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  • Essay / Shaping Public Perception in A Clockwork Orange

    A Clock Work Orange is considered one of the greatest films made by critically acclaimed director Stanley Kubrick. Based on the 1962 book by Anthony Burgess, the film tells the story of disturbed psychopath Alex and his violent gang of thugs he calls the droogs. Alex and his gang engage in a series of violent assaults and rapes, which they call "ultra violence", in a not-so-distant dystopian future. The film's turning point occurs when Alex is arrested by the police for a particularly violent murder and forced to undergo a process of forced rehabilitation. The absolute genius of Kubrick's film is that it forces the audience to feel pity and empathy for what would otherwise be a truly disgusting character as Alex is tortured and made to suffer. The film uses standard science fiction conventions to investigate several interesting topics, including the nature of justice and free will. Stanley Kubrick's 1971 masterpiece A Clock Work Orange is a brilliant cinematic masterpiece because of not only its ability to feel revulsion towards one's own prejudices, but also its ability to make empathize the viewer with a truly barbaric and disgusting character. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The greatest effect of Clock Work Orange is the feeling of moral repulsion it creates in its viewer. The film does a magnificent job of challenging the viewer's cultural assumptions about morality by juxtaposing a brutal character like Alex with the torture he endures after undergoing the Ludivico technique. In the first 20 minutes of the film, Alex steals a car, paralyzes a man, rapes his wife, has sex with two underage girls, and finally murders a woman in cold blood. In every way imaginable, Kubrick shapes Alex as the despicable villain type of character. He kills, steals and rapes with no regard for any human life other than his own. Even when he enters the prison system, he attempts to adopt religion to manipulate the chaplain into granting him time off for good behavior. His only goal is to make it appear that he has been reformed, so that he can be released and continue his sadistic campaign of "ultra-violence." The audience is led to feel disgust for Kubrick's character, which slowly turns into a desire to see Alex receive his just reward for his actions. Kubrick then turns the audience's disgust for the character against him when Alex is forced to submit to a tortuous process. this makes him unable to engage in sexual or violent relationships. As Alex faces retaliation for his previous evil actions to satiate the audience's bloodlust, something begins to change within the viewer. They begin to feel sympathy for the character. Alex is completely vulnerable in his conditioned state, unable to defend himself against the mercilessly vicious attacks perpetrated by those he has previously wronged. Alex is so desperate that he even attempts to end his life by jumping out of a window. The film forces the viewer to endure another bout of ultra-violence, but this time it is directed at Alex, and the viewer discovers that it is not as rewarding as he thought. The viewer is therefore confronted with two ethical dilemmas. The first is whether it is justified to make a human being suffer because of the suffering they have caused others, and the second is whether kindness that is not done by choice is truly kindness. . The film does an excellent job offorcing the public to confront these two issues and answer the questions themselves. In the end, the viewer is shown that if Alex is allowed out of his conditioned state, he will simply return to the violent and sadistic lifestyle he previously engaged in. This forces the audience to explore their feelings along two diametrically opposed extremes. Should an individual be free to make their own decisions even if those decisions are the wrong ones? And is revenge really justice? And that is the brilliance of the film: Kubrick forces the viewer to engage intellectually with the film by shocking their sense of right and wrong. For me, this technique has proven to be very effective. As the film began, I found myself absolutely disgusted with Alex. I wanted the movie to hurt him as much as it hurt the others, and the movie was more than happy to satisfy my bloodlust. Yet seeing the absolute brutality of how Alex was treated made me feel disgusted by someone else, myself. Like the angry mob in the film, I had wanted to subject pain and suffering to another human being. I thought it would be justice, but it was little more than revenge. This is a very powerful effect that I have never seen used in a film. The film turns your own prejudices against you, allowing you to truly listen to what the film is trying to tell you about the nature of justice and free will. The film also uses recurring motifs to expose and develop its themes. One of the film's recurring motifs is the use of Nadsat. Nadsat is slang made from a combination of Russian and cockney English. Alex uses nadsat to describe the dystopian world and the situations he finds himself in. While the viewer is introduced to the strange lingo of the droogs, nadsat seems confusing and lacking in meaning. This creates a feeling of alienation between the viewer and the characters in the film, as the use of heavy jargon makes it difficult for the audience to understand. The words lack easily definable meaning. As the film progresses, the viewer gets more insight into the world of the droogs, a world of random chaos and violence, a place where bad things happen to good people for no particular reason. The insanity of the nadsat language perfectly captures the nihilistic violence inherent in the film. Kubrick's adaptation of A Clockwork Orange is not only brilliant for its engaging philosophical themes and topics, but also for its technical and innovative use of camera angles and special effects. In one particular scene, the film shows Alex jumping out of a window in first person. This unique effect was achieved by attaching a camera to a box and dropping it from a three-story window. In one of the film's most famous scenes, we see a close-up of Alex's face surrounded by his droogs. He drinks milk while looking at the camera without blinking. This scene is incredibly powerful, as it heavily implies Alex's malicious ability to manipulate and control those around him for his own personal pleasure. The look in the character's eyes as he sips milk is truly frightening due to the strong juxtaposition between the milk and the violent droogs. The interesting use of camera angles like these makes A Clock Work Orange such a good film. In terms of genre, A Clock Work Orange is primarily science fiction. While science fiction films tend to involve futuristic or extraterrestrial technologies, their primary goal is to use these technologies either to challenge conventional thinking or to illustrate something about human nature. A Clock Work Orange uses the sci-fi Ludivico technique as.