Once upon a time in the seventies, there was a movie so violent and amoral that it was one of the few mainstream films to ever be given the rating above R. A film that was so obscene it was banned in Britain. That is the masterpiece, Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange”
The world of “A Clockwork Orange” is a dichotomy. The whole world is light, even the slums. Pleasant music plays. The bright, bold fashion of 70’s era Britain is everywhere. At the same time a culture of “ultra-violence” permeates the young and bored. At every corner is crime and corruption.
But the world isn’t important, or at least it is never made out to be. The only thing that ever gets a meaningful amount of attention is Alex, the protagonist and narrator. Alex is, also, exactly the type of person who makes you sick to the stomach, an “ultra-violent” murdering rapist.
Alex is telling the story and, thus, is literally the center of the film. He is present in every scene. In almost every shot, he is in the center of it. Even the sound design is from the point of view of Alex. For instance, in one scene where he is being drowned, the sounds in the air are distorted as if they were recorded underwater. Meanwhile, his underwater screams are crystal clear.
Still, despite the film portraying Alex in such an individual manner, little characterization ever occurs: Alex is a very one-dimensional character. There is nothing more to him than what you are presented in the very first scene, a narcissistic, manipulative, power hungry, sadistic psychopath. Despite everything he goes through in the film he never changes at all.
It is this characterization, or lack thereof, that shows the theme behind the whole film. Alex is an animal. Murder and violence are in his nature. He neither the byproduct nor the cause of the horrific society he lives in. He merely thrives in it.
The horror in “A Clockwork Orange” is not the violence. It is not the increasingly totalitarian government. It is not that society caused Alex to come into existence. The scariest is part is just that he exists and that all of society failed to do anything other than strengthen him.
