A Clockwork Orange
4 Oscar Nominations·AFI #70·National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
In a near-future Britain, young Alexander DeLarge and his pals get their kicks beating and raping anyone they please. When not destroying the lives of others, Alex swoons to the music of Beethoven. The state, eager to crack down on juvenile crime, gives an incarcerated Alex the option to undergo an invasive procedure that'll rob him of all personal agency. In a time when conscience is a commodity, can Alex change his tune?
What critics thought
Initially polarizing on release, the film has grown into a canonical provocation — admired for Kubrick's visual command and Malcolm McDowell's performance, but contested on moral grounds from the start. The core dispute, both in 1971 and since, is whether the film implicates the viewer in Alex's violence or merely wallows in it, with critics dividing sharply over how it treats victims versus perpetrator.
“McDowell is splendid as tomorrow's child, but it is always Mr. Kubrick's picture, which is even technically more interesting than 2001. Among other devices, Mr. Kubrick constantly uses what I assume to be a wide-angle lens to distort space relationships within scenes, so that the disconnection between lives, and between people and environment, becomes an actual, literal fact.”
Vincent Canby·The New York Times
“a repulsive film in which intellectuals have found acres of social and political meaning; the average judgement is likely to remain that it is pretentious and nasty rubbish for sick minds who do not mind jazzed-up images and incoherent sound.”
Halliwell's Film and Video Guide
Genres
Crime, Sci-Fi
Cast & Crew
DirectorStanley Kubrick
StarringMalcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Carl Duering, Michael Bates, Warren Clarke
ComposerWendy Carlos
A Clockwork Orange
4 Oscar Nominations·AFI #70·National Film Registry
In a near-future Britain, young Alexander DeLarge and his pals get their kicks beating and raping anyone they please. When not destroying the lives of others, Alex swoons to the music of Beethoven. The state, eager to crack down on juvenile crime, gives an incarcerated Alex the option to undergo an invasive procedure that'll rob him of all personal agency. In a time when conscience is a commodity, can Alex change his tune?
What critics thought
Initially polarizing on release, the film has grown into a canonical provocation — admired for Kubrick's visual command and Malcolm McDowell's performance, but contested on moral grounds from the start. The core dispute, both in 1971 and since, is whether the film implicates the viewer in Alex's violence or merely wallows in it, with critics dividing sharply over how it treats victims versus perpetrator.
“McDowell is splendid as tomorrow's child, but it is always Mr. Kubrick's picture, which is even technically more interesting than 2001. Among other devices, Mr. Kubrick constantly uses what I assume to be a wide-angle lens to distort space relationships within scenes, so that the disconnection between lives, and between people and environment, becomes an actual, literal fact.”
Vincent Canby·The New York Times
“a repulsive film in which intellectuals have found acres of social and political meaning; the average judgement is likely to remain that it is pretentious and nasty rubbish for sick minds who do not mind jazzed-up images and incoherent sound.”
Halliwell's Film and Video Guide
Genres
Crime, Sci-Fi
Cast & Crew
DirectorStanley Kubrick
StarringMalcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Carl Duering, Michael Bates, Warren Clarke
ComposerWendy Carlos
Rent/Purchase