Iconic, mesmerising, intoxicating, beautiful... Kubrick's unique masterpiece is one of the greatest cinematic works of the 20th Century

Rating: 10/10 (27 August 2007)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Number 1 - 1971
Top 10 - 1970s
Top 50 - All Time
This satirical sci-fi masterpiece featuring the charismatic and psychopathic delinquent Alex de Large (in a tour de force performance by Malcolm McDowell) whose prime interests are classical music rape and ultra violence. A Clockwork Orange features disturbing and violent imagery to facilitate social commentary issues ranging from psychiatry, youth gangs, and other topics in a futuristic dystopian Britain. The film is visually enticing, acoustically beautiful and magnificently directed by Kubrick who should have been awarded a Best Director Oscar for his simple yet bravura direction of the film.
A Clockwork Orange can be assessed on so many different levels. There are several reasons why this film is awarded a five star rating, so many reasons why it reigns on many critics' top lists and even today more than three decades later, it is an undeniably popular film with a cult status.
I find it to be an extremely bizarre film made by an eccentric director. I appreciate and savour the film's fine elements such as the beautiful soundtrack featuring Beethoven's 9th Symphony over disturbing rape scenes and other scenes of various vulgarities. The film's direction, sets and costumes create a feeling of a dystopia, which is what England is supposed to be; a country where the government maintains a firm grasp over its citizens.
Kubrick's creation of Alex de Large, played with ruthless efficiency by Malcolm McDowell is an obscene cinematic creation. One of the most sadistic, violent, twisted , disturbed characters in motion picture history; yet Kubrick presents Alex, his protégé in this film, in such a manner that although Alex commits such atrocities, Stanley Kubrick manages to maintain a feeling of a strange compassion towards him; no not compassion that is the wrong word; rather we do not hate the character because he is the hero of the film, or rather the Anti-hero.
The film which is a perfect exercise in beautiful, visual film-making is firstly a great impact on the psyche and on an emotional level the film gets under you skin - just for that the film is a masterpiece. A theme in the film is a question of morality and the definitions of good and evil; can good be manufactured or reinforced through psychological therapy? For example after the aversion therapy, Alex behaves like a good member of society, but not by choice; his "goodness" is involuntary and mechanical, like that of the title: A clockwork orange. In prison, the chaplain criticises the Ludovico Technique, saying that true goodness must come from within. Another theme is the abuse of one's liberties – both by Alex and by those using him for their various ends. The film is also severely critical of behavioural psychology as propounded by Watson and Skinner, a perspective that human behaviour is entirely moulded by social/environmental factors. Such theories were popular from the 1940s to the 1960s. Burgess disapproved of behaviourism calling Skinner's most popular book 'Beyond Freedom and Dignity' as "one of the most dangerous book ever written". Skinner argued that behaviour modification is the key to an ideal society. The Ludovico treatment used on Alex is reminiscent of the Project MK-ULTRA, the covert CIA mind-control and chemical interrogation research program, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence. The program began in the early 1950s, continuing at least through the late 1960s, and it used United States citizens as its test subjects. The published evidence indicates that Project MK-ULTRA involved the surreptitious use of many types of drugs, as well as other methods, to manipulate individual mental states and to alter brain function.
A Clockwork Orange is one of the most cinematically pounding, visually enthralling landmarks in cinema and one of Kubrick's finest achievements.
10/10