Dissecting a Clockwork Orange - 1815 Words

â€Å"You men need to tuck away your penises and surrogate penises (guns), because you will never get anywhere with them. Masculinity is a myth and a dead end.† - Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 classic A Clockwork Orange is an interesting beast. The film has been vilified, banned, condemned on artistic grounds and yet it survives. The film’s hallucinatory visuals depicting a strange, narcissistic modernistic society, steeped in seventies art deco and harsh, contrasting lighting, paint a bleak, uncompromising picture. Kubrick’s use of implied violence, death and cultural destruction throw the viewer into a hellish, emotional marsh of pessimism and hate. Reviewed by Tim Dirks the title of the film is explained: â€Å"The controversial†¦show more content†¦But Kubrick mocks the viewer for thinking the film is about male dominance. As for when the Droog’s return to feed on mother’s milk back at the bar – the drinks are poured from a breast-shaped pourer asserting motherhood and female dominance. ‘Choice’ is a major aspect of the film because the male characters are seen to enforce this idea of masculinity, but Kubrick sees this as ambiguous. The psychiatrists in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ take away Alex’s freedom of choice through psychological manipulation, and therefore strip him of his own self worth. ‘Choice’ is a freedom Alex is born with, but by being brought up in this society he has been conditioned and nurtured to think only one way. By taking away his ability to choose, society is being institutionally condemned to decay. And how potent is this decay? Malcolm McDowell (who played Alex), speaking thirty years after the film was first release said, when asked about cinema violence mirroring real life: ‘Are we supposed to ignore the fact that we live in a very violent society?’ He continued, ‘maybe it’s frustration about the American dream gone sour. I don’t know what it is. It is the expectations of something that’s never quite fulfilled. There’s great anger and frustration around. There’s a lot of that.’ Kubrick doesn’t condone the violence of the film; he uses it to example freedoms of choice. When Alex is cured, violence still finds him and it suddenly takes on a moreShow MoreRelatedLogical Reasoning189930 Words   |  760 Pagesoffering for sale with apples that are rotten. 196 Answer (a). The two horns of this dilemma are stated in choice (d). Choice (a) expresses just one horn of that dilemma. 274 c. compare apples with oranges and fail to consider that at current prices, two apples equal one orange in California but not in New York. d. promote the health value of your own apples over the competitions apples by comparing the health of eaters of your apples with people who eat no fruit at all. e. say that