Stanley Kubrick's 1971 dystopian future psychological drama, "A Clockwork Orange," based on the novel by Anthony Burgess, remains one of the most controversial pieces of film to this day. The excessive violence and twisted imagery have turned audiences away for decades, yet, like a car crash, it is hard to take your eyes off a frame.
1967's "Bonnie and Clyde" truly launched the trend of film antiheroes, where audiences found themselves rooting for characters who were not all bad but still made some morally questioning decisions. The 1970s elevated the concept to even greater heights. Travis Bickle, Michael Corleone, Dirty Harry, Carrie, but Kubrick's "Clockwork Orange" would introduce a character who made the others look like saints. The film centers around teenage delinquent Alex Delarge (played by Malcolm McDowell), who was not the usual film protagonist audiences were used to following at the time.
Alex may be young and fairly innocent when it comes to looks, but he is the ultimate agent of chaos and evil. Delarge beats and rapes women while humming "Singin' in the Rain", turns on his own faithful cronies, cripples an elderly man, and disrespects his own parents. Not the best role model for audiences to get behind, but a perfect conveyor of evil.
At first glance, "A Clockwork Orange" is a film about a young admirer of Beethoven inflicting pain and harm on others for his amusement before finding himself punished by the ones who he wronged in the first place. But Kubrick did not make his films to be that black and white.
The second half of "Clockwork" is where the film truly begins to come into focus. The second act takes place almost completely in prison after Alex is left behind by his now vengeful cronies during a crime. Shortly into his term, Alex becomes the first test subject of a brutal new brainwashing technique used to seemingly rehabilitate former offenders. The technique seemingly works, and Alex is released from prison.
The latter half of the film tricks the audience into believing that Alex may actually be reformed for the remainder of the film's run time, that the brainwashing techniques truly must have worked. Then, just like as you begin to feel some kind of sympathy for a sadist, those violent thoughts and urges come crashing back. Alex is promised to be taken care of and given a job by a minister as if welcoming him back as a member of society. The character is celebrated and given clemency to potentially cause more harm in the future.
Alex Delarge not only inflicts evil but represents it as well. There are people like Alex in real life that are also agents of evil, individuals that just love to do wrong without any bit of remorse. In June of 2015, Dylann Roof, 21 at the time (around the same age as Alex near the end of the film), mercilessly murdered nine African Americans in a South Carolina church. Not for money or some kind of reward other than his ultimate agenda, but to kick start a modern-day race war. President Trump came to Roof's defense shortly after the shooting hinting that Roof's mental health was to blame, yet the man was an established white supremacist of his own free will.
He was a member of an organization of thousands of others reaching all across the world that knowingly cause harm and pain to others. Now, Roof was not celebrated by the general public, but the man's history of mental disorders was brought up as a way to give a sense of justification for the evil as opposed to the victims.
You cannot cure evil or give it a diagnosis. The deed is done; innocent people are dead and the one responsible is declared mentally unstable. The memorable closing scene of "Clockwork" has the seemingly changed Alex in bed slowly reaffirm his trademark smile from the first act with photographers and journalists all around taking pictures, giving this evil the attention it has long wanted.
The story ended exactly how Alex wanted, with the spotlight on himself for his chaos. This is reinforced even further when Alex daydreams himself having sex with a woman in front of a watching crowd, also full of photographers and journalists. Cue credits.
Even though there are no flying cars or robot butlers, the future depicted in "A Clockwork Orange" is here, and it does not look to be going anywhere.
