Disclaimer: Not all of this review is in plain English.
It had to be David Bowie, of course.
Not only did the late and great rocking-and-rolling Englishman borrow the mascara and the wild eyes from Alex DeLarge for his glam-rock avatars; he also borrowed the weird, Russian-inflected slang of Alex and his droogs for one of his last songs as well. Yes, that is Nadsat, Anthony Burgess’ fabulously twisted language of the young that you can hear in ‘Girl Loves Me’- the sneering singer lacing his menacing mutterings with a heady surge of unhinged absurdity.
It is done like a true maestro, real horrorshow. Or to come to the point, as deliciously good as having the great Stanley Kubrick take a shot at Ludwig Van Beethoven, no less.
‘A Clockwork Orange’ is one hell of a ride. It might be easily called as one of the most disturbing films ever made. Indeed, even today, more than 45 years after it first shocked and scalded viewers alive with its blistering nihilism, the violence, sex and anti-social anarchy, even presented as sheer satirical farce, hits hard indeed. And yet, if you can just take it all and gulp it, preferably with some milk-plus, you may even end up loving it really.
Chances are, however, that you will want to hate Alex DeLarge with all your heart.
You will despise him as a vicious, ruthless psychopath. You will fear his unrelenting stare, you will be sick at the sight of bloody eyeballs on his cuffs. You will be repulsed at the way he lets loose his cane at an old vagrant and the way he will change forever the meaning of ‘Singin In The Rain’ in the most disturbing way ever. You will be revolted by Alex DeLarge; you will hope the worst fate for him.
And Kubrick, that uncannily gifted director who has a penchant for making even the most challenging novels instant masterpieces, takes you inside his bizarre and brutal world in the film’s chaotic, almost off-the-wall first hour. We are shocked and shaken by his exploits but already, we can root for him, despite all our loathing for his deeds. Already, we can see beneath that the showboating swagger and the intense stare there is only a bratty, spoiled boy who wants to have his own way. And that is not asking a lot in the strange, cold and alienating near-future London that he lives in- a world where trust is as rare as sympathy.
And then, everything changes. Charged of a murder of a woman, Alex now becomes the film’s sufferer- a subject of humiliation and violence that is more upsetting than whatever he did in his milk-plus-fuelled craze. Smartly enough, Kubrick treats Alex’ exploits with almost cold-blooded indifference- we gaze at the horrors, terrified but not yet sympathetic towards his victims. Or let’s admit it- we are even thrilled, perversely in a sick way. Yes, that is exactly the kind of yarbles that it takes to make us feel for an utter psychopath.
Nah, it is when ‘A Clockwork Orange’ shows us how a criminal can be turned into something worse by unforgiving millicents and a callously manipulative state that the director aims the real tolchocks to our senses. And boy does it then rock and roll.
In a suicidal and utterly sincere bid for redemption and acceptance, Alex opts for being ‘cured’ by the still-experimental Ludovico Technique, masterminded by the sly-smiling Minister (Alexander Sharp). And what ensues destroys something- or rather, everything- inside him. To be revolted and disgusted at the sheer sight of violence and rape is bad enough for him. To be rendered totally incapable of choice and dignity is even worse. And even all these things are not even half as bad as being repulsed at the sound of old Ludwig Van.
Kubrick has always been called by his harshest critics as something of a cold, distanced thinker. ‘A Clockwork Orange’, with its anarchic ride of emotions and conflicted feelings, might serve as a solid defence for him. This is indeed a violent form of sinny, even irresponsible. There is no moral justification for Alex’ actions and yet, we are asked the inevitable question- is the cure for a problem worse than it? Does Alex really deserve the fate that he goes through? And is it enough to cure a criminal or should a whole social system be put through the grinder too?
A tough question, indeed but the director, faithfully sticking to Burgess’ magnificent novel, poses them bravely and even delivers the unexpected answers. To be honest, there are significant differences between the source and the film. Burgess’ book focused on Alex’ droogs Dim and Georgie, and the world around the characters. The newly arrived social and political order of futuristic Britain, hinting at a possible dictatorship, is vital to the book’s proceedings. All of this is treated ambiguously and intriguingly by Kubrick, who also foregoes the symbolic meaning of the title. But the director more than compensates with bringing his typically cynical view of law enforcement, family and friendship, government bureaucracy and the loss of freedom of expression and personal choice. And he creates, in DeLarge, one of cinema’s most enduring and influential anti-heroes.
Malcolm McDowell lunges into the role of Alex, creating a rippling character so full of convincing bravado that it is hard not to fear him, hate him and, in the end, even like him. His performance propels the film into a whirlpool of utterly breakneck chaos. He nails the wild-eyed, crazy look perfectly, inspiring a whole slew of other versions (most notably, Heath Ledger’s The Joker) but it is when the wicked-witted actor turns Alex into a creature desperate for sympathy that his performance becomes truly memorable. Be it the Cockney accent or those blue eyes, both vivid and sad- it is one spectacular performance.
As the film’s melancholic, almost elegiac, second half unfolds, we have our feelings tossed and turned but the anarchy remains intact and the film still roars with a fury, orchestrated to the swelling tunes of classical opera. And like all Kubrick classics, ‘A Clockwork Orange’ hammers our senses with a sublime form of poetic chaos. Kubrick and fellow lensman John Alcott shoot the proceedings with long-zoom, low-angle detachment and slow-motion style but plunge themselves in the midst of the gromky frenzy of debauchery and bloodlust, the camera jumping, leaping and hurling at us with an unabashed fury. Meanwhile, Bill Butler’s slapdash editing cuts away from what could have been a fatal tolchock to trippy imagery, and from the stillness of a prison library to the violence and lust that pops up from pages of sacred scripture.
Irreverence and misogyny is all over ‘A Clockwork Orange’- from naked mannequins in the Korovo Milk Bar to Alex tinkering with a phallic statue in his ill-fated last job. There are no appy polly logies from Kubrick and his team.
And yet, this is also the film in which a hitherto stiff and stern prison guard watched, open-mouthed, at an almost nude woman while Alex, supposedly the criminal of the film, raises a glass of his favourite drink to a woman who happens to sing one of his favourite songs. This is also a story rooted in an actual world and not a wholly fictional one. Those glitzy record stores might not look real but you can always spot a copy of ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ on display.
How much of a legend is this film? Denying its immense influence would be an utter crime; it would be better for anyone to snuff it. You can feel its trademark, wide-eyed, long-zoom visual style in subsequent accomplishments like ‘Brazil’, ‘Trainspotting’, ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ and more. You can feel its radical, ribald sex and violence influencing a whole new generation of provocative, vellocet-fuelled cinema and music (Danny Boyle called the film’s psychedelic final scene- of Alex cavorting with a girl wearing nothing but black gloves- as an indelible impression on his imagination).
And despite it all, you can always come back to ‘A Clockwork Orange’ to viddy a real achievement of mind-bending, shocking and confronting cinema delivered by a true master of the format. As Alex would insist, ‘Viddy well, little brother. Viddy well.’
PS: To find out the meanings of the Nadsat words, please watch the film immediately.
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