A Clockwork Orange

4/17/2016

As time goes by, I'll always appreciate my Grade 10 English class (1984-85), taught by Mr. Terry. Looking back, it's probably the year that I was introduced to the most great literary works of all my life (especially 'Anthem' by Ayn Rand and 'Nausea' by Jean-Paul Sartre). Included that year in the course's curriculum was Anthony Burgess' dystopian masterwork, 'A Clockwork Orange' (as well as George Orwell's 'Animal Farm'--like Frank Sinatra would have said, 'It was a very good year'). I was mesmerized with it from the instant I noticed the unique approach to language, the 'ultraviolence' and of course, the eternal question of free will, its relationship to good-and-evil, and the can of worms of the myriad of ethical dilemmas that comes to the fore of individual freedom and rights versus th

9/27/2021

Some great visuals and direction not to mention an incredible performance from Malcolm McDowell, I wasn't totally into this, the first half especially was taxing to get through to the point I stopped watching and only finished a couple days later. The rest was good and found myself a bit more engaged however as a whole, this one never grabbed me. **3.5/5**

10/2/2022

With this film, a world heritage of cinema, Stanley Kubrick has reached a level of artistic mastery that would make Michelangelo pale in comparison. To make a film an art form, it must have the innovation of a Chaplin or Jean-Luc Godard. Furthermore, for a film to be a masterpiece, it must have music, direction, and great performances by the cast. Nevertheless, this film easily fulfills these requirements, and miraculously, it is a perfect work of art, with outstandingly high quality visual beauty far above the audience. For 136 minutes, one feels as if one has stepped into an exhibition of paintings or photographs that are sigh-inducingly vivid, beautiful, sometimes violent, and sometimes insane. The film's elaborate camerawork is erotic, but not vulgar, like a sensual film. The clarity o

5/29/2023

This is a truly challenging film that routinely glorifies violence - especially towards women, and offers us a terrifying appraisal of the effects of unfettered government and science working in cahoots with each other. Fifty years on from it's groundbreaking release, it's great to watch this on a big screen again - and though the imagery is much less potent that it was in 1971, the performance from Malcolm McDowell is scarily compelling. The plot centres around him and his three sadistic cohorts who live a disparate life terrorising wherever they roam until finally they go a little too far and he is apprehended. A fourteen year sentence is handed down but after two of them, he seeks enrolment in a controversial, experimental, aversion therapy scheme the results of which don't quite delive

8/6/2023

The film is based on Anthony Burgess‘ novel about young Alex Delarge and his droogs who go around tolchocking people and partaking of the ultraviolence and the old in-out-in-out. Yes, the language is a futuristic mix of Russian, slang and made-up words that Burgess employed so that the futuristic language employed would never sound dated. He called it Nadsat. By the end of the film, for better or worse, you will understand the language. **Note: This may be too detailed for those who have not seen the film, so I advise reading it after a viewing.** Alex likes violence, sex, and Beethoven. He is the leader of a gang (droogs) and in the first part of the film we witness a typical evening: beating up an old veck (derelict, tramp); breaking into the house of a writer and beating him up

8/10/2026

*A Clockwork Orange* was garbage to me: a smug, ugly film that mistakes shock value for depth. It spends so much time glamorizing Alex’s cruelty that its supposed message about violence, free will, and state control feels muddled rather than meaningful. Yes, the movie is visually distinctive, and Malcolm McDowell is committed, but neither made the experience enjoyable. The artificial slang, cold characters, and endless stretches of stylized nastiness made it feel more exhausting than provocative. By the end, I wasn’t impressed by its boldness—I was just relieved it was over. Critiques of the film have similarly argued that its stance is ideologically confused and that it can seem more interested in its protagonist’s cruelty than in condemning it.