Greetings, and welcome to Earthling Cinema. I am your host, Garyx Wormuloid. This week's
artifact is A Clockwork Orange, directed by famed auteur Stanley Q-Bert and starring Terence
Stamp lookalike Malcolm-Jamal Warner.
The film centers on Alex, a typical teenager who does typical teenager things, like drinking
milk to build strong bones and using crowbars to break strong bones. His family life is
stable, so it's unclear where his aggression comes from. Maybe he's born with it. Maybe
it's Maybelline.
Saturday night and they in the spot. But rather than pop over to the soda fountain, Alex and his
lackeys figure why not stage an impromptu home invasion? That puts Alex in a singing
mood, but soon the lackeys start pushing to do guest vocals, so Alex has to cut them from
the label. Without missing a beat, they betray him and he gets sent to the biggest house
of all: jail. Hey man, no use crying over spilled lactation fluid, as the saying goes.
Later, the mayor of England comes to the prison looking for test subjects for the Lenscrafters
rehabilitation technique, so Alex says sign me up, Scotty. Scotty? Who's Scotty? Karen,
who's Scotty? Anyway, Scotty forces him to watch a nonstop cycle of detestable images,
like war and multicam sitcoms. To add insult to injury, they put drops in his eyes to make
him cry like a wuss. The technique works, rendering Alex allergic to boobs, and they
send him on his merry way.
Only his way turns out to be decidedly less merry than previously reported. His parents
have traded in for a newer model, so Alex has no choice but to apply for membership
in the homeless guild. Unfortunately, the review board has other ideas. So does the
fuzz. Alex stumbles his way to the nearest house, where he uses his last ounce of strength
to get beat up by gravity.
Alex wakes up in the hospital to find that he's got that twinkle back in his eyehole.
The mayor of England apologizes for the whole Lenscrafters debacle and promises Alex a cushy
job in exchange for being a team player. Hooray, the system works!
A Clockwork Orange explores the idea that free will defines the human experience. Earthlings
may have been hopelessly misguided on every conceivable level,
but at least it was by choice.
The film's title, "A clockwork orange," refers to the absence of free will -- something organic
made to work mechanically. This is a metaphor for Alex, a human being who is psychologically
conditioned until he becomes an automaton. Or as I call it, Monday morning.
Alex is robbed of choice every time he's turned into a tool for someone else's agenda. The
Lenscrafters technique reduces him to a political asset by shady government bigwigs. The writer
and his dissident friends seek to use him as a pawn to promote their criticism of said
large wigs. Then the government turns around and bribes him in an attempt to undo all the
damage they caused in the first place. What a tool.
The cyclical nature of clockwork is woven into the narrative itself by some sort of
celluloid spider. The film is essentially split in half: everyone Alex harms in the
beginning -- the drunk, his old gang, the writer -- returns to exact revenge after his
so-called rehabilitation. But despite all these coincidences, Alex doesn't learn from
his misdeeds. There is no real progress made by the end of the film, other than progress
the viewer makes through his DVR queue. Humans were stuck in a constant cycle between good,
evil, freedom, oppression- like clockwork. Or congress. Ladies, you know what I'm talking about.
Another motif is the obscene merger of violence and high brow cultural refinement, like the
way Beethoven straight up murdered his ninth symphony. Throughout the film, classical music
plays during violent acts, almost as if it doesn't care. Furthermore, several works of
art are perverted by graphic imagery that I should probably tell you is NSFW except
it's too late, you're already looking at it. Perhaps this high/low switcheroo serves as
an indication that culture is no guarantee of moral elevation. Or perhaps it's something
much more sinister: that violence can be an act of creation.
Indeed, Alex sees himself as something of an artist or performer, in the vein of a Carrot
Top or a Jared Leto. Thanks to his showmanship, he is the only character that approaches relatability
in the entire film, despite his horrendous acts. His surname, De Large, is essentially
a porno pseudonym. Personally, I would have gone with Lorenzo von Dongle. The fast motion
of Alex's "menage" suggests that the sexual act is not erotic, but more of a snooty performance
art piece. Alex's violence toward his lackeys unfurls in slow motion, giving it a kind of
balletic quality. The final shot of Alex having sex in the snow once again utilizes slow motion,
indicating a return to his previous violent, snow-angel-making self. Was his entire journey
all for naught?
Of course, all loose ends would be tied up in the 2018 sequel, Clockwork Orange 2: The
Battle of Scurvy Mountain, which won the Golden Glob for Best Supporting Visual Effects.
For Earthling Cinema, I'm Garyx Wormuloid.