A Clockwork Orange

The setting in a not so distant future where the architects of buildings have become the architects of society as well and their disgusting Bauhaus modern pointless, sensory pleasing and meaningless aesthetics devoid of any value echo in the political doctrine of the world of Clockwork Orange is so perfect it can hardly see an equal in any other sci-fi or futurist movie that I have watched. The tone is just too perfect, not only in the consumerist and kitsch and colorful dressing of the characters and the monotone outfits of Alex's druid but also with the music the society prefers- synthetic pop and upbeat electrics. Kubrick is building a world in which people have lost all vitrue and values and have instead totally surrendered to the sensual, the short-term and the immediately gratifying and have followed short pleasure and easy solutions as abstract Gods. This has lead to a populace that is nothing else instead lazy and degenerate and it serves as an apt warning to our current culture which grows to favour intelligence and satisfaction over everything else and has consequently grown dependent on AI and is destroying itself daily by engaging in gluttony. The politics of such pointless hedonistic people are very obviously and predictably pointless and hedonistic. The people of Clockwork Orange have surrendered freedom and liberty and justice and all sense of human dignity and high arts in the name of efficency and easy decisions. I find it extrmeely funny that the setting takes place in Britain where the people of that damned Island become increasingly more liberal and authoritarian at the same time. Liberal in the sense that they don't cate whatsoever what goes on in society and authoritarian in the sense that they are every year more and more eager to surrender their liberties and morals and aspirations to the government which seeks punitive justice and disgustingly stingy rules as some sort of sacred fruits that would bring about some sort of an uthopia. And I can hardly imagine a more dystopian system in the West than that of Britain. Clockwork Orange seems to me a far more beleivable reality for the future and 1984 or Brave New World. On that topic I do see some striking similarities between the movie and Brave New World, given that this shitty hedonistic, utilitarian system is brought about not by the fascists or some sort of a tyrannical clique but instead by the disgusting degenerate people themselves, by democracy. In both worlds these happy hedonistic dysopias are the results of democracy and I love that. What I find so contemptable in the majority of dystopian works and political sci-fi genres is exactly this terrible and brainwashed obssesion with authoritarianism and collectivism as the only things that can possibly bring tyrannies, caring about society and being a communal person or god forbid a populist who concerns himself with the nation or the people with which they share a society is treated by these novels as the most sinful and unforgivable thing. But in reality the problems of today are more close to the realms of individualism, lack of care for the collective and humanity in general, obssesion with hedonism, pleasure and pragmatism and efficiency, in other words all things unnatural, unlovable and inhuman. It makes sense then why we are witnessing so many things now that are inhumane. Kubrick expresses this unique authoritarianism which shouldn't be cosnidered unique at all since we are living in it we just aren't used to it being portrayed on screen and as I have pointed out the best portrayal of it is in 1971, by showing the absolute brutality and overcrowdedness of jails and the police. The sadistic impusles of the police are a major theme of this movie as it shows how such systems often harvest the resentments of hte people and in fact pray upon them to function and infiltrate them. The punitive aspects of the system are not made to care or fix or amend the injustice done, but to deal away with the immediate problem of criminality (and what is criminal is ever so often the most arbitrary of things). However arbitrary is not the correct word for the actions of Alex and his cronies. Alex is the perfect antagonist of that society, he is a sadistic, burtish and awfully torturous person who is born by the lack of meaning and purpose of the world he inhabit, but he is also surprisingly a man of shockingly refined taste. It always seemd to me that Alex's artistic preferences were some sort of a helping cry and in some ways performative acts of rebellion against the modern world. Since he is indeed a conscious person and a person who demands more from artistry, but is also extremely ocrrupted and o lot of his taste is at least in my opinion deliberately targeted at Beethoven's Ode to Joy. Beethoven himself as an artist is rebel, but a rebel who has been turned into a product by the world just as Alex is about to be later in the movie. Ode to Joy has been used by just about every regime in history. It was sacred to the Nazis, it was used by The Soviet Union, it was used as a worker's song in China, it symbolised the Zapatistas in Mexico, it was the anthem of Rhodesia and the South American Fascists and is most famously used as the anthem of the European Union. Art is usurped so easily but in particular the popular and the rebelious. Once an art piece gets usurped it seizes to have revolutionary and decosntructive potential and becomes just and empty signifier and this is ironically the exact thing which Alex falls for and admires. I see it as a tragic and very relevant detail to the character since as easy it is for me to hate him I also sympathise with him and I do belive this is a cornerstone point of the film- to be made to sympathise with what is essentially a villanous thug you are supposed to have nothing in common with. And I do truly feel for him since his desire for meaingn and purpose and culture always goes unasnwered and this gets especially more painful by the time he spends in jail and the infamous Ludovico Technique. In his most painful and pathetic moments Alex is stirpped of his violence, his sexuality, his conscience and his instincts and htis is of course embraced by the scientific cuckolds who favour efficiency over all and don't bother seeing the dangers of attacking humanity. The only person who comes to his aid is the Reactionary Chritstian who has remained the single voice of wisdom in the mad world they live in. He is by far the most likable character who shows true charity, kindess and good will to the most evil of persons. And his philosophy is the only humane one, arguing that wthe moment you lose your ability to make evil, you seize to be a person and indeed your life as a moral agent is over. The life of Alex is furhter ruined when he encounters his old comrades who have now become policeman (a very funny and deep touch suggesting further that the regime doesn't fight brutality and brutishness but instead harvests it) and is tortured by them, unable to offer any resistance. The Liberal is my least favourithe character but I also do see him as a tragic one and I have plenty of sympathy to spare for him. He is mad at the populace for giving upo their own agencies and freedoms for greater security and he is in constant despair over the death of liberalism and any sort of political values. I do however still find him a very dislikable character because he is the epidome of the Angry Mad Liberal that hates humans and watches from above, not interacting with society while being a supposed humanist, and he is a very near opportunist, seeing Alex as a tool to further his own political goals and his own delusions. And the actual cucking he is doing to himself is very apt and hihglights the metaphorical cucking. Overall this is one of Kubrick's best, which makes it one of the world's best movies ever made! Bravo!