International Cinema: October 2014

Clockwork Orange Review

Our class watched A Clockwork Orange Friday night. It's an older British movie by Stanley Kubrick set back in the early 70s. Roger Ebert had this to say about this movie, "...all it really does is celebrate the nastiness of its hero, Alex." As the movie began it had the appearance that the plot was going nowhere and moving quickly towards that end. The opening scenes were overtly raunchy for effect and they didn’t appear to contain much relevant meaning towards the plot. One student was so offended by the full-Monte nudity and brazenly undisguised displays of genitalia, that she left the class. If it weren't for the fact that this was a class assignment, this blogger would have departed from the theater as well. It surely didn't appear that the plot was headed anywhere meaningful.

Once you can get past the overacting and sexually explicit scenes at the beginning of the movie, the plot starts to develop. Alex, played by Malcolm McDowell, was a devilishly evil character. He's a character that doesn't even struggle with the morality issues of the crimes that he's committing. As a matter of fact, he acts more like the Joker from the Batman movie because he revels in committing crimes of violence and passion. Furthermore, his pleasure for committing these crimes leads him to take up arms against his friends. Alex is the leader of his self-made gang and asserts his leadership violently to his own eventual downfall.

One of Alex's friends contrives the plan for the next crime. As Alex is committing the crime, it is interrupted by the sound of the siren. The victim recognized the lyrics that Alex used to try to persuade her to open the door. Therefore, her instincts took over and she phoned the police. As Alex is acting alone in the house doing the dirty deed, the police car siren is heard nearing the house. Alex ends up killing the woman in the house by hitting her in the head with a large piece of art that takes the form of male genitalia. Alex, wielding this oversized scrotum and penis, was using it as his defense to keep the victim from hitting him with a small statue. When the victim lost her balance and fell to the ground Alex then took the tip of the penis and used it like a battering ram to bludgeon the victim in the head with it. Alex then hears the police car in hot pursuit, so he wraps up his mischievous activities and heads out the front door. The three friends greet Alex, with a not so warm welcome. Alex's friends, obviously still a bit sore over the whole ordeal that happened earlier in the day, decide to give Alex a forceful taste of his own medicine. One of the friends hits Alex in the head with a blunt object and Alex falls to the ground wincing in pain as the police arrive to arrest him.

While in jail, Alex volunteers for a experimental scientific procedure to have a mind altering experiments conducted on him. This procedure subjects him to torturous treatment of having his eyelids held open, eye drops constantly put in his eyes, graphic movies showing go on for hours on end, and in the background plays Beethoven's ninth Symphony. After the sessions have taken effect, a couple actors are hired to provoke Alex into his old violent self after the treatments. Alex cannot commit violence against the male actor who is provoking him, and he won't engage in carnal knowledge with the topless female actor. With that kind of rock solid evidence that the treatments worked, they decide to let Alex out of prison.

Ironically, karma does catch up to Alex. He runs into his friends, who are now police officers, and they take him into the woods and beat him up. Then as Alex is seeking help from my house nearby in the woods, the owner of the house lets him in to try to help him. When Alex is in the bathtub bathing he starts singing the song Singing in the Rain again. The owner recognizes Alex's voice and the tune, and he realizes this is the guy that killed his wife. So he contrives a plan to torturing Alex in a room by playing Beethoven's ninth Symphony very loud. The movie ends with Alex participating in a orgy of sorts saying, “I’m cured alright.” This lends one to believe that he is back to his old conniving self.