Review of A Clockwork Orange (1971) by Hannah D — 21 Apr 2015

A Clockwork Orange is a masterpiece of vision and importance. No matter if you're okay with its shock value, disgusted or thrilled, it will never be forgotten and I think its message will always be relevant and shocking in a necessary way. The movie needs to shock your senses and sensibilities so it will always be shocking. The day the movie stops being shocking is the day we all become mass produced carrots growing in clockwork.

The point of the film is that the responsibility to live in a world where people make good choices falls on the individual and not society as a whole or the scientific community. When the act of goodness is conditioned then the act of goodness becomes evil and oppressive. Orwell's 1984 was a dystopian cry for freedom, A Clockwork Orange is a Utopian cry for freedom. One is dark and dirty, the other bright and clean. Both derive their significance from the age old question asking if man has self-determination or pre-determination, and it states that a perfect world is impossible and a dangerous thing to strive for. A world isn't perfect as long as there's evil in it, and evil will always exist unless the choice to do evil is denied, but a world without free will is not a perfect world. The film teaches that "not a bad person" is not the same as "a good person." Indifference doesn't make you good or bad -- just comfortably numb. Without choice there is no passion and without passion no one can imagine a perfect world, let alone build it.

Visually, the movie is stunning. I see it as a distort of present times. Look at how everything is smoother, glossy, curvier, sexier, and so on. Everything represents the feminine aesthetic more than the masculine, which is more true today than in 1971, even though 1971 was more colorful in some aspects. Of course, like I said, it's a distortion of the present, not a mirror image. And it's funny to note with the rise of computers, internet slang can be compared to the language in the film.

The music was a big contributor to the films success, too, but ultimately it's Malcolm McDowell who makes it all work. It's no wonder the movie had such an impact on late 70's punk culture. Alex is a rebel of his time. The music sounds unfamiliar and strange to us, so it's easy to appreciate him listening to classical music with such admiration and feeling so triumphant. It makes the character relatable on an exciting or uncomfortable level. His pseudo-Shakespearean way of speaking makes it even more exhilarating and liberating. "Oh bliss! Bliss and heaven! Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures!".