Brilliant satire about a youth with a penchant for the old ultra-violence...

Rating: 10/10 (25 July 2014)

A Clockwork Orange stands as easily the most controversial film Stanley Kubrick ever directed. It was released at a time in the early 70's when the Hollywood studios were systematically releasing a number of highly controversial, violent films such as Straw Dogs, Deliverance and Dirty Harry. It was withdrawn from public circulation by the director himself in the UK for 27 years, only becoming available again after his death. The reason for the self-imposed ban was the result of reports of some violent incidents where thugs appeared to be acting under the influence of the film itself and the Kubrick's themselves even received death threats too. It really was a film that touched a nerve that's for sure.
It was based on an excellent novel of the same name by Anthony Burgess, a book made so brilliant in that its narrator Alex speaks throughout in the Nadsat slang which was an invented form of youth-speak of the near future, influenced by Russian; at the time it was written we were in the midst of the cold war and it was not unreasonably thought that Russian culture would seep through in the years that followed. Burgess was famously unhappy with Kubrick's adaption, seeing it as revelling in the sex and violence at the expense of the point he was making. In fact, the novel had been released in the United States in a different version to elsewhere, missing out the epilogue in which Alex concedes the error of his ways and decides to leave his life of violence behind. Kubrick had only read the American version and his film also missed out this final section much to Burgess's annoyance. In truth, the book would have worked better without Burgess ending, as it comes across as a little too idealistic and doesn't square very well with what has gone before. Needless to say, I think the film works better without it and in fact makes its central point far clearer too, i.e. Alex is inherently bad but this is a lesser evil than him being artificially good. Whatever the case, both book and film are marvellous.
It is a dark satire set in the near future where a young hoodlum called Alex and his gang of Droogs spend their nights fighting, raping and pillaging. Alex is eventually caught and imprisoned. He puts himself forward for an experimental aversion therapy procedure called the Ludovico technique that is designed to make sociopathic individuals experience feelings of terror when they have violent thoughts. The state's solution is ultimately seen as another form of violence as opposed to a true solution.
A Clockwork Orange is extremely stylised. Visually it's beautifully shot as you would expect from Kubrick. The sets alternate from the dreary to garish bad taste. Many places are decorated by strange, disturbing erotic art. The costumes are really great too, especially the iconic retro-futuristic styles worn by the Droogs. While soaring above everything is the incredibly distinctive soundtrack from Wendy Carlos - the electronic music used here was cutting edge at the time and went on to influence a whole cycle of synth groups in the late 70's / early 80's – it is really original sounding and considerably helps creating the distinctive world of the film; the moody, ominous main theme is particularly brilliant and futuristic versions of Beethoven are very unusual too. Acting is very stylised throughout but Malcolm McDowell truly shines in one of the most charismatic screen performances of all time. If you read the novel after seeing the film it is well-nigh impossible to do so without McDowell's tones ringing through your GulliverI mean head! Ultimately, I love this film but still find it somewhat disturbing to watch for several reasons. It's really rather unpleasant quite a lot of the time in actual fact but really I suppose that's the point. It's definitely one of the truly transgressive films released by Hollywood back in the days when they thought nothing of taking on such huge risks.