Kubrick and the Art of Violence.

Rating: 10/10 (6 November 2005)

Stanley Kubrick has a way of telling stories about violence without actually exploiting them, or going into exaggeration. In DR STRANGELOVE, OR HOW I STOPPED WORRYING AND LEARNED TO LOVE THE BOMB violence as war was discussed, overheard, never truly seen until the final reel when a flurry of atomic bombs exploded into bright mushrooms as the song "We'll Meet Again" lovingly played in the background. In 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY Hal-9000 terminates an entire crew in a most chilling way and all we see is a computer screen indicating the termination of life. Now, in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, Kubrick actually brings a story about violence, and even then it is art directed within an inch of its life.
Alex DeLarge is the leader of a band of 'droogs' who move from location to location terrorizing their victims, putting them under outrageous acts of violence. When two of his 'droogs' refuse to follow Alex's path of destruction, he turns on them and beats them, until an act of reversal turns against Alex and he is brought down by the medical industry who decides to "reform" his heretofore sociopathic tendencies. One he is cured, an interesting chain of humiliating events that bring Alex even farther down ensue: he is, for example, now attacked by his very ex-mates, now policemen, and his ex-victims. Sometimes the cure is far worse than the illness. Karma is a bitch.
Kubrick has a particular way of visualizing his films. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE has a look and feel completely out of its time, closer to sometime in the future, and its torture sequence in which Alex is regenerated also looks straight out of a science fiction movie. However, this is not a science fiction film. It's actually quite difficult to categorize CLOCKWORK because it's something of a social satire, something of a drama, has comedic moments and deconstructs a musical for a horrifying rape sequence; however, its approach to the material gives it the feel of a hybrid out of time, out of place, but visually arresting and impossible to take for granted. It's this approach that makes the work the product of a master of direction -- it can be seen multiple times and every time a different perspective arises, and all one can be left with is with the notion that this is pure, ultra-modern cinema.