Film
A Clockwork Orange
- Director
- Stanley Kubrick
- Certificate
- 18
- Running Time
- 137 mins
Anyone watching Stanley Kubrick‘s long-banned (technically ‘withdrawn’) 1971 cause celebre for the first time may be surprised to find the “ultraviolence” on which its reputation hinges is not especially explicit and only occupies the first 20 minutes of the film. Kubrick’s leering approach to the rape scenes was not uncommon in early ‘70s cinema, and now simply seems as jarring as the suggestion that in the future we’d all be listening to our ‘Ludwig Van’ on microcassettes. Had this been reissued during the ‘80s, the supposedly futuristic pop art production design would have provoked gales of laughter, but with popular culture continuing cannibalise itself at a furious rate it’s now likely to be dubbed modishly “retro-futurist” by one of those ghastly fashion gurus. And the one thing they don’t prepare you for is just how funny the film is, from the William Tell Overture gang-bang (Benny Hill on amphetamines) to Malcolm McDowell’s ability to belch on command, which reportedly delighted dour Mr. Kubrick.
The odd stylistic lapse aside (a painfully studio-bound joyriding scene, for example), A Clockwork Orange is as relevant today as it was in 1971. Take that opening scene where a tramp is violently beaten by a group of menacing youths in a deserted tunnel connecting soulless, vandalised social housing blocks. Have you seen the Easton underpass recently? After nadsat-spouting, Beethoven-loving, bowler-hatted Alex (McDowell) is stitched up by his droogies when he beats a woman to death with a giant penis, we enter a realm of sharp social satire as he’s offered a radical form of aversion therapy to gain early release from prison. The politicians seeking political advantage from his state-sponsored brutalisation and those sly references to the movie violence debate carry as much resonance today as they did all those years ago. Not bad for a film which was described by Halliwell’s ever-disapproving movie guide as “pretentious and nasty rubbish for sick minds who do not mind jazzed-up images and incoherent sound”.
Our newsletters emailed directly to you
