![]() ![]() And, through his past catching up with him, a family who has moved on, and some horrible unintended consequences of the regimen he’s been subjected to, things end up going… not-so-well. So, here we are… a young man who is programmed against violence after torturous regimen is released to society. After a couple of years, he is selected for the aforementioned “cure”. One day, sick of the torment dished out to them by their leader, the others set Alex up, and he goes too far… committing a murder and ending up sentenced to a lengthy prison sentence. They have no gripes with raping women of all ages, beating up the defenseless, or doing all types of unspeakable shit. Young Alex (an early career defining role for Malcolm McDowell) is the leader or a small gang of 4 ruffians who terrorize the cityscape and countryside with acts of vandalism, drunken debauchery, violent scuffles, and sexual depravity, both with the willing and the violently coerced. Frankenstein, the government – in an act of sheer totalitarian style authoritarianism – decides it can “cure” a young offender of his/her predilection towards criminality and violence through a torturous regimen of drug that create illness and video footage of horrifying violent imagery. This is a theme wrestled with at great lengths by the second film in this double feature however, it also lends itself to the discussion of Kubrick’s classic. ![]() Perhaps the creation’s darkness was always within it, as it is impossible to know just what a man-made life is capable of, but society played its part in, also, creating a monster. The “monster” is shunned and beaten, turning him into something beyond the control of man. The classic literary example, of course, is Mary Shelley’s tale of one Dr. Playing God is dangerous, as we’ve seen in many other fictional and non-fictional works. Accompanying this theme is the film’s willingness to wrestle with the ills of totalitarianism and a government willing to play God. The notable theme that I wish to really dive into here is the battle of predestination and free will. ![]() While there are tonal differences in the novel and film – and Kubrick, the eternal pessimist and purveyor of the sterile aesthetic, left out the book’s less cynical ending, opting instead to end the film a chapter short of the novel – both exemplify the key themes quite effectively. The decision was probably a smart one, as the film received more acclaim with the wider audience, though some still found it pretty obscene by the standards of its day. Just over a year after its release, Kubrick agreed to cut just under a minute of sexually explicit material to get an wider release and an R rating here in the states. Let’s begin with the obvious one, one of my favorite films, based on one of my favorite books, in which the overarching themes of government playing God and toying with the free will of its people are explored in great depth through a bit of the old ultraviolence and a few swift kicks to the yarbles – if you have any yarbles, that is!Ī film that features a large smattering of the ultraviolence and the a bit of the old in-out-in-out, Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s brilliant novel, A Clockwork Orange, was originally given an X rating here in the US and banned in several countries. And, like many of these graphic and intense grindhouse films, they tackle important some of the themes I wrestle with in my faith and deeper morality far better than “Christian” films or tamer, family type films. While the films are quite divergent in story and… well… quality, the major themes surrounding the stories have a lot in common. Over the past few weeks, I rewatched 2 films that have always hit me hard, one is considered a classic and the other is pretty well regarded by the horror community but not many beyond that specific demographic: the first being Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s landmark novel A Clockwork Orange and the latter being Dee Snider’s Strangeland. ![]()
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