Not Coming to a Theater Near You

A Clockwork Orange / U.K. / 1971

Yes, it’s brilliant and clever, but put this beside Lolita, Barry Lyndon, or Eyes Wide Shut, and it’s dispiriting to see a great director produce anything so cold, callous, self-satisfied, and shallow.

by Ian Johnston | Source: Warners DVD
18 Aug 2007 7:18 AM | Comments (7)

Comments / 7 total / Submit Comment

1. rob / 18 August 2007 / 7:15 AM / URL

   Aha! Yes! I’m not alone!

2. vince / 20 August 2007 / 8:11 AM

   So you think great directors should make heart-warming movies then, my brother? I beg to differ. Then we wouldn’t have Iréversible (Noe), Siebente Kontinent(Haneke) or Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia (Peckinpah), to name but a few of my favourites. And explain me the shallow part, I don’t see that?

3. Ian / 22 August 2007 / 8:42 AM / URL

   It’s not a question of making “heart-warming” movies – other Kubrick films I admire are anything but – the problem with Clockwork Orange is that it’s a film that sets itself up as a comment on the nature of what it means to be human, but is specious and intellectually dishonest in its reduction of all characters except Alex to the level of caricature and the comic book. What (serious, moral) Haneke does is an entirely different world.

4. leo / 22 August 2007 / 9:24 AM / URL

   Well said. As entertaining and stylish as it is, A Clockwork Orange has always been my least favorite Kubrick by far and its moral has never struck me as the least bit convincing. (And, incidentally, its style owes a great deal to Peter Watkins’ Privilege, a far more intelligent film.)

   That said, I am totally incapable of pouring someone a glass of wine without expressively quoting Patrick Magee.

5. Jon / 27 August 2007 / 8:19 PM

   [T]he problem with Clockwork Orange is that it’s a film that sets itself up as a comment on the nature of what it means to be human, but is specious and intellectually dishonest in its reduction of all characters except Alex to the level of caricature and the comic book.

   Agreed, though I’d add that the idea of a Pavlovian dystopia isn’t the least bit convincing, either. A cynical view of institutions/authority can be found in all of Kubrick’s films, and for the most part it seems to correspond to a known reality. But ACO vaults into the realm of conspiracy theories. When was forced mind control ever a legitimate threat? The premise strikes me as the most intellectually dishonest part of all, doing little more than licensing an adolescent indulgence in violence. In response to Vince, I like Alfredo Garcia, too, but if we’re talking Peckinpah, Straw Dogs seems a closer approximation of the ideological problems posed by Kubrick’s film.

6. Adam / 30 August 2007 / 4:35 AM / URL

   “Agreed, though I’d add that the idea of a Pavlovian dystopia isn’t the least bit convincing, either. A cynical view of institutions/authority can be found in all of Kubrick’s films, and for the most part it seems to correspond to a known reality. But ACO vaults into the realm of conspiracy theories. When was forced mind control ever a legitimate threat?” While a Pavlovian dystopia may seem like a stretch of the imagination, it’s perhaps interesting to note that ACO was released in the same year as B.F. Skinner’s notorious “Beyond Freedom and Dignity”. In this book-length essay Skinner argues that operant conditioning should be used to purge society of dangerous and transgressive elements. I’m not sure how popular his views were, but behaviourism certainly enjoyed a resurgence in the 1970s. Clearly the world of ACO is an exaggerated vision, but it seems very close to the kind of utopia/ dystopia that Skinner was pushing towards in his work.

7. Buck Theorem / 30 August 2007 / 11:40 AM

   I saw the treatment that Alex undergoes as symbolic of the desperate grappling of any means authorities will go to in attempting a queasy mix of simultaneously punishing, rehabilitating and embracing criminal specimens. It always seemed a metaphorical extension of electroshock therapy once prescribed to “cure” homosexuality mixed with floundering and, (essentially Burgess’ point, I believe) condescending concepts of reformation.

   I was going to say that the Pavlovian Dystopia depicted seems unlikely but is metaphorically successful … but even now on reflection, thinking of Alex forced to watch random clips, I suspect that modern media is not exactly that far off. It’s probably more devious and sly and largely unconscious of its own tactics at subjugating and manipulating the masses.