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A Clockwork Orange
A welcome re-release of Stanley Kubrick's dystopian drama, which was withdrawn from theatrical release in this country at the director's behest after supposed links between on-screen and real-life violence. In the intervening years, the picture has taken on an almost mythical status. Kubrick accomplished the seemingly impossible with his adaptation of Anthony Burgess's dystopian fable. He digests a provocative and sometimes disturbing novel written in an invented pidgin Russian language and regurgitates it as a visually striking and, on the whole, accessible cautionary tale. The film follows juvenile delinquent Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his three Droog buddies - Pete (Michael Tarn), Dim (Warren Clarke) and Georgie (James Marcus) - on one of their nightly orgies of "ultra-violence", which culminates in the murder of a middle-aged lady. Sent to prison to atone for a multitude of sins, Alex agrees to enrol in a controversial Government-backed scheme to rehabilitate violent offenders through so-called aversion therapy. After two weeks of treatment, Alex is deemed "cured" and returns to the welcoming arms of society where his dysfunctional parents (Philip Stone, Sheila Raynor) want nothing to do with him, old friends Dim and Pete have become police officers, and his victims are now embittered souls thirsty for revenge. Like all of Kubrick's films, A Clockwork Orange is a feast for the senses, shot with boundless energy and an impeccable eye for detail. From the opening tracking shot in the Korova Milk Bar, where Alex and his friends prepare for their fun and games over a glass of Moloko (milk), to the carefully orchestrated sequences of the Droogs on the rampage, every frame has been meticulously crafted for maximum impact. Music plays an intrinsic role in the film just as it did in Burgess's novel. Alex is obsessed with Beethoven (or as he calls him, "lovely, lovely Ludwig Van") and several key moments in the film are set to different movements from the monumental 9th Symphony. Indeed, almost every episode in Alex's misadventures has some form of musical accompaniment: a sexual assault set to Singin' In The Rain, a fight between two gangs choreographed to Yorkston's Molly Malone, a riverbank stabbing replayed in slow motion to the tune of Rossini's The Thieving Magpie. With the music, these scenes take on a hallucinogenic, dreamlike quality - like fragments of someone's unconscious flashing before the audience's eyes. McDowell, with his distinctive eye make-up and natty bowler hat, captures the coiled up rage and fiery sexuality of the film's anti-hero with gusto, narrating the action by way of a disconcertingly monotone voiceover. His transformation into model citizen at the prison is not for the squeamish: the sequences in which he is strapped down to a chair, his eyelids held open with metal clips as he is forced to watch hours of sickening film footage, are almost unbearable. The irony of the situation was not lost on Kubrick.
