A Clockwork Orange

To even begin to break down Kubrick's take on A Clockwork Orange is a monsterous task, seems awfully liberal but there's no way I can count the ultra-violence film as liberal. It's incredibly pessimistic and to me shows how we oppress and dehumanize people all the time, no matter our class, political alignment, or intention. It is impossible to treat people as human beings and not murderers, rapists, criminals,.drunken bums, nobodies in A Clockwork Orange, Alex rapes and beats because he views them as no bodies and he can because... well he can. The first act is free, filled with images of sex, classical music and rather formal language. Perhaps what it symbolises is a criticism of the new rich, people who disguise their violent tendencies with pretention, hide their ugly actions with art or fancy drinks and fancy cigars. This is quite similar to many more of Kubrick's work, especially Barry Lyndon. This is where Kubrick's genius is extended not only does the score and the script build this juxtaposition but the order in the camera and sets, with clean zooms and tracking shots in luxury sets. There is an order to the chaos or perhaps a chaos to the order. The second act is set up when Alex gets betrayed by his gang who question his authority and hand him to the police, he gets dehumanized again being reduced to a number, 655321, I noticed how this number is just a little change from 654321, just a little change in the middle stops something normal and instead something seemingly random. Perhaps this is a foreshadow to how he gets reached into the back of his brain to turn 'normal' or to turn back insane. Here he studies the Bible, and we see him whipping Jesus and being fed grapes, he clearly doesn't want to be the hero. Even when confronted with the source for goodness and order for alot of civilisation. He longs to get out and signs up for the Lovikov treatment, a quick easy short cut to get up on the ultra-violence again he assumes. But yet again he gets dehumanized, being reached right into his mind to have a reaction of immense sickness to sex and violence and Beethoven's 9th, essentially installing a shock collar in his subconscious so that he can't even think of anything wrong. The final act is chilling as we see the residue left by what is irreversible, Alex, this new Alex, is still the rapist murderer that he was to many. He can't and shouldn't be forgiven for that. We see that when he attempts suicide at the hands of a former victim, who blames him for the death of his wife. The film ends with him being taken advantage of again, being used to shield the program