Film Fan: Clockwork Orange (5 Stars)

Friday 9 February 2018

Clockwork Orange (5 Stars)

This is a difficult film to review because there are different ways to look at it. Stanley Kubrick had a lot of ideas in his mind, so he poured them all into the film and stirred wildly. We can see the film as a social commentary, a critique of political extremism, a satirical view of violence or even the influence of music on young people. In this review I'll restrict myself to the questions of morality raised in the film. What makes someone a good person? Is a person good if he does good, or is he good if he chooses to do good? Is good merely the absence of evil?

These are easy questions to answer before the law. The legal system punishes people who break the law. The intention is of limited importance, and can rarely be used as a mitigating circumstance. If I kill someone I'm a murderer and murder is bad, so I'm sent to prison. Maybe I killed a person because I knew he intended to kill two or more people, but that's irrelevant to the courts. By my act the person is considered a victim, not a potential murderer, so I am the criminal. I'm bad.

Likewise, anyone who doesn't break the law isn't punished. In the eyes of the law law-abiding citizens are considered good. This legal view is obviously in contradiction to the generally held views of morality. Ask yourself, how many people do you know that you consider to be bad people even though they've never broken a law?

The standards of morality are raised higher in the Bible's New Testament.

"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, You shall not murder, but I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgement" (Matthew 5:21-22).

"You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:27-28).

(Please note that the word "adultery" in the Bible refers to extra-marital sex in general, whether the participants are married or not).

I've never killed anyone, but I've been angry enough to wish someone dead more than once. As for adultery, I don't think there's been a single day in the last 40 years in which I didn't lust for a woman. Nevertheless, no human court of law would convict me for my thoughts, even if I openly confessed to them.

The prison chaplain, probably the only good person in the film, sees good as a conscious choice not to do evil. He opposes the medical treatment that Alex volunteers to undergo. By saying that he's also criticising the state of innocence in which God created Adam and Eve. God didn't want his creations to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It was the Devil, in the form of a snake, who encouraged Eve to eat the fruit. It was the Devil who offered a choice. The Devil didn't just tempt mankind to do evil, he also offered mankind the opportunity to choose good.

Can I choose good over evil? That depends on whether Jesus' statements in Matthew 5 are correct. It's the thoughts in my mind that lead to the choice. I might think in my mind that a person deserves to die, but I've made the conscious choice not to kill him. I might lust after a woman, but (in most cases) I make the conscious choice not to have sex with her.

Taking a step back and considering the thoughts to be as evil as the deeds themselves, can I choose not to be angry? I think it's possible, though not easy. After a lifetime of self-discipline I find myself very rarely losing my temper. When my brother-in-law Wolfgang Hengel attacked me last year I was in complete control of my actions. I hit him three times, then stood back to give him enough room to run away. I felt no anger at all. On the other hand, when two Somalian teenagers attempted to rob me 10 years ago I was very angry with them because they made me drop the packet of chicken and chips that I'd just bought. That pushed me over the edge. My personal quest to conquer my anger isn't over yet.

As for sexual lust, I don't see that I have a choice. Lust drives me. If I see a scantily dressed woman I lust after her. If I see a woman who's covered up I imagine what she's like underneath her clothes. If I don't see a woman all day I lust after a woman I saw yesterday, last week or even 40 years ago. I'm a slave to my lust. I don't think that I could choose to stop lusting even if I wanted to. Does that mean I'm a bad person for lusting or an innocent person who can't make the choice to stop lusting?

I'll close by telling you that I gave my own questions to the psychological test at the end of the film, where Alex had to give a spontaneous answer to all the pieces of dialogue on the cards.