A Clockwork Orange

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (18)

D: Stanley Kubrick

Warner Bros./Polaris (Stanley Kubrick)

UK/USA 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 1971

137 mins

Science Fiction/Crime

W: Stanley Kubrick [based on the novel by Anthony Burgess]

DP: John Alcott

Ed: Bill Butler

Mus: Walter Carlos

PD: John Barry

Cos: Milena Canonero

Malcolm McDowell (Alex DeLarge), Patrick Magee (Frank Alexander), Michael Bates (Chief Guard Barnes), Warren Clarke (Dim), Adrienne Corri (Mary Alexander), Carl Duering (Dr. Brodsky)

A difficult and repulsive watch, but not many can deny its brilliance, working as both an artistic presentation of a dystopian society and as a futuristic crime thriller.

Set in an unconfirmed year in Britain's future where wretched violence is rife, a young gangster guilty of rape and murder obtains early release from his prison sentence on the condition that he participates in an brainwashing experiment which renders him inert if he develops any violent or sociopathic thoughts. He then rejoins a society far more violent and unfriendly than the one he left when he was first incarcerated.

Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece boasts an excellent performance from Malcolm McDowell as über-villain Alex DeLarge, who achieves the near impossible of making you care for an unsympathetic character almost beyond redemption throughout the first act. The futuristic visions are so close to being spot on it's difficult to class this in the Science Fiction genre, but more a psychological thriller. Those who can get through it's most gruesome scenes will certainly agree that it is one of the best movies of the 1970's, if not ever. It's certainly not for the squeamish though, and those familiar with Kubrick's work will be searching for hidden meaning beneath the centrality of the plot. There's some theory that it contains hints about the illuminati, the European Union, government control through media and other similar conspiracies... I'm inclined to leave these up to the viewer, but I'd certainly agree that the point of the film is that, without freedom of expression, we will become less than human.

Real horrorshow, my droogs.

10/10