A Clockwork Orange

Layers, layers, and many more layers. The main points of this movie, which root down into so much more, are control, violence, and free will. I’m going to connect these three ideas the same way the movie does, through the main character, Alex. We follow a protagonist whose nature is essentially impulsive. He does not know who he is, but he knows exactly what drives him. He is well off, yet chooses to steal. He can use charm and social skills to pick random girls up, yet he rapes and commits violence against women, because that is what gives him joy. That is what gives him thrill. Alex uses his free will to do completely as he wishes. He does not care for anything else. If he craves to do something, he should do it, simply because that is who he is. He is driven by the thrill of acting on impulse. So yes, Alex is completely fucked in the head. He chases thrill, although his idea of thrill is ultra-violence, rape, and, quite interestingly, music. How do we stop such a menace? The story takes this opportunity to talk about control, or more specifically, reformation. A group of politicians decide to test a new, supposedly foolproof method: the Ludovico Technique. Alex is by nature violent, deceitful, and the purest form of evil, yet this technique promises complete reform. He will not kill, he will not rape, and interestingly, he will no longer be able to listen to his favorite symphonies. The Ludovico Technique works by forcing the subject to become physically incapable of these acts. After the treatment, Alex genuinely cannot commit them anymore. Sounds good, right? Yes and no. The good part is obvious. He can no longer commit acts of ultra-violence. But the way Ludovico is performed raises deeply cynical and disturbing questions. Alex cannot do these things not by choice, but because choice has been removed entirely. He has unintentionally become a clockwork orange. He looks alive, looks human, but beneath the surface he is mechanical, functioning like a machine whose nature and free will have been stripped away. So the question becomes unavoidable: does free will matter more than forced morality? The film’s dystopian setting is strange, unsafe, and overflowing with unsupervised violence. This is where the political critique sharpens. Multiple moments show politicians trying to use Alex either in favor of or against the Ludovico Technique, yet they do not truly care about the method itself. Everything they do is for personal gain. They are indifferent to the inhumanity of the process as long as it serves their agenda. There is so much more I could say. I could genuinely write fifty pages on this film. But I have school tomorrow, and I want to read White Nights before bed. The final fifteen minutes could have been slightly better, but it is still amazing. The world is unjust. Sometimes consequences come to those who deserve them, and sometimes people walk free from their actions. Justice is not consistent, and so many times not moral at all. CHOICE. NATURE. MORALITY. These are things that, when forced, can have consequences. Being a clockwork orange: is it good, or is it evil?