A Clockwork Orange

SPOILER ALERT

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Number 83 on the top 1000 greatest movies of all time is Stanley Kubrick's highly controversial A Clockwork Orange, based on Anthony Burgess' 1962 novel of the same name.  As I haven't read it, I won't be discussing it in detail within this review.

Alex DeLarge (Malcolm Mcdowell) is leader of the Droogs, a small group of thugs whose hobbies include vandalism and ultra-violence- that is they enjoy beating and raping people.  After Alex's fellow Droogs mutiny on him leading to his arrest and imprisonment, Alex is subjected to the Ludovico technique.  An experimental new treatment designed to suppress Alex's violent tendencies.

There's no denying that this was a controversial film.  It inspired a number of copycat attacks and killings and even Kubrick requested that it be withdrawn from British distribution.  Its extreme portrayal of violence is what makes this film difficult to watch, but also essential viewing.  Anthony Burgess argued that he wrote a Clockwork Orange as an examination of free will and morality within Christianity.

From the start of the film, it is obvious that Alex has no morality and over-indulges in free will.  He has no qualms about beating, raping or even killing people.  All three of these acts are shown in graphic detail, but I feel that this is absolutely essential to the experience of the film.  Alex is established as a brute of a man, but then the question begs whether he deserves to have the Ludovico technique forced upon him.

Does he deserve to be forcibly conditioned? Do the government have any right to try to change a person without their permission or consent? The Ludovico technique involves Alex having his head strapped down, his eyelids propped open and forced to watch violent imagery.  This is distressing to watch, as it is for Alex to endure.  He protests for the conditioning to be stopped, but his cries fall on deaf ears.  The technique is akin to torture and opens the door to a wider moral debate: if we resort to the same means as criminals, are we any better than them? Do two wrongs make a right?

This leads into the next biggest theme that a Clockwork Orange engages with: punitive vs. rehabilitation justice.  Should you punish criminals or try to rehabilitate them to turn them into better citizens? Just look at the differences between the punitive-based prison system in America and the rehabilitative-based prison system in Northern Europe.  Countries like Finland and Norway put an emphasis on rehabilitating prisoners and their prison cells are like hotel rooms.  Compare this to America which punishes its prisoners by crowding them into tiny prisons and then executing them.

Which works better? Well, Finland and Norway have 57 and 71 prisoners per 100,000 people respectively, compared to America which has a rate of 693 prisoners per 100,000 people.  America's current prisoner population stands at 2,217,947, which is 60,157 more people than it's supposed to hold.  In contrast, Finland and Norway have prison populations of 3,105 and 3,710, which is under their prison capacity.  Obviously, countries like Finland and Norway are far smaller than America and what works for them might not work for a huge country like America.  Yet it is obvious that Finland and Norway's rehabilitative system is more successful than America's punitive system.

This article was interesting further reading: http://www.newsforage.com/2013/08/the-norwegian-prison-where-inmates-are.html

Within a Clockwork Orange, Alex is sentenced to fourteen years in prison.  However, he is then conditioned and rehabilitated until the thought of physical violence makes him sick.  Although, it could be argued that the conditioning was morally and ethically wrong, was it still better to at least attempt to rehabilitate Alex rather than leaving him to rot in a jail cell? The rehabilitation fails in the end, but it still may have been more effective than not even attempting to change Alex for the better.

A brilliant example of punitive justice gone wrong is the Shawshank Redemption.  This film portrays the true horrors of the American prison system: prisoners are beaten day in and day out.  No effort is made to rehabilitate them or prepare them for life on the outside world.  Brooks Hatlen who becomes institutionalised after spending fifty years inside kills himself when he cannot adapt to life outside of prison.  As the prison system made little effort to reintegrate him into society, he could not cope and thus committed suicide.  Could this have happened to Alex if the Ludovico Technique had not used on him?

A Clockwork Orange opens the door to many moral and ethical debates about the Criminal Justice and prison systems.  If you have a weak stomach, I suggest you buckle up, as this film, and every single violent image it portrays, is absolutely essential viewing.  Meanwhile, I'll leave you to ponder this debate: is it better to punish or rehabilitate prisoners? I don't claim to have an answer, but it's an interesting question nonetheless.

Sources:

http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/finland

http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/norway

http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/united-states-america