A Clockwork Orange
“They don't go into what is the cause of goodness, so why of the other shop? If lewdies are good that's because they like it, and I wouldn't ever interfere with their pleasures, and so of the other shop. And I was patronizing the other shop. More, badness is of the self, the one, the you or me on our oddy knockies, and that self is made by old Bog or God and is his great pride and radosty. But the not-self cannot have the bad, meaning they of the government and the judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self. And is not our modern history, my brothers, the story of the brave malenky selves fighting these big machines?”
“What I was trying to say was that it is better to be bad of one’s own free will than to be good through scientific brainwashing. When Alex has the power of choice, he chooses only violence. But, as his love of music shows, there are other areas of choice. In the British edition of the book—though not in the American, nor in the film—there is an epilogue that shows Alex growing up, learning distaste for his old way of life, thinking of love as more than a mode of violence, even foreseeing himself as a husband and father. The way has always been open; at last he chooses to take it. He has been a sour orange; now he is filling with something like decent human sweetness.”
—Anthony Burgess
A Clockwork Orange makes me sick. Watched it too young and had nightmares periodically for awhile after. Until today, I hadn’t seen it since. Even created an Every Film I Have Hated list years back where it occupies the #1 spot.
I say this because it’s impossible for me to give an untangled take. Even now. To comment on production design, score, direction, et cetera, also seems futile and insincere. I can no more analyze it than Alex second section. Body rebels. Gut instinct disgust. The whole ordeal is flat-out nauseating.
One could argue this means the movie must have power. Real weight. All I can acquiesce is this: I respect Burgess and am deeply interested in what he is saying, and why. His thesis for Clockwork comes out of an intellectual, concerned state. And one of inherited faith. Questions like “is freedom of choice really all that important?” and, “is man capable of it?” are endlessly fascinating. Who are we when we debate with ourselves? God, the soul, ultimate reality, conditioning. If one’s reason approves the convictions one was raised believing, does that make them belong, at last?
Burgess argues that perhaps we ultimately want to be told what to do, and that “to let men work out their own destinies” can become a burden, despite our insistence on freedom to choose. Quote:
“In a sense, we would prefer the repressive society, full of secret police and barbed wire, to the scientifically conditioned one, in which being happy means doing the right thing. All of us might agree with Professor Skinner that a well-run, conditioned society is an excellent thing for a new race—a breed of men rationally convinced of the need to be conditioned, so long as the conditioning is based on rewards and not punishment.”
Right vs wrong. Good vs evil. Sartre’s take that evil cannot be redeemed. “That knowing its cause does not dispel it, that it is not opposed to Good as a confused idea is to a clear one...” All this is aces. I’d be happy to discuss the subject all day. Yet somehow—and I see the inherent contradiction here—A Clockwork Orange is insufferable, preachy gook that embodies the source material while simultaneously putting me off it entirely. I am its ideal target and absolute worst pair of eyes attempting to persevere.
Ironically, by choice.
