening, chilling and tantalizing film (a morality play) raised many thematic questions and presented a thought-provoking parable: How can evil be eradicated in modern society? If the state can deprive an individual of his free will, making him 'a clockwork orange,' what does this say about the nightmarish, behavioral modification technologies of punishment and crime? Do we lose our humanity if we are deprived of the free-will choice between good and evil? The StoryThe title of the film plays upon an orange-shaded background. The setting of the film is England in the near future [later in the film, the police wear an emblem of Elizabeth II on their lapels]. In the background, gothic-sounding organ plays Purcell's 'Elegy on the Death of Queen Mary' - a funereal dirge. [The music was played on an electronic organ by pioneering synthesist Wendy (or Walter) Carlos.] The opening memorable image is an intimate closeup of the blue staring eyes and smirking face of ebullient young punker Alex de Large (Malcolm McDowell), wearing a bowler hat and with one false eyelash (upper and lower) adorning his right eye. His cufflinks and suspenders are ornamentally decorated with a bloody, ripped-out eyeball.
As the camera zoom pulls back, the anti-hero character with the malevolent, cold stare is shown sitting amidst his kingly court of teenaged gang of "droogs" - Georgie (James Marcus), Dim (Warren Clarke), and Pete (Michael Tarn). The young hoodlums wear oversized, protective cod-pieces to flaunt their sexuality, over their all-white combat suits. [Their names are symbolic: Alex represents the heroic and majestic leader Alexander the Great, but in this case "A-lex" - a man without law or 'a law unto himself.' A-lex literally means 'without law.' The droogs have Russian names, e.g., Dim is probably a shortened version of Dimitri.] In front of them and also forming a corridor on either side of the camera are grotesque forms of art work in a mood of futuristic nihilism - sculpted, sleek, hygienic white-fiber glass nude furniture and statues of submissive women either kneeling or in a back-bending position on all fours as tables. Colors are absent except for the artificial orlon wigs and pubic hair. The visually-brilliant film is narrated by Alex, the film's main hero/protagonist:
In the Korova Milkbar, spiked, hallucinogenic drink concoctions (called "milk-plus") served from the nippled breasts of the coin-operated mannequins are automatically laced with drugs to alter their minds and get them ready for entertainment - a bit of "the old ultra-violence." They are looking forward to a night of sado-sexual escapades (beatings, pillaging, mayhem, break-ins and rape). The teen-aged boys, wearing zoned-out, pathological expressions on their faces and assuming arrogant poses, are preparing to go on a rampage led by Alex. Visually, they are harshly backlit and project elongated shadows ahead of them as they walk through the darkened streets with billyclubs, wearing white trousers and white suspenders to match, black combat boots and derbies. Every night, they commit stylized but meaningless acts of terrorism including rape ("the old in-out, in-out"), robbery, and mugging. The youth gang beat up a drunken bum (Paul Farrell) who has sought refuge in a gutter under a pedestrian underpass, while singing "Molly Malone." The "filthy, dirty old drunkie" taunts them and is severely beaten after masochistically bemoaning the state of affairs in the present society - "a stinking world" where the young show no respect for the elderly:
On the soundtrack, a balletic overture of violins and woodwinds plays, as the camera pans down from a gilded proscenium above the stage of a derelict, abandoned opera house/casino, a symbol of collapsed civilization. Operatic screams and waltztime music are heard as a young woman struggles during an acrobatically-delivered molestation. On stage, the buxom rape victim or 'devotchka' (Shirley Jaffe) has her clothes torn off by five other mad-faced delinquents from a rival gang. The leader, Billyboy (Richard Connaught) and his gang of droogs wear remnants of old Nazi uniforms:
From the shadows, Alex and his gang observe the preparation for the rape, and then - preferring violence to sex, challenge them to a fight on the rubbish-strewn floor with a youthful, sexual insult: "How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap, stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunich jelly thou." The old-fashioned, stylized rumble, a quick-edited succession of violent images performed as a balletic dance, is dazzling - synchronized with the building music from Rossini's The Thieving Magpie (La Gazza Ladra). In slap-stick style, the adolescent gangs flash switchblades, hurl each other through furniture and plate glass windows, and use judo to smash each other about. Bodies fly through the air, leap and somersault; chairs smash heads. When a police siren alerts them to the arrival of police, Alex and his gang escape - crammed into a stolen sports car - a Durango-95. [The car's model, aka Probe 16, was a concept car produced in the year 1970. Is this an anachronism or not? Does it imply that the film's setting was approximately the same as the time of the film's release? Note: the 95 in the car's title refers to the car's model number - it doesn't refer to the year 1995.] The vehicle is a low-slung, fast, phallic-shaped car headed into the black night of the countryside. Driving at reckless speed in a rush toward the camera (with the sides of the road receding behind them), they play "chicken" with other vehicles, exhilarated by the panic and excitement of forcing other cars and drivers off the road:
At an opulent residence welcomingly marked with a lit "HOME" panel sign, the four sneak up toward the door of the ultra-modern home, a monstrosity of futuristic architectural design. The home is the residence of the Alexanders. The elderly husband Frank Alexander (Patrick Magee), a left-leaning writer, taps away at his IBM typewriter in a book-shelved section of the home. His wife Mrs. Alexander (Adrienne Corri), wearing a red pajama suit, reads in a white plastic chair. When the doorbell rings (to the chimed tune of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony!) and she answers, Alex pleads and claims that there has been "a terrible accident" and he must use their phone to call an ambulance: "It's a matter of life and death." She hesitates to let him in, suspicious of night callers. But Mr. Alexander acquiesces to the passionate request and permits entry. When she unlatches the door, the gang bursts in to bring a nightmarish form of entertainment - they are wearing bizarre comical masks. Alex has a grotesque, phallic-nosed face mask. Dim slings Mrs. Alexander over his shoulder and fondles her. Mr. Alexander is assaulted and kicked on the floor by Alex who ironically punctuates his rhythmic, soft-shoe kick-dance with the lyrics of "Singin' in the Rain." The scene is one of the most disturbing scenes in the film, with its juxtaposition of the familiar lyrics of playful music from a classic film with slapstick comedy, brutality and horrible ultra-violence:
The appearance of mirrors in the hallway implies that the rape is metaphorically executed over and over again, and also reflects the mental/psychological state of the victim. Both victims were bound and gagged, with a rubber ball painfully inserted into their mouths and wrapped with long strips of Scotch tape around their heads. Alex overturns the writer's desk, typewriter, and bookshelves. Mr. Alexander is forced to helplessly watch the ugly disrobing and choreographed rape of his own wife. A grown-up 'child,' Alex begins by first attacking her breasts - he first snips off two circles of jumpsuit cloth around them to expose them. In the mode of 'Jack the Ripper', he then slits her entire suit off from her pant leg upward. After unzipping and pulling his own pants down prior to her rape, he mocks the husband: "Viddy well, little brother. Viddy well." After a long night of "energy expenditure," the group returns to the Korova Milkbar where they are seen sprawling against its black walls:
At a nearby table where "some sophistos from the TV studios" are "laughing and govoreeting," the woman in the group suddenly has a "burst of singing" with a short section of Schiller's Ode to Joy chorale movement from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. For Alex, it is a moment of pure ecstasy:
After Dim blows a raspberry at the singer, Alex smashes him across the legs with his cane for lack of respect ("for being a bastard with no manners") for his favorite, beloved composer. The oafish Dim whines and whimpers and shows dissatisfaction and discontent with Alex's leadership: "I don't like you should do what you done. And I'm not your brother no more and wouldn't want to be...Yarbles, great bolshy yarblockos to you. I'll meet you with chain or nozh or britva any time. Not having you aiming tolchocks at me reasonless. It stands to reason, I won't have it." But Dim backs down and declines to fight and Alex lets the challenge go, for the moment. He returns home to Municipal Flatblock 18a Linear North, where he lives with his "dadda and mum." In the ground-floor, trashed lobby of the depressing, unkempt building, a huge mural depicting the dignity of labor and noble citizens is defaced with obscene sexual graffiti. The elevator door is broken and Alex must take the stairs. The wall inside his room is decorated with an erotic, spread-eagled female image on one side, and a poster of Beethoven on the other. He puts his loot from the evening into a drawer already filled with stolen watches and wallets. In a second drawer, he checks his pet python. As "the perfect ending" to the "wonderful evening," Alex switches on a cassette tape of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. While musically appreciating his favorite composer and classical piece, he lies back on his bed. His pet python phallically explores the exposed crotch area of the female figure on the wall. During the drugged reverie of listening to Beethoven in his combination-locked bedroom, Alex moans orgiastically: "Oh bliss, bliss and heaven. Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest spun heaven metal, or like silvery wine flowing in a space ship, gravity all nonsense now. As I slooshied I knew such lovely pictures." Spaced-out pictures from Alex's hallucinogenic, sado-masochistic dreams are flashed in images on-screen [as Alex allegedly masturbates - just out of the viewable frame]:
The next morning, his financially hard-pressed, working-class parents Pee (Philip Stone) and Em (Sheila Raynor) are confused, apologetic, and apparently frightened by their son's devious behavior. Costumed in garish, mod outfits and drinking their morning coffee, they speak about him in the kitchenette of their ugly, knick-nack filled flat:
After finally getting up, but feeling "a pain in the gulliver" and missing school, Alex plods around in his underwear and is surprised to discover his middle-aged, pudgy, social worker/probation officer ("Post Corrective Adviser") Mr. Deltoid (Aubrey Morris) in the apartment (he was given the key by Alex's mother on the way to work). A sexually-deviant adult, Deltoid is happy to have found the young boy before he has had a chance to get dressed. After having Alex sit on the bed next to him, he affectionately puts his arm around Alex's bare shoulders and speaks to him in the Nadsat lingo of youth:
As the rapacious and monstrous Deltoid shamelessly paws at Alex, and even makes a forceful grab at Alex's crotch, he informs Alex that he suspects the boy's involvement in the "nastiness" of the previous evening and demands reform:
In a flashy, mirrored, musical boutique, two teeny-boppers lick phallic-shaped (but droopy) icy lollipops. To the synthesized sounds of the fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the stylishly-dressed Alex is filmed in an elaborate, 360 degree tracking shot as he struts through the record store [the soundtrack of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is on display at one of the counters, clearly an inside joke] and scrutinizes young females. After hunting around and inquiring about an order, he asks the pop-sucking little sisters: "A bit cold and pointless, isn't it, my lovely?" and then invites the two young boppers back to his room to listen to music on his elaborate hi-fi system:
After getting them back to his room, a creatively-filmed high-speed, slapstick orgy scene occurs. The frenetically-paced orgy is staged to the tempo of the "William Tell Overture." Before sexual hijinks, he sprays underarm deodorant at them, and then they frolic in group sex upon his bed. Both teen nymphets undress, dress and undress again. [The scene was shot at twelve times normal film speed (at 2 frames per second). It took an actual 28 minutes to film, but lasts only 40 seconds on screen.] Alex's mutinous droog gang are waiting for him in the squalid lobby of the apartment building when he comes downstairs. After grumbling about his "giving orders and discipline" and confronting him with his dictatorial treatment, they demand a "mansize crast" to go after the "big, big money":
To appease the dissidents' bitter disaffection, Alex offers to reconcile with them and suggests first buying them a round of drinks ("moloko-plus") at the Korova milkbar. They walk along the flatblock marina to the bar, in graceful slow-motion (in striking contrast to the high-speed orgy scene previously):
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A
Clockwork Orange (1971) is producer-director-screenwriter Stanley
Kubrick's randomly ultra-violent, over-indulgent, graphically-stylized
film of the near future. It was a terrifying, gaudy film adaptation
of Anthony Burgess' 1962 satiric, futuristic novel of the same
name. This was Kubrick's ninth feature film, appearing between