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The young Londoners of a not
distant future that by now has
already gone by (this movie is in fact set in the mid ‘90s) lead a
life under the banner of transgression,
between synthetic drugs and sadistic acts of hooliganism. |
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Alex
DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell)
is their charismatic leader, fond of Beethoven’s music and
executioner/victim of the oddities of his world. He has a mother who
dresses like a fetishist teenager and a puppet father. He has no limits.
He can steal, rape, beat up old men… and make fun of his surveillance
officer. |
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Everything goes smoothly in the Drugs
gang (term of Russian assonance meaning ‘friends’) until power games
crop up: life – unfortunately nearly always – is like politics. But if
Alex is good at seizing what is of others, he’s indeed even better at
defending what is his. Those who have ambitious designs are soon put back
into perspective, but one should never overestimate himself: history
teaches that nobody is free from plots. |
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Thus, during a robbery, his buddies betray him. The police arrest Alex
after the murder of a woman. And so there he is in a new circle of
violence: the penitentiary where he’ll have to spend his youth. But Alex
doesn’t give up. Thanks to his diabolic craftiness he finds favour with
the prison’s chaplain. This is the first step towards the famous
‘Ludvic Treatment’: a therapy of psychological conditioning (even more
brutal and effective than the therapy against smoke of the ‘Cat's
eye’) in which a repulsion for violence is instilled, with ‘advanced’
means, in the person. |
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IWithin a few days, the drug-leader
is out, but after having lost everything: his combative instinct and
also the music of the great master (the sound-track of the treatment
through images is the ‘Celebration of Joy’). Outside the paradox of
contradiction awaits him: a world of wolves where he is the lamb (because
of mental constraint). |
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It’s the Dantesque punishment of retaliation: from the family who has
found a worthy surrogate
to the disappointing son, to all those who Alex bullied (except for,
obviously, the dead woman – it’s
not a horror movie!). Everybody has a chance to take revenge.
Even his former buddies, who have become policemen and are fully
integrated in the system, give him a hiding. Cherry on the cake is
the old man who, after the day the gang raped his young wife, at the
beginning of the movie, ended up in a wheelchair, having learnt
DeLarge’s weak spot will try to use it to destroy him. |
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But maybe (other paradox), having hit the bottom, the young man catches
up with the world and at last the free man and society can open the
negotiating table. In hospital, where they’re fixing him up physically
and mentally, Alex DeLarge confers with a bigwig from the government. The
‘Ludvic Treatment’ would mean bad publicity for the nation so they
reach such a compromise: the young man will be enlisted in the secret
service (or something similar) where, with great pleasure, he’ll be able
to get back to exert the violence that he loves so much.
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REMARKS
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Kubrick
(follows Burgess
and) like in many of his movies (from ‘The
Doctor Strangelove’ to ‘Full Metal Jacket’)
plays on the social paradox and nobody gets off lightly. I see another
paradox: this movie is antithetic but also in symbiosis with ‘Easy Rider’.
But getting back to Stanley Kubric’s idea, his intention is obvious.
However much the movie
falls in the science fiction trilogy of the master, we have here
more philosophy than science fiction (but, for Kubrick, it’s not a
novelty: think about '2001…').
So, who’s more violent: Alex or society? Where does the true evil lie? |
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Let’s get back to one of the cornerstone ideas of ’68: although
pretty dangerous for he who does not use his own head, but lets
himself be drawn by the charisma of an actor/character. There have
been incidents of emulation and it seems appropriate to me to have
given the movie an X-rating in many countries. Violence isn’t the
purpose of the movie – obviously – but rather, a starting point
of critical reflection in order to understand its heart in our
everyday life. I think that it’s easily understandable that in the
debate person/society, the reality/reason is at the centre: the two
extremes have to come together even though it’s undeniable that
man is the product of the society in which he lives. |
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NOTE!!!
This is an unauthorized site. The copyrights of the images of 'Clockwork
Orange' belong to Warner pictures. This site is just a movie page for my
personal website. The copyrights of the texts belong to Lorenzo Costa.
Email me at alfadriver@lorenzocosta.com |
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