Appy-polly-loggies: A Clockwork Orange and the Songs of Revolution

    The behavior of the government, and it’s lack of involvement in bettering it’s country and judicial system, led misfits and groups to define their own laws in Clockwork Orange. The book became a film that led society into a guiding of “ultra-violence”. The film, becomes a revolution itself via cinema and societal influence. There was something sinister but interesting about the way the story played cinematically. Stanley Kubrick, and Malcolm McDowell as Alex, engaging the viewers into a world of “droogs” and milk and Slavic styled cockney.  I mean, he himself, had Alex as a "strapping young lad with good looks", he almost seemed to romanticize violence and charm the viewers with glares and smirks and Alex's enjoyment of it all.

    After the film’s release in the 70’s, a rise of imitation had occurred, and we all have heard that “imitation being the highest form of flattery”. The film changed the idea of cinematic violence and our current governments and political persons not taking a liking to it. I suppose because of the idea that it could almost lead to an uprising of a sorts, possibly adding to anarchism against the governments of today. I say this because the film was widely known for being eccentric in negative ways: The issues of young adults causing havoc and rape, the fact that neither the police nor the government tried to help stop, but only to their own selfish benefit such as the Ludovico treatment. This treatment, forcing the prisoners to be “reconstructed” through medically induced sickness anytime there was the thought of “ultra-violence”. This was selfish in the sense that the government just wanted to come off as good and beneficial to the citizens, showing that they can cure the wrong-doers.

   Shelly Kagan speaks about intending harm and foreseeing harm. This can be correlated quite well with the film’s portrayal of a government that uses harmful techniques to stop future violence. But it doesn’t actually stop Alex’s violent ways, but merely forces him to submit to his karmic past. In doing so, he’s not really able to defend himself physically, his old droog gang having their way with torturing and deserting him, after a band of old homeless men react negatively towards Alex.  This led him back to the Home of the writer and his wife, which seemed positive at first. The old writer didn’t recognize him, until the moment Alex started singing in the bath a song not meant to be traumatizing. 

   There are so many symbols and meanings within this film: Beethoven and classical music, milk, Slavic influence, and even graphic images of violence and Nazis/World War II snippets. So during the era following the film’s release, it’s understandable that people would want to imitate the look and style of what the film was showing. A revolution within itself, and the real world, changing the viewer’s questions of government, and the ideas of violence.