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Soon, Alex is conditioned to respond this way at the mere thought of violence. He’s then paraded before a room full of politicians where he is subjected to taunting by a bully and tempted by a beautiful woman. Each time he thinks about acting on his violent urges, Alex is paralyzed by the sickness. The experiment is declared a success, and he is released back into the world a “cured” man. The result should be obvious, and if it’s not then the Chaplain spells it out for us: “Goodness comes from within, and is chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man”.

I know, we’re talking about a “man” whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven. But the Chaplain has a point, and the story makes good use of it in the film’s second half, as Alex begins to experience his comeuppance. He discovers how it feels to be the prey instead of the predator, and we of course are meant to understand that forcing someone to do the right thing doesn’t make them a good person. That’s right Rush fans, it’s all about Free Will. Maybe it does seems obvious, but it’s hard to be a victim of violent crime and not wish for laws that would force people to behave. And the world is full of oppressive theocracies that thrive on forcing their citizens to “make the right choice”. The story seeks to remind a culture steeped in liberty that unless everyone has it, nobody really does. But even if you believe that, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be on board for the way this movie wants you to remember it. I happen to be a big fan, but I also believe that Kubrick dropped the ball.

The thing is, A Clockwork Orange is meant to be a satire, which puts it at odds with the way Kubrick shot it. The story is poking fun at the way we get into trouble when we fail to couple values with reason or confuse morality with blind compliance. This is also a narrative with a built in sense of irony, and much of it comes from having a psychopath for a protagonist. But in Kubrick’s hands it becomes more of a lurid, voyeuristic fantasy than the book intended. True, we experience the story from Alex’s point of view, and therefore it shouldn’t shy away from showing the full range of Alex’s brutality. But since he is a teenage boy, it is displayed here in the sort of stylized, comic book way boys think about everything. Most of the characters are buffoonish weirdos: Alex’s meathead peers. Deltoid and his oily detachment. There’s even Alex’s victims, who are eventually turned into grotesque self parodies by his aggression. The whole story is already wet with sneering, belligerent contempt for both its characters and a society it seems to view as complacent and hypocritical. I’m not sure Kubrick’s reductionism helps.

He pairs the most of his pivotal scenes with classical music, a technique that worked well for him in 2001: A Space Odyssey. In that movie the net effect was grandiose, but here it hovers somewhere between pretentious and well...funny. Fight scenes are staged with an almost slapstick sense of self awareness and combined with the music it’s kind of...well...funny. And it’s not all classical music. During one particularly ghastly assault Alex belts out a Gene Kelly tune as he goes about his business. What he’s doing isn’t funny, but the juxtaposition of humor and horror often feels comical in a nightmarish way. At times you find yourself in the uncomfortable position of trying to suppress a chuckle as someone is being beaten half to death.

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