A Clockwork Orange - Ultraviolence first Scene

A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 film adaptation of a 1962 novel of the same name, by Anthony Burgess. The adaptation was produced, written and directed by Stanley Kubrick. It stars Malcolm McDowell as the charismatic and psychopathic delinquent Alex DeLarge.

• Category

  Film & Animation

[tommydhammer]

I think Alex's immorality is just a reflection of the society he's been brought up in. His fascination with sex and rape is comparable with the Cat Lady's love of Erotic Art, the Pornographic content in his parent's bedroom and when he wakes up in the hospital he finds a nurse and a doctor having sex.

I think that's the message Kubrick is trying to get across, that Alex is just a product, or a consequence of the society he lives in. A society obsessed with violence and sex.

[tommydhammer]

I didn't think Alex was reformed in the Film at all, I think he's just pretending so that he can get out of prison. For example during the Ludovico treatment Alex panics when they play Beethoven, showing that he knows how the treatment works. Then he sings Singing in the Rain when he's in the bath, a song he associates with violence, shouldn't he have felt sick? And when he almost hit Joe, shouldn't the treatment have stopped any violent impulses? Alex was just pretending to be reformed IMO.

[mikejackey]

sang*

[asderso]

very good comment, tommy !

[McLarenMercedes]

Also, A Clockwork Orange wasn't 2001-A Space Odyssey in which one can speculate endlessly what David Bowman's aging,death and rebirth scene means.

Kubrick was known to change his mind and originally he had a composer write music for 2001, while using stock classical music for the rough cut of the movie.He liked it so much the classic music was kept

From what I've read "Singing in the Rain" was the only tune McDowell knew well and he thought it fitted the character. Kubrick liked it. That's all

[McLarenMercedes]

You must think that Stanley Kubrick was another Damon Lindelof and that he made "Lost". You're over analyzing.

No significance other than that Malcolm McDowell improvised it when they shot the rape scene and later the script was changed to him singing it again so that the writer would realize it was him. It's really neat. I read the novel first and forgot how the writer recognized him. There's no significance other than a plot element which has been used in countless of movies even before ACO.

[tommydhammer]

That doesn't make any sense at all. Why would Kubrick include a scene with Alex in a bath singing a song which just so happens to be the same song he sung when he was last in the writers house unless it had some kind of significance?

Notice the flannel over Alex's face. Symbolic of the mask he wore when he broke into the writers home?

I find it hard to believe that Kubrick would randomly film a scene with Alex signing in the bath unless it had some kind of significance.

[McLarenMercedes]

>>> violent impulses but as soon as he wants to hurt the actor insulting him and humiliating him he feels like dying.The same with the naked woman in front of him. It is clear most of the audience are sexually aroused by her and Alex should be particularly so, but the mere thought makes him feel sick.

He may understand how the treatment works but it's still not helping him.He has been brainwashed too much to ignore the effects.

What doesn't really work is how he was cured by a mere head trauma

[McLarenMercedes]

Nah, Alex is just fond of music. While he may love Beethoven he seems to have love for other music as well. Alex doesn't associate "Singing in the Rain" with violence at all, it's just a happy tune he likes which he happened to be singing when he broke into the author's house. Later while resting in the bath he just relaxed and enjoyed the warm water (who wasn't?) and unfortunately broke out singing the very same song.

Only listening to Beethoven makes him feel sick. And he DOES still have >>>

[tommydhammer]

I believe the scenes at the writers house and the mansion are dream sequences. There are too many continuity errors that are so blatant, Kubrick is telling us something!

When Alex wakes up he tells the doctor about a strange dream he's been having! If you look at the injuries he's being treated for, they're the areas where George and Dim were beating him.

I believe the scene is symbolic of Alex's downfall in social hierarchy.

[rominatv]

Then why did he almost killed himself from listening to Beethoven? (Im not complaining your point of view, I almost think the same until I remembered that scene)