Essay on Aestheticization of Violence in 'A Clockwork Orange'

The movie ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Stanley Kubrick, based on the novel by Anthony Burgess, is one of the most significant in the filmography of the director. His innovation lies in the fact that Kubrick was able to aestheticize violence at the audiovisual level. Using the technique of using classical music in ultra-violent scenes, the director creates something truly great. Music seems to 'conduct' the film, perfectly complementing every frame that you need to draw the attention of the viewer. It is impossible not to note the typical Kubrick’s visualization, which enchants from the very first frame. It can be seen that the director 'processes' every frame. The visual of Kubrick is unique, so you will not confuse it with anyone else.

The ambiguity of the film makes the viewer rely solely on his own ideas about the beautiful and the terrible. Is it an art or an immoral story with violent overtones? No one can come to the same opinion. For each viewer, the film is revealed from different sides, therefore, it is impossible to draw a definite conclusion. Only one thing is known: 'A Clockwork Orange' was not accepted at one time by many critics, although everyone said that he is immoral and promotes cruelty, nevertheless he is the highest grossing in the entire filmography of the director.

What is the phenomenon of this undoubtedly cult film? The secret is very simple: Stanley Kubrick showed the adolescents of that time a simple and understandable formula: slang, which is spoken by the characters of the film mixed with Russian words, neglect of outdated moral values, promiscuous sex and, of course, violence. All this fits into the well-known formula - sex, drugs, rock and roll.

The film caused a great resonance not only among critics, but also among the broad audience, putting up for discussion many taboo issues: violence against the personality, the influence of the media on the subconscious of the masses, and many others.

Despite the fact that almost everyone who writes about ‘A Clockwork Orange’ is inclined to determine it with the theme of violence that generates itself, and it seems like you want to go against everyone, say, “Well, violence is too obvious”, to find the real deep meaning, but no, it is worth recognizing that in the case of this film, the key is indeed this topic.

«Man is by nature a social animal», said Aristotle. And if a lot of scientific works have been written about the social nature of man and not a few dissertations have been defended, then his animal side is not discussed so widely. The actions and behavior of a person are most often explained in terms of their environment, cultural experience, education, that is - social status. Stanley Kubrick was able to accurately simulate the behavior of such a person who would not be burdened with the moral and ethical values ​​invested in each member of a civilized society by various social institutions (I imagine with what sense of fear, horror and embarrassment people could look at this in 1971). McDowell in the role of Alex demonstrates that violence, or how often it was repeated in the film, is ultra-violence - a natural part of any person. And really, which of us do not like to play shooters or watch thrillers about maniacs? These are the best ways to satisfy our animal needs, because if it were otherwise, the action of the film would transform from science fiction to reality.

To structure my essay, I will highlight four main areas in which the theme of violence is represented. These are areas of sexual, social, political and aesthetic.

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The film is easily divided into two parts - before the court verdict and after - a kind of crime and punishment, and it is difficult not to notice how the first, aesthetically sophisticated, part of the film in almost every scene is saturated with sexuality. Sex as a form of satisfying an animal instinct balances on a fine line between consent and violence, and if consent, as in the case of girls from a music store, does not entail serious consequences, then its absence, on the contrary, leads to crime. The creators of the treatment program are well aware of all this, instilling in Alex an associative aversion to sex drive as well.

The relationship between Alex and his gang members represents social violence - here it is an instrument of power and dominance. If at the beginning of the film Alex’s right to violence is determined by his status as a gang leader, then towards the end the opposite happens - now his former comrades-in-arms, that is, those who suffered him before, carry out the violence.

It is obvious that in the political sphere, the main agent of violence is the state, which has a monopoly on it. We can say that at this level the notorious principle ‘violence breeds violence’ exists, but in the context of the struggle for power, it takes many different forms. In fact, the film raises an old and invariable question: can the state require a member of the society not to do what he actively uses? In my opinion, the meaning of this violence is quite clearly illustrated by the Russian saying: ‘As you treat people, so people treat you’. This is quite cleverly shown by 'fall from Olympus': the hero who had power quickly loses it, becoming a puppet in the hands of the government. This is very clearly shown at the end, where the boss feeds the hero like a child with a spoon, and then-exploits. That is, to some extent it is also the idea that for every force, for every strongman there is someone stronger.

As for the aesthetic, for the most part, Kubrick really owes it, and it consists in the fact that ‘A Clockwork Orange’ is a definitely cult film, and it is cult because of one of the best examples of aestheticization of violence at the audiovisual level. It can hardly be said that Kubrick was the first to use classical music as an inspirational ultra-violent accompaniment. As far as I know, such a scene was first shown in Jules Dassin’s film ‘Brute Force’, where the head of the prison, in which Hitler’s allusion is easily guessed, tortures a prisoner under the Wagner's ‘Tannhäuser’ (Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg, 1845, opera in three acts) playing from a gramophone. I liked the reception and went to the masses. We can say that all subsequent esthetic maniacs are an indirect reference to Hitler, who loved classical music, was a vegetarian and loved animals.

In addition, the maniac's love of classical music contrasts sharply with his inhuman behavior. Similar contradictions add depth to the character, and ambivalent, contradictory characters, according to any drama textbook, are absolutely necessary for any film (or play) that claims to be a commercial success.

The next moment of the film, that Kubrick was the first to use snow-white robes for unjustifiably cruel young people, but the cinema community owes him a fashion for such sound and visual solutions. To recall at least the 'Funny Games' (2007, thriller film by Michael Haneke; remake of his own 1997 film of the same name), young people in white clothes, reprisals against the family. Despite his almost pathological passion for violence, Alex appears to us as a repulsive, but at the same time charming antagonist - one cannot fail to note the cult status of his character, who in some cases was even tried to imitate in real life. Kubrick fills the film with a huge number of characters, for which later, the Catholic Church will fall on him. Alex has a snake in his room, and a pop-art image of a naked woman hangs on the wall: poster with a picture of Cornelis Makkink 'Odalisque as big as truck' (1970). More precisely, this is a variation of this picture, made by the same artist, a reference to biblical original sin. Alex chooses a huge phallus as the murder weapon of the owner of the 'Health Club' miss Weber, while the victim is protected by a statuette of Beethoven. On the walls of the room, we can see pictures exactly like the pictures of Alex's home. In parallel, we are shown a porcelain group - four Christs, naked and dancing like a corps de ballet, as if foreshadowing Alex's 'diligent' study of Holy Scripture in prison.

Thus, after analyzing ‘A Clockwork Orange’ from different angles, taking into account Kubrick’s conscious move not to include the last part of the book with a relative happy ending, and recalling Alex DeLarge’s final words about ‘healing’, I suggest that the film’s meaning about the impossibility and senselessness of eradicating violence in the world.

The movie 'A Clockwork Orange' is very unusual, like many other creations of Stanley Kubrick. Clear and bright strokes outlined the human craving for violence, and sometimes so attractive that there are incidents of imitation of real criminals to the heroes of this film (which is why Kubrick imposed a ban on the rental of 'A Clockwork Orange' in the UK, which was observed until his death in 1999). But the film is much deeper — it's just a surface layer. The authors of the film showed that it happens when the problem of crime is trying to solve exclusively mechanistic way. The incredibly complex pedagogical process of developing a person's moral principles, the inner core that would keep him from the criminal path, was replaced by a purely technical operation.