Viddy well little brother, Viddy Well!

For those that view cinematic entertainment as popcorn with CGI sequences of continual action then this will annoy and likely disappoint you, and for those that will not look past this film's exterior, I am sorry you missed out, but this is cinematic entertainment at its purest, thoughtful and thought-out theatre which will play with your mind, and you may not even know it.As many know, A Clockwork Orange at its heart is the story of state control versus free will, but at such extreme ends of the spectrum that it can off-put some.Stanley Kubrick takes an allegedly unfilmable novel by Anthony Burgess and transforms it into one of the great masterpieces of cinema. What, exactly, is A Clockwork Orange? A sci-fi social study? A fiercely thought-provoking and disturbing black comedy? A prescient warning of where society is headed? A criticism of how the law deals with crime and criminals? The list could go on and on, for the film could indeed be described as many things. But whichever way one chooses to approach the film, one thing is certain: it is without doubt one of the most uncompromisingly challenging examinations of the many faces of violence ever made. Where lies the attraction of violence, what are the consequences of violence, is there a solution to violence? It would be easy to expect a glib and sentimental answer to such questions, perhaps some comfortable conclusion that even the most evil of individuals is good at heart. But A Clockwork Orange avoids sentimentality and glibness and comfortable conclusions. This is a chilling film which points out that a solution to one evil is very often the evolution of another.Clockwork Orange places characters into categorical extrema. There are the ultra-conservatives who refuse to believe in a problematic society (Alex's parents). There are the women and men who become victims of brutality (rape and beaten victims). And finally exists the stereotypical sexually aggressive, libido-driven males who wreak havoc on society (the gangs). These stereotypical extrema exaggerate society in a way which critiques the behavior of individuals. Deriving from these specifics is a theme of predator-prey between males and females. Females appear only in powerless situations, which they have no control and no resolve. Women become a backdrop to the film, casting their importance away in society.

There were a spate of dystopian science-fiction movies made in the early seventies - Soylent Green, THX 1138, Rollerball, Logan's Run, etc - all of which vaguely look and feel like each other, but none of them are anything like Kubrick's future shock classic. Instead of spending a fortune on flashy spotless techno-sets, it was shot in incredibly ugly (even by sixties standards) concrete housing estates in Thamesmead and Wandsworth in south London and concentrates on its characters and social setups. Its genius is not to focus on what the future looks like, but what life would be like, and its prophecy of a bland, uncaring society and a government obsessed with popularity, social engineering and restricting personal freedom is absolutely bang-on (if you don't believe me, think about how much our leaders now spend on polls and thinktanks and how much legislation they pass simply because they don't trust us). Morally, it also has a completely original structure - it gives us a loathsome, horrible protagonist, shows him at his very worst, and then asks us to identify and sympathise with him as he is pulped through a cruel political machinery seeking only to exploit him. Through your reaction to this, Kubrick is really defining your own character, an incredible thing for a movie to do. If you think Alex really is an irredeemable thug (as so many self-appointed moral guardians did when the movie was released) then you know very little of human nature and how environment influences us. But if you sympathise with him (as I do), what does that say about you ? Through Alex, the movie examines the odd connection and conflict between morality and intelligence / identity / creativity, and does so on multiple levels - personal, social, religious, even biological. Kubrick's chief desire in his movies was to get the audience to think and ask questions, and the ultimate question here is when Alex is cured at the end, is that good or bad ? My answer is that it's both good and bad, but it's undeniably sensational and mindbending. The lynchpin of these questions, and the film in general, is the career-best performance by the sublime McDowell as Alex.He simply is Alex; he's physically amazing, he grasps the tone (especially the humorous aspects) of the character completely, he understands the movie's purpose and he plays each scene with incredible power, his cunning blue eyes and gleeful smirk burning up the screen. This is not straight drama or method acting, it's an extremely stylised performance to suit the movie, but it's just sensational in every way. The moment in the penultimate shot, when McDowell grimaces and stares insanely upwards, his bestial machismo restored, is the ultimate Kubrick Look, which recurs in many of his films, but never better personified than here. The rest of the cast are a terrific bunch of weirdos, notably Clarke, Morris and Stone, and Sharp gives his oily politician just the right mixture of snobbish disdain and patronising double-talk.

In the UK the film was stigmatised as glorifying violence (Straw Dogs and The Exorcist suffered similar fates) and a hate campaign against Kubrick resulted in his pulling it; outside of bootlegs it was impossible to see here until after his death in 1999. This is both extraordinary - that a director would have the power to pull his own movie out of circulation - and detestable - that philistine idiots who object to artistic freedom would resort to the type of violence they pretend to be protecting everybody else from. The movie remains a work of total genius, and its stunning originality and extraordinary imagery are to be savoured.The Background score is incredible (Beethoven anyone?), Malcolm McDowell is unbelievable and given his performance you can see why Kubrick said he wouldn't go ahead with the film if he couldn't get his signature. Visually the film is fantastic, and the vernacular used (called NASDAT I believe) is enthralling.

Kubrick was never a director afraid to take a risk, this was his follow up to 2001: a space odyssey (1968), it cost a mere $2 million dollars, how many directors can claim to make a risk like that, very few that I can think of. Which makes it all the more surprising whilst watching A Clockwork orange, with the fact that Kubrick was a man of his forties when he made the film, yet he has such an understanding of his young characters, he puts us with the evil droogs and still manages to make us care something for them. This was of course the problem with the film. Kubrick making us feel empathy for these amoral characters made the film one of the most controversial ever made (in Britain mainly) it seamed to be a culmination of all the problems that seemed to be around at the time - of course, as we all know now - Kubrick withdrew it.The first half is a joyously fast forty minutes, cut to a frantic, almost non-stop music score. The second half, much slower, much more silent, as if Kubrick is showing us what kind of pain Alex is going through, even if his character hides it under charm and constant exuberance.

Oddly enough in these modern days, the scariest thing about A Clockwork Orange is nothing that stems from the screen, but the growing notion that we are closer to the reality of Alex with every day...