Product: A Clockwork Orange (1972)
Rating: 2.0
Started a Negative Trend in Film
...I know everybody loved this movie. The whole punk movement was influenced by it, and all the cool kids in high school dug it. Malcolm McDowell does an amazing job, and of course Stanley Kubrick leaves a very unique imprint on the vibe of the whole thing.But now EVERYBODY is doing the brutality/sex/shock thing, and the movie theater has become a pretty depressing place to go to. "Natural Born Killers," "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer," "Bad Lieutenant," "Pulp Fiction," "Boogie Nights," "Leaving Las Vegas," "Happiness," "American Beauty,"...they all seem like descendants of "Clockwork" to me, in that they all present cynicism, violence, rape, and/or generally depraved behavior in "hip" anti-hero ways that will certainly appeal to the alienated teenager. As far as I'm concerned, "Full Metal Jacket" and "Eyes Wide Shut" were just more of the same (conveying the same "aren't-human-beings-just-shameful-little-pigs" sort of message). And of course it has bled over into music as well, spawning all of our Trent Reznors and Marilyn Mansons and on and on.I shouldn't say that "Clockwork Orange" was the CAUSE of it all, but it did set the precedent, and now people seem to see "art" as an excuse to wallow in nihilism and nothing more.