Kat Weightman
10/02/2022
The MPAA is a multidimensional organization that represents major film companies' interests. The organization's name and acronym were changed to MPA: Motion Picture Association in 2019. A Clockwork Orange was formerly an X-rated picture that Roman Catholics in the United States were not allowed to view. The film is now part of the National Film Registry.
Kubrick was known for his systematic approach to filmmaking. A Clockwork Orange nearly plays like a control freak's satire of control freakery. Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) is introduced in A Clockwork Orange as someone who appreciates "a touch of the old ultraviolence," as he puts it. Unfortunately for those who cross his way, the consequences are horrific.
Alex and his droogs are out on the streets with their codpieces, artificial eyelashes, and bowler hats, committing rape and murder. In the most well-known scene from A Clockwork Orange, thugs restrain a writer and Alex sexually assaults his wife during a home invasion, singing “Dancing in the Rain," a song formerly associated with the popular Gene Kelly musical of the same name. In contrast to that picture, there is no romance in A Clockwork Orange, and the humor is only the darkest of gallows humor. The violence in A Clockwork Orange is so exaggerated, so outlandish, and so devoid of any redeeming qualities that Kubrick may have failed to comprehend that he's addressing an important aspect of modern life
Nonetheless, the house invasion scenario was based on a true crime committed by four troops on Burgess' wife in 1944. Concerns about copycat violence persisted, fueled by the murder of a homeless person in England. Other random acts of violence saturate Kubrick's picture, which influenced the stylized brutality of later films like Reservoir Dogs.
In A Clockwork Orange Alex kills a cat lady and assaults a homeless man before being arrested. He then agrees to undergo government-sponsored aversion therapy, in which his eyes are literally torn open and he is made to watch disturbing images until the mere thought of sex and violence sickens him. By the end of the film, the character has been programmed to perceive the world as gray and empty
In order to get an R-rating, Kubrick cut two sexual sequences, but in the end, the film's legacy transcended censorship and persisted. However, it's obvious why A Clockwork Orange was so divisive in its day given the graphic subject matter.
Works Cited
Barsam, Richard Meran, and Dave Monahan. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film. W.W. Norton & Co., 2019.
IMDb.com. (1972, February 2). A Clockwork Orange. IMDb. Retrieved September 26, 2022, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/
Warner home video. (2001). A Clockwork Orange [DVD]. Burbank, CA.
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