The Nobodies #12: A Clockwork Orange
I'm not sure what I think of A Clockwork Orange. I was misled by what this movie was. I knew the plot. In a very forseeable future, the movie follows Alex, leader of his gang of droogs who like to spend their nights at the Korova bar drinking milk plus and doing bits of the old ultra-violence(I mean, if nothing else, this film is great for nothing but the little words you are going to start using in your life. Tell me you won't use the phrase "Ultra-Violence" in real life.) My thoughts going into this was that the whole movie would consist of Alex going around beating and raping innocent bystanders, with half an hour devoted at the end to him in prison and undergoing the experiment. This is only the first forty minutes in a movie that's two hours and twenty minutes long. Spun me for a loop.
First of all, about those first forty minutes. It is as great a piece of filmmaking as you will ever see. There's a distinct surreality to Kubrick's dystopia, but he is not debating man's nature as he did in 2001. Instead, his aim to present a world in chaos. A world without morals. This leads to our culture becoming mainly orientated into two groups, thrills and sex. Thrills are achieved through regular bouts of Ultra Violence and Sex is achieved along with it, by using the "In and out".
Kubrick is a very pessimistic man. He showed us destroying the world in nuclear world, he created a very advanced but sterile version of the future in 2001. But here, he seems to give up on humanity all together.
These first forty minutes are what we call amazing cinema. Kubrick's style is wonderful, his creation of the droogs are scary as hell. Sure, it has something to do with the in and out, and the ultra violence and what bogs end. But the outfits they wear, and the masks, they become imbodiments of chaos. there are other gangs like them, as we see multiple times, but they are just in military garb. The outfit of Alex and the droogs are just so demonic. this is added by the masks, but even more so by Alex's fake eyelash. Aided by the glint in his eye.
What makes a Clockwork Orange special is it goes in a what comes around goes around theory. So, when Alex goes to prison, he gets chosen for this program which will set him straight, provide order in his life. What happens is when he leaves prison, he happens to run into everyone he has wronged throughout the film, the Man in the house, the drunken man, his droogs. And we begin to sympathise with him. Alex's glint is gone, and now his eyes are filled with fear.
The image of Alex with his eyes strapped, forced to watch monstrosities is cruelty. His life does not get better. Kubrick is saying that Chaos is bad, but control is worse. Or maybe that control leads to chaos. Or something. Kubrick seems to be trying to say is that, here is a world without Morals. How we deal with the lack of morals is entirely up to us. Some people decide to run with them, decide to become desire only, taking what they want. Some remain some degree of respectablity, I think of the man in his mansion, but other then those cloes to him cannot feel compassion, cannot forgive, and cannot feel any need to go lightly on subjects, only to unleash their full malevolence on them.
I feel A Clockwork Orange starts to slag in the middle, but it starts to pick up again when Alex meets the police officers (You know which two I'm talking about) who take him to the woods. It's still a very good movie. How good? I'm still figuring that out.
Verdict: It's a colossal achievement, and the first forty minutes are wonderful. However, it loses it's pace and seems to falter a bit halfway through. It picks up towards the end though. Or maybe the middle and the end are perfect. I'm not sure.
Grade: A-. I guess.