Not SCI-FI

Rating: 8/10 (20 February 2008)

A remarkable movie in all respects, "A Clockwork Orange" has the capacity to render one helpless from both laughter and shock. Few other movies can deliver in such a way. There are also few people who would disagree that Stanley Kubrick created an amazing experience in film.
That being said, I have never seen this as a work of science fiction. When a movie takes place in the future it isn't science fiction any more than when it takes place in the past. It is simply a period piece; which are always works of fiction because none of us live in either the future or the distant past.
Science fiction requires two elements: science and fiction. More importantly, science fiction requires 'fictional science'.
"A Clockwork Orange" has a fictional futuristic world with very little fictional science. The brainwashing could be considered science fiction, I suppose... but then any movie with a brainwashing sequence in it would also have to be considered science fiction... which would have to include a number of 'action' movies (like the "Bourne" trilogy).
I would catalog "A Clockwork Orange" as a dark comedy or an action drama. At it's best it is a philosophical commentary on the possible future of society with a disengaged youth at the helm.
In my opinion, however, without a dramatically different political structure, robots, cloning, spaceships, advanced weaponry, designer viruses, improbable gadgets, psychics, or any other common elements of 'fictional science' in the science fiction genre, this cannot be dubbed sci-fi. A great movie? Yes. Science Fiction? No.