Rotten Tomatoes: 89%
Empire 500 (2008): #37
Empire 301 (2014): #54
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Screenwriter: Stanley Kubrick
So much has been written about this film, that it feels somehow churlish to give it a rating, as if it has transcended good or bad. Watching A Clockwork Orange is not an enjoyable experience, and Kubrick purposefully ups the level of violence and sexual imagery at almost every opportunity to shock the watcher. Following the ultra-violent Alex (Malcom McDowell) as he is forced to relinquish immoral actions and thoughts by the government, A Clockwork Orange attempts to ask several important questions about the nature of society, and partly succeeds.
Horrible yet compelling, Alex is a fantastic character, played to perfection by McDowell. Despite being a deeply violent and horrible person, it is very difficult not to feel some twinge of sympathy for him at some point in his journey, as society turns and experiments on him. There are also some fantastic shots here, that seize your attention, especially the opening scene, which is a work only of pure genius. The Reservoir Dogs style scene also feels just incredibly right, and makes you gasp in exactly the right way. The music is also judged perfectly in most places.
This is not however, a five star film. In my opinion, the movie slightly loses itself halfway through, following the novel despite not having the exact same themes as the novel. Even this movie could I suspect have benefited from losing five minutes at some point. The world that this film creates also doesn't quite work, and the fashions and decorations used don't come together to create a consistent picture. The different use of colour is clearly something to be noted in people's clothes but for me it never really worked.
Kubrick also differs from the novel being adapted by leaving out the final cathartic chapter, which provides at least a glimmer of hope to the film, as an older Alex loses his love for violence and wants to settle down. It feels therefore that one of the two key themes of the book has been left out, the idea of violence being a permanent, natural and timeless part of growing up and society, and this is only slightly addressed in a scene where Alex reads the Bible and imagines himself as a Roman crucifying Jesus. No reason at all is therefore offered for the root cause of Alex's violence, not even that it is just the way he is and a part of adolescence, as put forward by the novel
A masterpiece, but a confused one
4/5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment