Here is a detailed analysis of 'A Clockwork Orange.'
The 2 things I take from this film are 1) that it is in our nature to take advantage of those who are weaker and 2) that without free will we are vulnerable to those who have free will.
This film is based on the 1962 book of the same title by Anthony Burgess set in a dystopian future somewhere in the United Kingdom. The film is told in 2 parts focused on a delinquent dropout named Alex DeLarge who’s obsessed with Beethoven and terrorizing the weak. The 1st half of the film shows Alex in a position of power as the leader of a gang, terrorizing a homeless man, and later, inadvertently saving a woman from being raped by a rival gang. Following this, Alex and his gang invade the home of a couple pretending to need help. Here, he and his gang brutally beat the man and make him watch them rape his wife.
Dim, backed up by fellow members Georgie and Pete, attempts a coup but Alex, inspired by Beethoven’s 5th, gets the upper hand on them and makes an example of Dim who is also the weakest member of the group. Alex remains the leader but Dim and the others are resentful and plot revenge. Later, they break into a health retreat where Alex murders a woman. His friends ambush him and leave him at the scene for the police. Alex is arrested, charged, convicted and thrown in prison that’s completely totalitarian with men much older than him. But prisons have become criminal factories and are quickly running out of space. Alex asks the prison chaplain about the Ludovico technique, an experimental treatment that can make him ‘good’ and get him released from prison. Alex gets the attention of the new Minister of the Interior who selects him as a candidate for the new technique which will, in effect, take away his free will and force him to be good. This raises the Biblical question as to why God gave man a choice to sin when He could have easily prevented him from eating off the tree of disobedience. It also raises the question of what is good and what is evil. Is evil the thought or the deed when the thought is forcibly prevented from being acted out? Reforming bad prisoners to be good also sets the doctrines of reformation and punishment against each other. Here, the justification for the technique is the growing prison population. From the Paramoore prison, Alex is transferred to the Ludovico Medical Facility to undergo treatments.
Each treatment follows the same routine. They first inject him with a drug. They secure him in a straight-jacket in a theater. They fit a contraption with wires on his head. They clamp ‘lid-locks’ on his eyelids to keep him from shutting them. Finally, they fire up the film projector and show clips of various crimes including stock footage of Nazi atrocities. A doctor beside Alex administers drops on his eyeballs to keep them moist. At first, the violence on the screen feels pleasant but this sensation soon gives way to pain as the drugs take effect. The experiments begin to reprogram Alex’s reaction to evil because normal people are supposed to find evil unpleasant. This is important to remember because later in the film, all of the people Alex victimized earlier take their revenge on him and this philosophical question of pleasure being an “abnormal” reaction to evil will have to also apply to those who victimize Alex. This also makes me think of our culture’s obsession with violence and sex in films, books, sports, television news, etc. If pleasure derived from evil is abnormal then Alex is a commentary on society. And this is what I think Kubrick and Burgess (I haven’t read the book) are saying here: that our fixation with violence in the media is abnormal. But is this what it means human? Is violence inseparable from being human?
After completing the Ludovico treatments, the doctors give a private demonstration to show the results of their experiments with Alex. They place him on a stage with a man who attacks Alex. Alex cannot defend himself and suffers pain in trying to do so. Next, a beautiful naked woman appears on the stage but Alex is unable to bring himself to touch her and suffers pain in trying to do so. Representatives from the prison are disappointed with the demonstration and Alex is released back into society as a eunuch.
He returns home to find that his parents have sold all of his possessions and rented out his room. Next, he’s assaulted on the streets by the wino he attacked early in the film. Unable to defend himself because of the experiments, he crumples to the ground helplessly but is rescued by the police, one of whom happens to be Dim, his former subordinate now in a position of power and authority. Dim and Georgie, also a cop, take Alex to a wooded area where they beat him and dunk his head in a trough of water. That night, Alex finds his way to the home of Mr. Alexander, the man they beat and whose wife they raped earlier in the film. Mr. Alexander (whose wife died from the assault) now lives with a male partner who brings Alex into the house. Since being assaulted by Alex and his droogs, Mr. Alexander has become an outspoken critic of the Ludovico treatments and instantly recognizes Alex from the newspapers. Alex wore a mask during the home invasion and Mr. Alexander doesn’t recognize him right away. He cares for Alex but he plans to use him against the Minister of the Interior who won the election on the success of the technique. Later Alex takes a bath and he whistles the tune ‘Singing in the Rain,’ the same tune he had whistled when he and his droogs assaulted Mr. Alexander and raped his wife. Mr. Alexander overhears the tune and realizes that it was Alex who had assaulted him and raped his wife. Alexander drugs Alex, locks him in a room and cranks up Beethoven’s 5th as loud as it can go. Alexander jumps out of the 2nd story window to escape the pain the experiments connected with hearing the symphony. Here, there’s a parallel between Alexander hearing ‘Singing in the Rain’ and Alex hearing Beethoven’s 5th. The message here is that music can draw painful or pleasant experiences out of our subconsciousness. Mr. Alexander’s experiences are real but Alex’s reaction to hearing Beethoven’s 5 is manufactured by the experiments he went through. Before the experiments, Beethoven’s 5th was a source of pleasure to him. This seems to suggest that the films he associates with violence are more real than the actual violence he commits first-hand.
After jumping out the window, Alex winds up in the hospital with numerous broken bones. The Minister of the Interior and the doctors are accused of altering Alex’s nature and causing him to attempt suicide by jumping out of the window. While Alex is unconscious, doctors go inside his head and reprogram him back to the way he was originally before the experiments. The Minister of Interior visits Alex and apologizes for subjecting him to the experiments. They strike a deal to change public opinion and the Minister gives Alex a gift of giant speakers blaring classical music. Alex imagines himself having sex in public and proclaims being cured!
The minister seems to believe that making Alex more violent will sway public sentiment against his political foes who are against tampering with free will.
This is a scene by scene analysis of 'A Clockwork Orange' by Stanley Kubrick
Title 3 (2:24-13:28) (11:04)
This 1st clip involves a delinquent named Alex who is the leader of a small gang of hoodlums that call themselves droogs. After having milk laced with drugs at the Korova Milk Bar, Alex Delarge and his gang go out for a night of ultra-violence. First, they beat up a homeless man underneath a bridge; then they get into a brawl with a rival gang in the process of raping a young woman; and finally, they invade the home of a writer, pin him to the floor, and force him to watch as they gang-rape his wife as the leader, Alex, sings ‘Singing in the Rain’.
My viewpoint
Alex lacks any religious or moral principles and is led by his desires for pleasure and violence. Society is at the mercy of street gangs that prey on the weak, starting with a homeless man, a female rape victim, and a writer and his wife. These violent scenes are done to classical music as a way of showing the paradox that Alex is both civilized and primitive at the same time. He is quite normal if you look at ‘civilized’ society itself as a paradox. On one hand, you have classical music, which is among our highest forms of cultural expression and one of the things that distinguishes us from animals. On the other hand, we live in a society obsessed with sex and violence in the media and in real life. These 2 contradictions are what Alex represents.
This film, like Kubrick’s earlier film ‘Dr. Strangelove,’ also uses satire to address serious issues such as criminal behavior, the justice system, morality, free will, and juvenile delinquency.
Title 8 (17:48-21:37) (4:11)
Alex is home after another day of random violence and he unwinds by listening to Beethoven. Later, his probation officer pays a visit and warns him to keep his proboscis out of the dirt and to stay out of trouble.
My viewpoint:
Alex lives with his parents in a housing project. Like most young men, his walls are covered with posters depicting sex and violence.
Title 13 (29:44-35:10) (5:34)
Members of Alex’s gang demote him and Georgie is the new leader until Alex catches them off guard and reasserts his dominance.
My viewpoint:
Title 14 (36:38-43:33) (6:55)
Alex and his gang go by a health farm. There, Alex sneaks in through an open window while the others wait outside. Alex confronts the lady of the house and smashes her face in with a statue of a giant penis. The woman had called the police when she heard him knock on her door earlier. Outside, Dim, the weakest member of the group, knocks Alex out with a bottle of milk. Alex is arrested and taken to jail.
My viewpoint:
Again the pictures on the walls of the mansion suggests that Alex’s fixations with sex and pornography are influenced by society.
Title 16 (48:12-53:23) (5:11)
Alex is emasculated as he enters prison and begins the transition from being powerful to being powerless.
My viewpoint:
This prison is a metaphor for totalitarian authority; Alex is completely powerless here. The power he had on the outside is gone.
Title 18 (57:30-101:22) (3:52)
Alex asks about the Ludovico treatment that can make him eligible to get out of prison early.
My viewpoint:
The prison is a counterpoint to the experiment. The prisoner is encouraged to read the Bible in the hopes that he will choose good over evil when he is released. The prison chaplain poses the question of whether or not the experiment makes a man good or not. He also says that “Goodness comes from within.” But this contradicts the fact that prison forces prisoners to do good. The difference between the prison and the experiment is that the prison will eventually release Alex into a free society and he will then have the power to choose good over evil; the experiment, on the other hand, will deprive Alex of free will when he is released from prison. This will reverse the roles that Alex and society play at the 1st half of the film. Then, Alex was powerful because he had choice and the society he preyed on was weak; after his release from prison, Alex will be weak in a society he once victimized, a society that has not changed but a society that has been empowered by the fact that he cannot fight back.
Title 22 (1:14:52-1:17:28) (2:24)
Doctors reprogram Alex to associate sex, violence, and his favorite symphony, Beethoven’s 9th, with pain instead of pleasure. This will give Alex normal aversions to deviant sex and violence.
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My viewpoint:
Propaganda is used in this scene to make violence unpleasant to Alex. Normally, propaganda is used to condition people to accept certain ideas instead in this case it is used to get Alex to reject the ideas he had about violence in the past.
Title 28 (1:36:05—1:42:28) (5:23)
After completing the Ludovico treatments, Alex is released from prison only to discover that his parents have rented his room to a boarder. Alex is now homeless and exposed to those he once preyed on beginning with the bum he assaulted, then his old partners Dim and Georgie who are both police officers.
My viewpoint:
The treatments Alex got in prison got a lot of publicity and everyone knows that he cannot defend himself. He is an easy target now for those who were once his targets. This shows how society regards those who are weak. This also shows how one may function under a totalitarian system that exerts absolute control over individual freedom. In this case, Alex is the powerless citizen and each of his oppressors is the government or those with power. The message seems to be that a government that takes away the liberties of its citizens is a government that opposes dissidents. This idea is expressed later as Mr. Alexander—who was assaulted and whose wife was raped earlier by Alex’s gang—is arrested for writing “subversive” literature against the government. This explains the films Alex is forced to watch at the Ludovico Treatment Facility, films that act as propaganda by programming him to feel certain ways about sex and violence that promote a political agenda.
Title 30 (1:43:39-1:46:39) (3:00)
After getting beat up by Dim and Georgie, Alex stumbles to the doorstep of Mr. Alexander, writer and outspoken critic of the government and the Ludovico treatments. Although he does recognize Alex from the publicity he got for his treatments, Mr. Alexander doesn’t realize that Alex and his gang were responsible for him being in the wheelchair.
My viewpoint:
Mr. Alexander is a writer now since the assault by Alex and his gang. Since their last meeting, Alex and Mr. Alexander have been emasculated—Mr. Alexander has a male partner and Alex has been deprived of his free will. Mr. Alexander doesn’t recognize Alex at this point because of the masks Alex and his gang wore during the assault. Also significant symbolically is that Mr. Alexander is crippled and depends on a wheelchair, which is how the Ludovico treatments have crippled Alex. This may be the reason why Alex and Alexander are basically the same name because they are basically in the same situation.
Title 30 (1:49:01-1:52:55) (3:54)
Alex takes a bath and sings ‘Singing in the Rain,’ the tune he sang the night he and his gang assaulted Mr. Alexander and his wife. Mr. Alexander overhears the song and remembers Alex. Later, Mr. Alexander drugs Alex.
My viewpoint:
Mr. Alexander’s reaction to hearing ‘Singing in the Rain’ is just like Alex’s reaction to hearing Beethoven’s 9th. The difference is that Mr. Alexander’s reaction is natural and Alex’s is not normal because of the treatments he received. This suggests that Alex’s aversion to violence is actually abnormal. Also, there is the paradox of a happy song like ‘Singing in the Rain’ being associated with a painful experience that is similar to the way that Alex associates Beethoven’s 9th with pain. But Alex’s reaction is abnormal because he has been programmed to feel the way he does and not of his own free will.
Title 31 (1:58:14—2:01:52) (3:38)
Alex is locked in a room. Underneath his room, Frank Alexander blasts Beethoven’s 9th as loud as possible out of giant speakers, getting revenge for the crimes Alex committed on he and his dead wife. Unable to bear the pain any longer, Alex leaps from the bedroom window. He wakes up in the hospital with numerous broken bones.
My viewpoint:
Mr. Alexander and his associates compel Alex to try to commit suicide to turn public sentiment against the government’s use of treatments to rob men of their free will. But Alex is operated on and reprogrammed back to his old self in the hospital. This makes sense if Alex is looked at as society and its obsession with sex and violence through the media. The media uses sex and violence to promote many agendas be they social, political, or economic. This explains the many images and references to sex and violence throughout the film from the posters on Alex’s wall; the pornographic art on the walls of the cat-woman’s home; the pornographic graffiti drawn on the buildings; the Korova Milk Bar; the phallus-shaped popsicles in the record shop; the cod-pieces Alex and his gang wears; Alex’s perverted probation officer, Mr. Deltoid, etc.
Title 33 (2:04:26-2:07:34) (3:08)
Alex passes a psychological test where he’s asked to describe some pictures. He is back to his old self.
