One of the most famous Stanley Kubrik movies is scheduled today, at 7.00 p.m. at Cinemateca Romana (Cafe Indigo, on Brezoianu str.). Made in UK in 1972, the two-hour movie stars Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Warren Clarke and Adrienne Corri. At last re-released after nearly 30 years, Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” is untouched by time. It is even more relevant to us today: so much of its waking nightmare has come true. It is both fable and forecast. It inserts a sense of present fears made manifest into our minds – like the electrodes that give the demonic Alex (Malcolm McDowell, in his iconic performance) a touch of his own horrors in the brainwashing sequence.
“A Clockwork Orange” is a powerful satire on contemporary society, a society where gang violence is the norm. A disturbing story based on Anthony Burgess’s experimental novel, it is set in an almost hallucinatory world made even more so by the bizarre set designs and avant-garde cinematography. The story centres on a group of working-class teenage punks (“droogs”) who spend their evenings participating in “ultraviolent” activities that include rape, physical assault and murder. Alex (Malcolm McDowell) leads a gang of street teens in nights of ultra-violence. He angers his droogs one time too many, causing them to turn on him and set him up for capture by the police. Alex is eventually captured and sentenced to prison. While in prison, he gets the opportunity to an early parole by taking part in an experimental anti-crime programme aimed at turning offenders in total pacifists. The program is drug and psycho-therapy designed to turn the feelings that lead to crime against the person. In other words, any time Alex feels the desire to do violence he gets physically sick.
Though the treatment works, it proves disastrous for Alex. Upon his release, he is assaulted and seeks shelter, but he is rescued by one of his previous victims seeking revenge. While locked in an upstairs room, Alex hears the music of Ludwig van Beethoven; the same music used during his ‘treatment.’ There is only one route of escape left for Alex, which is to jump through the bedroom window. Alex survives, though he ends up in hospital with various broken bones.