A Clockwork Orange

Victim of Modern (R)age

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Anthony Burgess, author of the book A Clockwork Orange wrote the text inspired by events that must have had robust emotional impact on him - let alone his wife. The early 1960's were notorious of the antagonistic new generation that characterized the London scenery and corresponding era, an alarming social tendency that unleashed a particularly repulsive experience on Burgess, resulting in a humongous boost to deal with the issue on a wider scale than his innermost private self. Thus experience which is very hard to digest becomes inspiration and primal motivation factor for a creative output that never have lost of it's significance, quite the contrary: the importance of A Clockwork Orange is evidently timeless, even better/worse: the only direction it is capable to go is a definite Forward.

It is time to account the event that led the author to construct his vision. A group of hoodlums assaulted Burgess's wife, unleashing sour inspiration on the writer to deliver his fictional portrait of such a hive entity, especially it's Boss character who is essential element of both the 1962 text original and the 1971 film adaptation by Stanley Kubrick. In A Clockwork Orange, harmony is but a dull, obsolete idea, an invention of enforced constrains, acting as handcuffs on the rampant hands of blissful, sweet deviancy. For your protagonists, Alexander Burgess - a son figure? - and Co. destruction is the most proper and most natural way to express, to affect reality. To alter, influence consensus very efficiently with minimum effort, as no effort is needed to invoke something which is yet to be invented or constructed - effort instead emerges and unleashes on All That Have Been Formed or Constructed Already, let it be materia, flesh or psyche. In the dystopian future Burgess delivers values are but outposts that need to be mocked, abused, denied and eventually destroyed, while violence is the mere language the new breed can honestly express itself in.

Reasons are numerous why this creative output works as fluent to this day as it always had, yet the main factor is none other than the Chigurh Phenomena, though we certainly should regard that as the Alex Burgess/DeLarge Phenomena instead, as Burgess wrote his novel in 1962, that is a Vantage Point < - you DON'T want to click this link, baby - validated by 43 years to the credit of the author of A Clockwork Orange, as the work to incorporate Anton Chigurh, No Country for Old Men comes in 2005.

Notice, nevertheless how the respective authors of A Clockwork Orange and No Country for Old Men - written by Cormac McCarthy - are revealing the same character-module for us. Main protagonists Alex Burgess and Anton Chigurh are both exhibiting flawless capacity to get away with excessive harm they administered without feelings of remorse present to haunt them afterwards, yet surely, Chigurh is a "Complete" anti-superhero while Alex still threads on the same, sweet, ultra-violent path which though would certainly lead to the the state of superignorance Chigurh bizarrely reigns in.



A DEFINITE Start There, Boy!

A Clockwork Orange delivers a narrative construction built up by three major chunks, as Burgess's main interest is not about to gas out once depiction of excessive abuse have happened on multiple occasions. The first series of insights boil down to the delivery of an emerging culture of ultraviolence, while I do realize how twisted it sounds, I truly do think that this is the case: the hoodlums you witness herein have their own existences so reliant on and so massively fused with hardcore abuse that their reality indeed offers a Sandbox Universe in which you are free, even better: invited to deconstruct All You Encounter, a twisted relation in which the actual results of harm are not as important or focal as the capacity, the bizarre celebration of the FREEDOM to harm is.

Surely, a conscious choice is offered and inevitably taken by all participants of a civilized society whether to harm or not to harm. The act of not-harming, though surely you would prefer to, is quite an impotent stance, in my opinion. The act of not-harming because you realize the damage you would do in an individual is a legit stance. A Clockwork Orange delivers you hoodlums who harm to celebrate and express their Total Freedom, I am not entirely sure they do realize what they actually do, in fact, I think they do not. In the Universe they create and live through, Good Old Ultraviolence is the same pleasantry as Good Old Beer and Good Old Cardgames, something to chase void, stale time periods away with, something to offer them incalculable moments and intensity. Maybe, JUST maybe they do get a glimpse of Highly Forbidden Remorse Deep Inside which is surely the biggest NO! NO! to admit in a hive entity as this, yet the core of the matter is this: existence is stale, pointless, and gives you unsatisfactory stimuli if to lived the way as the Elders propagate - therefore you must live it whatever way you please. Claiming of freedom to harm comes with the first three elements in such an ultimately desperate, stale, grey reality. In fact, nothing more remains, nothing else is capable to express freedom so completely as exhibiting the capacity of hurting another person. When they hurt and humiliate they pose as dominant force of society, simply because they deny and throw away the assumption that generally you should NOT break into people's houses, should NOT beat up the man and rape the woman while you sing Singing in the Rain. This is a NO! NO!, yes?

Surely, this might be a NO! NO!, yet we don't need to tell them that, as Alex Burgess and Co. becomes Alex Burgess and Co. exactly by throwing away these elementary assumptions consciously, thus they claim a degree of freedom where terrorizing and beating up persons is totally natural, Good Old Fun, inherent element, but some casual asset originated from natural, Good Old COMPLETE Freedom. The fact that Alex sings Singing in the Rain while he administers kicks to the man in my opinion tells us clearly that he does nothing but pretty much celebrates the Complete Freedom he just claimed and now demonstrates. How often do you break into someone's house just to beat the inhabitants down and to sign some sentimental melodies above their abused bodies? I bet this is not something you do on a regular basis. Neither do I. Why do not we do this? Does it mean that by NOT doing this we do NOT possess Total Freedom? Yes, it does mean that. Alex and Co. whom are doing it as daily routine have Total Freedom though, and notice how unacceptable this Total Freedom is.

I think these are the basic assumptions Burgess arrived to via conceptualizing the operations and rampant interests of this new breed, the generation that works via an equation which states that claiming Total Freedom is absolutely acceptable granted you can get away with Good Old Fun by beating the Hoile Spirit out of someone - something which Alex actually does, leading to the second chunk of the buildup of A Clockwork Orange.



This here second chunk is the most essential part of the narrative, I'd say. Suffice it to say that Alex ends up in jail, and later he hears rumors about a new treatment called the Ludovico Technique. The method is intended to rehabilitate convicts as totally harmless individuals. Alex manages to get the chance of undergoing the treatment, in exchange for instantaneous freedom.

The Ludovico Technique is a form of aversion therapy: patient is strictly constrained to an observer position, while he gets subjected to repulsive vision-and sound stimuli. The catch is this: some funny substance is administered prior to the actual treatment, thus the observer develops associations between violent acts and gruesome physical distress. Once violence is present in the vicinity the affected person grows effectively sick: no chance whatsoever to commit violent acts anymore, as he would collapse on the floor the moment he would try to do that. So Alex ends up as a new man, and a new man he ends up as, indeed. Yet Burgess asks you this: is he became a better person indeed? The author elegantly points us to the notion that the protagonist did not undergo a honest transformation, rather he got deprived of the free choice whether to commit violent acts. This truly nice, narrative touch that definitely poses as focal importance in the buildup is used to fuel the third and final chunk of A Clockwork Orange, a period to account how - if anyhow - Alex manages to get along in society with his deeply altered self.

One of the final sketches is particularly powerful, surely I do refer to the scene in which Alex meets with one of his previous victims. This is the period I regard as simply the most important of all that A Clockwork Orange delivers, as I get the impression that the previous victim effectively tries to forgive for Alex. Whether he succeeds or not - remains to be seen by you.



Stanley Kubrick's output is robust, vivid and comes with an eternal grin, a grin which have lost nothing of it's seriousness during the four decades it have shown itself for already. Now it seems evident to me that Kubrick had some funny fixations as a film maker, what I find of especial note is his constant usage of classical music pieces as background score. Evidently his personal favorites, no? Same is the case here: you will have the exquisite chance to listen to Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th Symphony pretty much in it's glorious eternity, and this is a superb thing both to do and to take part in, not a matter to debate about.

Surely, A Clockwork Orange reigns in position as one of the most important influence factors ever to enrich popular culture: the vivid London atmosphere, that naked, dangerous, explosive vibe and hilarious visual appeals/costumes it so blatantly delivers envisioned the emergence of a culture which was legendarily rampant and remained of essential significance to this day - please see Punk, please see Sid Vicious, please see Sex Pistols. And please: do see A Clockwork Orange.



- Who we beat up on This Fine Day, lads?
- Me lad, question is, who we DON'T??

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