About A Clockwork Orange (1971)

     Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange is an adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s novel, which goes by the same name. The story takes place in a futuristic version of London England in the year 1995. The main character, Alexander DeLarge, is the leader of a pack of droogs, who make up his gang. At the beginning of the movie, Alex finds himself drinking narcotic laced milk with his droogs before they find a drunken homeless man to beat up. Once they are done with him, they go to a theater where they encounter and fight another gang. After they are done, they steal a Durango 95 and head out to the countryside where they find a home to vandalize. They trick the owners of the home to let them in to make a phone call. As soon as they get into the house they start reeking havoc. First they tie up the husband in the house and then proceed to rape his wife, while singing “Singin’ in the Rain.” They later go back to the milk bar before deciding to go home for the night. Alex is very fond of Beethoven and listens to it while he masturbates at home.
     Later Alex meets back up with his gang to cause more damage. The other members in his gang try to start calling some of the shots, which Alex does not take lightly. He later begins to beat up his own gang members to reassert his dominance. Once back on top, Alex orders his droogs to steal money from a woman who lives at a dairy. Alex sneaks into the woman’s place before killing her with a giant plaster penis. When the cops are called and Alex could here the sirens he tried to run but was betrayed by his own gang who hit him in the face with a milk bottle on his way out of the place.
     The police apprehend Alex and sentence him to fourteen years in prison. While in prison he learns of an experiment, which is supposed to cure all of his anger problems. The Minister of the Interior signs Alex up for the experiment, and he is transferred to a medical facility. During the experiment, Alex’s eyes are held open, while he is forced to watch films of rape and torture. The experiment appears to be a success when Alex loses all of his violent nature. In reality it takes away his entire free will making it impossible to chose between right or wrong.
     After the experimenting, Alex is released from prison and returns home where he receives a cold homecoming. He eventually encounters the bum he and his gang beat up a while back, and the bum proceeds to beat up Alex with the help of others. Eventually two policemen break up the fight, but they turn out to be two of Alex’s old gang members. The two of them take Alex out to the wood where they beat him and leave him for dead. He eventually crawls out of the woods to the home where he had raped the man’s wife. The man does not realize who he is a first and takes care of Alex.
     One night while taking a bath, Alex begins to sing “Singin’ in the Rain,” which reminds the man that Alex is the one who raped his wife.  The man then proceeds to drug Alex at dinner that night and lock him in a room. When Alex awakes he hears Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony playing from just below him and starts to panic because of his aversion to the song after the Ludovico experiment that was performed on him. Alex attempt to commit suicide by jumping out of the window in the room.
     Eventually Alex wakes up in the hospital in a full body cast. The Minister comes to visit him to apologize for what they experiment did to his free will. Then the Minister tries to befriend Alex, who agrees to it after barking out a list of demands that the Minster agrees to perform. The movie ends with photographers taking pictures of Alex while he fantasizes about another one of his orgies.

Major Theme: Authoritarianism v. Free Will

The society in A Clockwork Orange is in a constant battle with it self on whether allowing free will is more important than controlling the people. The main character Alex emphasizes this point when he goes through the Ludovico Experiment. Before the experiment Alex is an ultra violent rapist and murderer and afterwards he is a controlled member of society who feels no anger. The argument is whether Alex chooses to be a controlled member of society after the experiment or if the experiment has just taken away his free will all together. During the experiment Alex is conditioned to associate violent acts with severe pain, forcing him towards goodness. The Minister in the movie would like one to believe that the experiment has cured Alex and that he is a reformed man. On the other hand Mr. Alexander, and the Prison Chaplin believe that the experiment has just taken away Alex’s ability to choose between right and wrong, automatically forcing him to choose good over evil. Essentially they believe that the experiment has taken everything away from Alex that makes him human.

A scene from A Clockwork Orange depicting the violence present in the film.