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The story of Alex and his droogs,(gang members) how they terrorize, rape and cause trouble. Betrayal from his Droogs follows and Alex soon becomes chosen for an experimental brainwashing technique in a prison complex with disastrous consequences.
Malcolm McDowell: Alex
''We were all feeling a bit shagged and fagged and fashed, it being a night of no small expenditure.''
Malcolm McDowell plays Alex the main character whom tells the story; His way of speaking certainly is intriguing from the off and his journey was something to contemplate.
I watched this for the first time a while ago and it being my 1st Kubrick film(2001: A Space Oddysee the other!) I was apprehensive of seeing it. Was pleased with the narration and strange retro-music.
I'm not a fan of the 70s and so being, the film to me looks and feels tacky in areas. For example the decor and fashion.
On the other hand the ideas raised in this are thought provoking and at the same time timeless and relevant even in today's society.
The first half of the film made me amused at such acts of violence or inadequacies. Alex performing ''I'm singing in the rain'' while raping a woman with husband watching will shock, the old ''in out''. With fate bringing him back later into the house, it will make you cringe.
It shocked me that once free will is taken away how helpless a person can become. How a programmed mind with blocked emotions isn't actually choosing he's lost this option entirely. He's been stripped of his god given free will.
Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange holds the recent record of being the number one film of all time on my charts. The film is everything that you'll never want to watch. The scenes are disturbing, gut wrenching, mind twisting, and way over the top. In result, "A Clockwork Orange" has the most powerful and overwhelming dramatic impact that I have ever experienced in a mainstream film.
Plot wise, A Clockwork Orange is the story of a young man named Alex DeLarge, who is, by day, a regular student who lives with his parents at home, but, by night, a homicidal rapist/killer with his accomplices who dress up like demented clowns at a bleak freak show. He and his buddies weasel their way into the happy homes housing innocent people by chanting the same deceiving phrase every night: they scream that their friend has been critically wounded in an accident near by--and plead to use their telephone to call for help.
''It had been a wonderful evening and what I needed now, to give it the perfect ending, was a little of the Ludwig Van.''
For a few unfortunate few, this devious trick proves to be successful in nature. However one fateful night, a woman known as The Cat Lady, refuses their pleas for help, and calls the police in suspicion. Alex, being both smart and sneaky, somehow manages to break into this perverted woman's home, while his accomplices wait outside. Once indoors, a fight begins. A struggle featuring a sex toy owned by Cat Lady, one that not only causes panicked arousal, but also is featured as the weapon of her graphic and disturbing murder. Alex quickly flees the scene once the police sirens reach his shaky ears, but when he gets back to his pal's waiting outside, they return their experiences with him by bashing him over the head with a hard object, allowing their jumbled escape, but his certain demise.
After the process of being sent to prison, Alex grows to learn to tell offices and guards what they like to hear. He reads the bible, is never involved with any major fights or complications, and almost volunteers for a new kind of experiment. An experiment so probationary it is still being tested and held under wraps. What it does, though a series of sessions, is cure a violent individual from his sickness; he will feel terrible pain if involved in any sort of violence after the medicine takes place.
The scenes involving the apparent salvation of Alex's disturbances are truly emotionally troublesome. They are so explicit and detailed that I myself felt tempted to look away from the screen at points. This is not a film for those who are sensitive, those who are easily offended, or especially for those with week constitutions. This is one of the most intense films around, but it happens to be one of the most perfect and precise in message. I definitely don't recommend the production to everyone, though.
The soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange is one of the most inspirational. Although the actual music is far from fitting each individual scene, the overall presence is not only worth listening to, but also worth the getting.
Here, a young Malcolm McDowell explores the character of a lifetime with vivid imagination and tremendous description. His character fits him very well as an actor. Even though the character is meant to be despised, I couldn't help but to be very convinced and interested in his sick, demented, psychotic mind. Most of this is because of the flawless point of view the film contains, one that both provokes empathy and involvement. It investigates the mind of a killer, rapist, and a confused, somewhat harmless, adolescent--all existing in the same character. This is no doubt the character, and the performance, that inspired a generation.
There was a point in the film where I could relate to how helpless Alex was. Unable to even defend himself or even listen to his favored Ludwig Van Beethoven. You're powerless to intervene and therein lies the beauty and genius to the backbone of the film.
When you get to the end you're bewildered, in a good way by what you've just witnessed. I know I was left breathless by the questions Orange raises in numerous intervals and occasions during the film's duration. The first half being the reckless endangerment while the second half being the consequences, the nightmarish repercussions.
''I was cured'', Alex says and you feel the journey of the film, you wonder, human nature; Is it correctable? I know what conclusion I came too, simply what defines us are not only our emotions but the choices that drive them and the freewill of acting upon the choice that lies within our power; Good or evil are necessities, quantities. It's simply human nature. It's A Clockwork Orange.
''Initiative comes to thems that wait.''
10/10
