A Clockwork Orange (1971)

A vicious dystopian crime drama from Stanley Kubrick at arguably his most cynical.

Directed by: Stanley Kubrick

Cinematography by: John Alcott

Country: United Kingdom/United States

Genre: Crime/Drama/Sci-Fi

While known for creating cold and unforgiving films, Kubrick’s disillusionment with humanity was on a whole other level in his 1971 adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s dystopian crime novel, A Clockwork Orange.

The story follows a deranged teenager named Alex who listens to Beethoven by day, and commits random acts of horrific violence by night with his equally malicious friends. Alex’s own cruelty and obsession with power causes him to lose the loyalty of his delinquent friends however, and they eventually set their self-anointed leader up to be caught and arrested for his heinous crimes.

Once in prison, Alex volunteers for an experimental reformation treatment in order to get early release, only to woefully discover that the treatment boils down to conditioning a patient through torture to associate crime with unbearable physical pain, leading the patient to experience uncontrollable waves of nausea when confronted with violent actions. After completing the treatment, the newly “reformed” and feeble Alex is released back onto the streets where he becomes hapless prey for all the same people he himself preyed upon in the past.

What the film lacks in any semblance of likable characters, it more than makes up for in sneering cynicism (which isn’t to say that Kubrick and Burgess’s societal critiques are unfair). It’s also one of the most bizarre movies that Kubrick ever made during a career that often bounced between stark realism and fever-dream madness.

His dark satires have always had teeth (e.g., Dr. Strangelove [1964]), but in A Clockwork Orange those teeth are given an aggressively rabid nature as well, with the iconoclastic filmmaker biting chunks out of the audience while conversely treating us like a toothless old hound that just messed on the carpet. It’s far from my favorite Kubrick film, but he was in the prime of his career, not pulling any punches, and the impact is undeniable.

Distributed by: Warner Bros.