A Clockwork Orange is my personal favorite film and one of the two films that I feel are as close to perfect as films can get. Casablanca is the other, and you can click here to read my thoughts on that film from my Best Picture series. I understand that A Clockwork Orange can be a rather polarizing film, and many people have avoided watching it due to the disturbing nature of its content. This is a violent film that shows graphic depictions of violent beatings and rapes as well as orgies of sex and violence. “Ultra-violence” as it is referred to by Alex, the film’s protagonist played masterfully by Malcolm McDowell, is the driving force behind much of this film, and the main motivating factor behind much of Alex’s behavior over the first two acts. Now I can hear you asking, “What kind of a perverted bastard would list a film with those qualities as his favorite movie?” Well I’ll tell you why right now.
Why it’s essential
If you are a screenwriter, either professional or aspiring, this is a film that you can learn from.
This is a film about humanity in all of its depth. Stanley Kubrick, the film’s director, has often been accused of dehumanizing his characters. His films, his critics argue, are filled with emotionless meat puppets who are cold and un-engaging. I would submit to you that nothing is further from the truth and this film demonstrates that perfectly. A Clockwork Orange has a protagonist in Alex who is a prototypical anti-hero who has more than a character arc; in fact his character does a complete 360 from violent sociopath to redeemed citizen and back to sociopath. All of this happens within the confines of an exceptionally well-structured story and provides a powerful statement on what it takes to be human along with the roles of society and the government in dictating how that humanity is manifested or maligned. All you need to do is watch the scene in which Alex’s parents tell him he can no longer live with them, and you’ll see how emotionally devastated he is. In fact, the entire second half of this film turns into an emotional meat grinder for Alex, and it’s truly magnificent to watch.
The story structure for A Clockwork Orange is among the best I’ve ever seen with a nearly perfect Hero’s Journey, especially in the context of its description by Christopher Vogler in his book The Writer’s Journey. The film is actually told in 4 distinct acts. The first act introduces us to Alex in his Ordinary World as a teenager who blows off school and spends his nights looking for “the old ultra-violence and a little bit of the old in-out.” His Call to Adventure happens when two of his “droogs” tell him that there’s going to be a new way in the gang, and they’re going to be more democratic about deciding what they’re going to do and whom they’re going to victimize. The Refusal of the Call shows Alex beat the snot out of his droogs for questioning his leadership.
However, all of this anti-social behavior finally catches up with Alex, and he’s actually betrayed by his droogs, and the second act begins with Alex Crossing the First Threshold being sent to prison for murder after his latest victim dies. The Tests, Allies and Enemies section is actually spread throughout the first two acts and the Meeting of the Mentor happens in Act 2 after Alex has been in prison for a while and he confesses to the prison chaplain that he wants to be good and that he’s heard of a treatment that can make you be good. The priest tells him that being good is a choice and that he has doubts about the treatment, but Alex moves to the Approach to the Inmost Cave when he volunteers for it anyway and is put into the program.
The third act and the Supreme Ordeal begins as Alex leaves prison and enters the hospital to receive the Ludovico Technique, which is a drug that he’s given that causes him to become physically ill at the thought of hurting another person. We start to feel sorry for Alex as he’s watching one of the films and the soundtrack is Beethoven, so he’s now afraid that hearing Beethoven will cause him to be sick in the future. The treatment is so effective that Alex cannot physically perform and act of violence without getting physically ill. However, the Reward is passing through the program and achieving what he thinks is his freedom.
However, Alex’s inability to defend himself manifests itself as Act 4 begins with The Road Back. Alex takes a literal road back to his home only to discover that his parents have rented out his room to a stranger. He’s then confronted by his former victims, and he becomes a defenseless victim of their rage and he finds himself on the opposite end of the beatings that he’d previously been inflicting. In a moment of bitter irony he finds himself in the care of the widower of one of his rape victims, who doesn’t recognize him at first. But once he does recognize him he concocts a plan to have him kill himself so that the government can be blamed for his inhumane treatment. Alex does try to kill himself, but fails in the attempt, and the Resurrection happens when he is nursed back to health. The Return With the Elixir happens when Alex is hired by the government in order to help them avoid the PR hit and we see that he’s going to go back to his sociopathic ways as he tells us through narration, “I was cured all right.”
The structure of this story is brilliant as it is split into four equally important sections that each take the story and the protagonist in different and unexpected directions. Each new direction that the story takes adds a level of depth to the story as well as to Alex as a character. He is presented with new challenges and these challenges build upon the ones that came before them as the story moves along. There are very few scenes in this film that don’t inform other scenes throughout the story. Very little material in this film is self-contained.
The character of Alex is truly one of the great characters in the history of cinema, and I don’t necessarily think I’m being hyperbolic by making that statement. Malcolm McDowell played this character with a sinister wit that I’ve not seen before or since. As the story progresses we see Alex in many different ways. He loves the music of Beethoven, but uses it as inspiration for his violent behavior. He speaks with a sophisticated air to his superiors, but uses a nearly indecipherable slang at all other times. He generally just takes what he wants, but isn’t afraid to manipulate to get what he needs either. As the story moves into the second half we see Alex go from aggressor to victim, from strong to vulnerable. The old Alex is dead in an archetypal way, and is then is resurrected in an archetypal way after his suicide attempt.
At the beginning of the film Alex and his droogs look for victims and care very little about others. Alex believes that they have the freedom to take what they want and go where they choose. He’s not looking for money or riches. He just really seems to like causing pain in other people. In fact, when Alex is first brought to prison and the Chief Guard asks his crime, there’s more than a hint of pride in Alex’s demeanor when he says, “Murder, sir.” He is a prototypical sociopath. He does seem to gain some sort of empathy for others through his own suffering in the second half of the film, but only because his freedom of choice has been taken away from him, and he largely becomes a pathetic person. Then once he’s off the treatment, and has been “cured”, his free will allows him to seemingly go back to the depraved lifestyle he had before. Does that mean that he’s largely now an unchanged character? Perhaps, but the theme of the film is that our free will is what makes us human beings.
And here is the important point about the violence in A Clockwork Orange. It is not gratuitous. The violence in this film is completely necessary both for the narrative as well as for the message that the film is trying to convey, and it has a message that is deep and powerful. As mentioned above, this is a story about humanity and the moral choices that we make as humans. The film poses many thought provoking questions. Would you give up freedom for the sake of security? Is it morally correct, or perhaps even morally necessary, to take away a person’s free will if that person uses that free will to choose to harm others? But then do they cease to be actual human beings? Do governments have the moral responsibility and/or the right to deprive some citizens of their free will and therefor their humanity if it is determined to be for the greater good? Who is the final arbiter of good and bad? Like many other great films A Clockwork Orange doesn’t answer the questions that it poses, but rather leaves it up to the audience to think about it and come to their own conclusions.
To me it is the message and the theme of A Clockwork Orange that puts it over the top. This is a film that you have to think about. It’s a film that you have to pay attention to. Sure, any teenage boy is going to be titillated by the sex and violence in it, but there is an important and intellectual message that this film is trying to get across and it takes effort on the part of the view to truly grasp all of the elements that get played out in this film.
Even if you don’t think that this is a perfect film as I do, this is still a film that is worth your time. But don’t just take my word for it. A Clockwork Orange was ranked #46 on AFI’s original top 100 movies of all time list, it has a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it was nominated for Best Picture of 1971, losing to It is a film fan’s film, and one that I consider to be essential viewing.