Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee and Michael Bates in the Stanley Kubrick movie ‘A Clockwork Orange’

To say that we review a dystopian crime film feels like understatement. The Stanley Kubrick film adaptation of the 1962 Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange shrinks not from the book; that the movie, titled A Clockwork Orange (1971), comments on an aversion experiment also understates the movie presented for your consideration.

(From left, James Marcus as Georgie, Michael Tarn as Pete, Malcolm McDowell as Alex DeLarge and Warren Clarke as Dim in the Stanley Kubrick movie A Clockwork Orange).

To ask if this movie as presented was necessary misses much. The film focuses extensively on Alex DeLarge, an antisocial yet charismatic delinquent with wildly inappropriate interests in committing outrageously excessive acts of violence, rape and theft. Malcolm McDowell portrayed DeLarge, curiously enjoys classical music with a fixation on the music of Ludwig van Beethoven.

(From left, Patrick Magee as Frank Alexander and Malcolm McDowell as Alex DeLarge in the Stanley Kubrick movie A Clockwork Orange).

The film uses disturbing, violent imagery to comment of psychiatry, juvenile delinquency, youth gangs as led by Alex DeLarge with mates Dim, Pete and Georgie at the forefront of it with DeLarge. Writer Frank Alexander and his wife, as portrayed by Patrick Magee and Adrienne Corri, were victims of crime by Alex’s gang. Warren Clarke, Michael Tarn and James Marcus portrayed Dim, Pete and Georgie, respectively. The vulgar and graphically depicted crime spree of this group, with narration before and after by Alex, is followed by Alex’s capture. The heinous and visceral emotions evoked by this make the film difficult to recommend.

(From left, Barrie Cookson as Dr. Alcott, Ludovico Center check-in, Michael Bates as Chief Guard Barnes and Malcolm McDowell as Alex DeLarge in the Stanley Kubrick movie A Clockwork Orange).

The period leading to Alex’s capture and subsequent processing into custody were as jarring and dehumanizing, eliciting conflicting feelings that contest those of crimes Alex committed. The motivation P.R. Deltoid, who was aware of the lewd and depraved behavior of Alex and his gang, makes him just as complicit. The permission to participate in DeLarge’s eventual intake into custody through the police inspector and a pair detectives was just as reprehensible. Aubrey Morris, Lindsay Campbell, John J. Carney and Steven Berkoff portrayed Deltoid, the police inspector, and the detectives, respectively.

(From left, John J. Carney as Detective Sergeant, Aubrey Morris as P.R. Deltoid, Lindsay Campbell as Police Inspector and Steven Berkoff as Detective Constable Tom in the Stanley Kubrick movie A Clockwork Orange).

With Alex in custody, British Minister of the Interior Frederick, as portrayed by Anthony Sharp, sets about experimental psychological conditioning on Alex. The experiment aims, in lieu of prolonged jail time, to rehabilitate Alex in a manner that redirects the offender in what will be declared a well-adjusted, healthy and safely functioning member of society. The dark psychological uses of Beethoven‘s Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 (Ninth Symphony) and Gene Kelly‘s Singin’ in the Rain, with the systemic responses before and subsequent with these points, reflect trauma like the original crimes, including what follows with Georgie and Dim as police officers.

(From left, Anthony Sharp as Frederick, Minister of the Interior and Malcolm McDowell as Alex DeLarge in the Stanley Kubrick movie A Clockwork Orange).

The circular absurdity of the story with powerful cultural references to make distinct commentary into the distasteful law enforcement and criminal segments of society. Controversy surrounded and surrounds this movie to this day. While A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick remains a powerful film exemplifying the director’s skills as a storyteller, I give the movie 3.75-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.

Matt – Saturday, July 15, 2023

Top 20 Movie “The Shining.”

Stephen King has a solid history with his writings making a transition from book to television mini-series, cinematic movie, and a little more tenuously stage production. The second movie to make a transition from novel to the big screen is the 1980 Stanley Kubrick produced, directed, and written (as a screenplay) movie The Shining (1980). King‘s novel was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in 1977, coming in at 659-pages (per the novel’s Wikipedia page).

The Shining was a fortuitous marriage of some of Hollywood’s more commercially successful stakeholders. There was the novelist King, the producer, screenwriter and director Kubrick, and the starring actor Jack Nicholson. These three brought something special and awesome together.

King gave us The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Green Mile (1999), Stand By Me (1986), and Misery (1990). Kubrick gave us 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Spartacus (1960), A Clockwork Orange (1971), and Full Metal Jacket (1987). Nicholson gave us Chinatown (1974),  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), A Few Good Men (1992), As Good As It Gets (1997), and The Departed (2006).

Beyond bringing together the above three all-stars with their commercial success and influence, the story is a masterful examination of falling into madness in a place of isolation meant to force the confrontation of it. Jack Torrance (Nicholson), his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and their son Danny (Danny Lloyd) give us a convincing glimpse into three characters with questionable grasps on reality. The narrative question that the viewer confronts with the Torrances is “are any of these three reliably sane?” At what point are we losing a grasp with reality? Is this person already descended into madness (mental health is a clear narrative device)?

The truth is that these questions elevate to the storytelling itself. Is the narrative itself reliable?  From the beginning scene where Jack Torrance is interviewing to be the caretaker for a snowbound hotel, Torrance is told that a former caretaker murdered his family and committed suicide. Something is clearly off, even then, when Jack brushes this off with the note that his wife enjoys ghost stories and horror films. Nothing in the Wendy’s character confirms this is true, though the frame of the story as a possible ghost story (it isn’t) and a definite horror film is set right from the start.

One might wonder where the notion of “shining” or “the shining” even comes into the storytelling of The Shining. That notion comes in with the character of Danny, who has the gift of “shining,” which is the psychic gift seeing things from the past and future while also reading minds. In this image here, you get an echo of the opening tale shared with Jack Torrance regarding the murders of the previous family, as we remember from that beginning tale that the first murderous caretaker took the lives of his two daughters.

That the notion of reliable characters is part of that scene comes up when Wendy Torrance doesn’t know to believe the “shining” of Danny, because it is completely reasonable to suspect that the Tony that Danny speaks of might simply be an imaginary friend. The growing drama that leads us to understand the meaning of Danny’s singing “redrum” is part of the genius of the larger tale of The Shining.

The content and tension of this movie, The Shining, is one that I recommend wholeheartedly to those with the temperament to enjoy. Psychological horror stories, as the Wikipedia page for the book tells us is true for the novel, are not for everyone. As such, Lynn of Matt Lynn Digital would neither watch nor enjoy this 18th ranked film on the Matt Lynn Digital blog. On the other hand, I do recommend that you watch.

Matt – Saturday, January 21, 2017