Review of A Clockwork Orange (1971) by Dino T — 04 Jan 2015
Disturbing, psychotic, ultra-violent, angry, academic and undeniably brilliant; Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Anthony Burgess' cult novel was a proverbial bucket of ice water when it was released in 1971.
Kubrick actually toned down Anthony Burgess' hyper-violent, hyper-sexual novel about deliquent, bowler-hatted yobbos. But the result was still so controversial at the time that Kubrick received legitimate death threats, forcing him to withdraw the film from distribution until his death in 1999.
More a subversive statement about modern life than a conventional film, sadistic punk Alex kicks, beats and rapes his way through a cartoon nightmare of the future, then is conditioned and "cured" by a broken society that looks worryingly like our own.
Age has slightly subdued it's surface shock, yet it's resonance has done nothing but accrue. Strip away the appalling surface material and you're left with a haunting moral conundrum of identity and choice in the most extreme sense.
This review of A Clockwork Orange (1971) was written by Dino T on 04 Jan 2015.
A Clockwork Orange has generally received very positive reviews.
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