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Can we really attain true freedom, or is it all a dream or a
slogan that makes our waking existences a bit easier to endure? While we are in
awe of the progress humanity has achieved throughout history, have we really
stepped out of the dark shadow of our violent and impulsive nature? Can
conditioning really change and correct our flaws, and lead us to a brave new
world? Should we be proud of our civilized status as compared to other species
below us on the evolutionary ladder, or are we merely some institutionalized
beasts? Can Eros and Thanatos, the two battling drives inherent in all of us,
be reconciled in an amoral and hopeless world? These are all provocative
questions, and they are the key concerns of Stanley Kubrick’s iconic
masterpiece – ‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1971), which is celebrating its 45th
anniversary this year.
It takes me tremendous courage to write about and defend ‘A
Clockwork Orange’, as it is likely the most controversial movie I have ever
talked about in my film blog. Be warned, ‘A Clockwork Orange’ is a very
disturbing movie, and the violence and sex content in this film is intense even
by today’s standard. Some of the scenes are really sickening for a mainstream
cinema even for today, and the film will inevitably upset some members of the audience.
Using kinetic visuals, stunning cinematic imageries and ingenious applications
of classical music, very much like ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, Kubrick turned the
table on objective morality, organized religion, psychiatry, institutionalized
violence, political machines, and most of all, humanism. The film continues to challenge
our received ideas about humanity, and inspires us to question the beliefs that
are fed to us through various institutions. The anti-humanist perspective of
the film has led, or misled, its detractors to call it immoral, misanthropic,
sadistic, fascist, mean, and many more ugly labels. While ‘A Clockwork Orange’
was commercially successful and was recognized by 4 Academy Award Nominations,
including Best Picture, Director and Screenplay, Kubrick was disturbed by the
impact his masterpiece has caused for humanity. He eventually withdrew the
film’s circulation in UK
until his death, and it was reported that he did not allow anyone to mention
the film at home. In Nietzsche’s word, by making ‘A Clockwork Orange’, Kubrick
has unleashed a monster, yet it is a proud one. If it roams the world with
pride, that is because ‘A Clockwork Orange’ has hit the spot regarding our
psyches’ darkest territories.
If you wonder why I have to talk about such a violent X-rated
movie, please give some thought on this issue. There are many more violent and
sexually oriented movies that are more outrageous than ‘A Clockwok Orange’, yet
how many of those films can stand the test of time like this piece of queer fruit?
For a film that has inspired Taxi Driver, Fight Club, American History X, Minority Report, The
Dark Knight, There Will Be Blood, Mr. Robot, Lady Gaga and many more cultural
aspects of our modern life, and given that young people still considers to
dress up like Alex DeLarge and his droogs in Halloween parties, you can feel ‘A
Clockwork Orange’’s long lasting legacy.
When I first watched ‘A Clockwork Orange’ at the age of 15,
what I immediately discovered was a cinema of possibilities. Kubrick has convinced
me that, in cinema, you can do anything to make your point, and we have the
brave and daring 1970s. The next thing I knew, the film became an instant favorite
and it has remained my Top 10 to these days. Over the years, I have asked more
and more questions about the film, and my viewpoints on the meaning of the film
have altered all the time. This should not be surprising because a Kubrick film
is so layered with meanings that it will engage you in an active thinking
process long after you have watched the film. At first, I saw ‘A Clockwork
Orange’ as an anti-establishment exercise on the potential of authoritarian
control, pointing the ultimate evil to be the government who wished to control
the civilizations, be it a violent psychopath or not. Soon after, I started to
understand the film as a tug of war between the different forces in our minds –
the irrational, unconscious impulses versus the conscious mind, which can
potentially be conditioned or manipulated to ‘get the correct answer’. When I
understand even more about life, I start to have a deeper perspective about the
meaning of the film. I feel that Kubrick seems to be questioning whether we
have the conditions to attain true freedom at all. No matter how dark or
perverse it may seem, Alex De Large’s experience is the human experience, and
humanity, to put it provocatively, is a clockwork orange.
Why would I propose such a provocative analogy? Certainly,
the development of our conscious minds, as compared to the other organisms,
have allowed us a lot of progress and achievement, and the inception of ‘great’
ideas like civility, compassion, liberty and freedom throughout history. Yet,
while we may possess the will and cognitive power to envision freedom, we
certainly cannot do whatever we want, as there are so many limits that prevent
us from doing so. Our biological designs have limited us to do whatever we
want, and for Kubrick, our corporeal (bodily) existence is just as important as
our spiritual, cognitive activities in our minds. For a number of his films,
especially in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and ‘Barry Lyndon’, Kubrick has addressed
corporeality as an important determinant that can limit the characters’ advances
and their exploits through the narrative. While we are organic on the outside,
our bodies are driven by biological mechanisms that are governed by naturalistic
laws. Thus, no matter how wild our imaginations may be, we are still seen as
mechanistic, and hence ‘clockwork orange’ is not at all a terrible analogy.
Furthermore, the advancement of empirical psychology suggests that we can take
a mechanistic (and often materialistic) approach to understand our minds, and
an approach, which is used rather inappropriately in the film, is that of
conditioning, in order to modify behavior and hence improve society’s well
being, at least as advertised in this way.
However, there is another limit that has exerted its power
on many aspects of human experience – that of institution. This is a prevalent
theme present in all the Kubrick films after 1964, and it comes hand-in-hand
with the anti-humanist perspective he has insisted on all these films. Kubrick’s
anti-humanist stance shows us that, many of the issues we are taught to be ‘bad
things’ – such as violence, sex, war and desire – should not be seen as flaws
of human nature, rather they are pat of our true nature. The reason why these
things are believed to be bad is because the various institutions, while
attempting to guarantee a civilized culture, embrace humanism as a primary
assumption. By assuming that we are inherently good, for example, the above
issues will become deviations from a perfect human being, and thus motivates
means (which the true intentions may really be serving self-interest for
powerful individuals) to correct and control these errors. While some form of
self-control – such as repression in a Freudian sense - can lessen the potential harm these
activities can cause to other, too often humanity may not to be able to come to
terms with these issues. Thus, civilizations develop a solution to deal with these
bottlenecks – by making sense of these activities, through institutionalization,
for example. If you have read Nietzsche, you will be aware that this also
happens to many other aspects, like organized religion or even some fields of
philosophy. That is the reason why some people cannot really agree to this
Kubrickian view, because they choose rather not to believe human being is just
a form of advanced beast, is often motivated by animalistic impulses, and also not
willing to confront our dark sides. That is why I have once said ‘A Clockwork
Orange’ and ‘Barry Lyndon’ are the most Kubrickian films, because they embody
the above viewpoints – or mechanisms – of humanity.
The Kubrickian viewpoint shows us that, violence is inherent
in humanity. That is an ugly fact, yet we cannot ignore or undermine it. Kubrick
believed that, while we cannot eliminate violence at this stage of humanity, it
still has to be manifested some how, through controlled or institutionalized
violence – thus, a more ‘civilized’ way to settle the score and resolve
conflicts. In every Kubrick film, there is always an ongoing war - it is not
the war between the Good and the Bad. It is the war between humanity’s dark
sides and the institutions or systems that try to control them. Even if this is
a hopeless situation, we can at least have a better understanding our true
nature, and this will hopefully inspire some innovative changes from our
descendants one day.
Thus, objective morality does not work for ‘A Clockwork
Orange’. If we only question Alex DeLarge’s morality and try to correlate those
factors to his misfortunes in the film, it will not do the film any justice,
because it is not Kubrick’s intention. An analysis on Alex’s psychological
motivation (such as the clichéd reason like he was traumatized or abused at a
young age) was also inadequate. For films like ‘A Clockwork Orange’, ‘Barry
Lyndon’ and ‘Taxi Driver’, if we are to understand the protagonists’ – Alex,
Barry and Travis respectively – downfall by placing blame on their flawed
personalities, we should just place as much blame on the environment they find
themselves in. It is the environment which shapes these characters, and
potentially dehumanizes or even destructs them.
‘A Clockwork Orange’ is a cinematic nightmare that is worth
experiencing. The charismatic Alex de Large, leading his gang of droogs, commit
violent sprees that will raise awe even by today’s audience. They are really
asserting their utmost freedom and exerting their violent impulse onto the
various victims - which should remind us of Moon Watcher in ‘2001’ with all the
beating and spanking. When Alex was betrayed after the murder of a woman, he was
sent to prison, and the era of institutionalized violence commenced. He has not
really changed – because while he claimed he has read the Bible, he just
enjoyed the part concerning sex, torture and violence. Then, seeing an
opportunity to shorten his jail time, Alex volunteered to join the conditioning
(or in a sense, brainwashing) programme, the Ludovico experiment, so that he would
be programmed and conditioned to become a good citizen. When Alex was out of
jail, he basically met every single victim of his misdeeds in the past, and
they exacted revenge of all forms on Alex, culminating in his attempted
suicide. When he survived the fall, the politicians decided that the suicide
scenario has attracted bad press for the Ludovico technique, and thus Alex was
de-programmed to his original status, and the minister closed a deal with him,
where Alex would endorse for the government policy in exchange for a great
future job. Alex was cured, and back to his psychopathic, violent state.
In Kubrick’s vision, we cannot find much optimism in ‘A
Clockwork Orange’. There are almost no good guys in the film, they are either
violent by default, controlled by institutions, driven by rage and blind
impulses, or just plain docile and sterile. A scene that has particularly
impacted me is the one when Alex re-united with his old ‘droogs’, who has now
become cops. They decide to handcuff and invite Alex to a private spanking session,
in order to exact revenge on Alex’s past maltreatment to them. With a tracking
shot, the audience saw the 3 characters walking on their back towards a sunlit
environment. I felt the scene to be particularly ironic because, rather than
leading to insights or any form of illuminations, this only led to another bout
of violence. In contrast, when Alex and the droogs were driving the speeding
car and causing havoc on the road during the night, that was the point when one
could sense Alex’s gratification – when he was inspired by his violent
impulses.
The ending is unsettling not merely because Alex has changed
back to his old self, meaning that he would cause more harm for humanity; it is
the fact that true freedom can ultimately not be attained. Power has only been
transferred from one political opportunist to another. Alex’s freedom was only
granted for a circumstantial reason, not through advancement in human reason or
capacity for compassion, but through the cold calculation that setting Alex
free would benefit the politician involved in the propaganda. Alex’s happiness
was only achieved because the political plot coincidentally matched his darkest
desires. So, we will never know his smile was happiness for apparent freedom,
or he was too clever to look beyond the surface and saw this deal as the best
compromise in such a hopeless universe. If you say Alex is de-programmed, then
it may sound even more appropriate that
the political machine which controls everyone in the society, has altered its
program through the shifting and transference of power.
The nightmare for control has not ended - it has just
transformed to another form, and will be fueled by the eternal flame of
humanity’s strange love with violence.
by Ed Law
30/12/2016
Film Analysis - 70
