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Directed by Stanley Kubrick 1971

Plot Summary for

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

In a futuristic Britain, a gang of teenagers go on the rampage every night, beating and raping helpless victims. After one of the boys quells an uprising in the gang, they knock him out and leave him for the police to find. He agrees to try "aversion therapy" to shorten his jail sentence. When he is eventually let out, he hates violence, but the rest of his gang members are still after him.

Summary written by Colin Tinto {cst@imdb.com}

In the not-too-distant future, a charming young sociopath named Alex, leads a nihilistic lifestyle of 'ultraviolence' which comes to a head when he is jailed for murder and volunteers for an experimental brainwashing treatment to reform criminals in exchange for a shorter prison sentence.

Summary written by Denny Gibbons

Alex, a teenage hooligan in a near-future Britain, gets jailed by the police. There he volunteers as guinea pig for a new aversion therapy proposed by the government to make room in prisons for political prisoners. "Cured" of his hooliganism and released, he is rejected by his friends and relatives. Eventually nearly dying, he becomes a major embarrassment for the government, who arrange to cure him of his cure. A pivotal moment is when he and his gang break into an author's home: the book he is writing (called "A Clockwork Orange") is a plea against the use of aversion therapy, on the grounds that it turns people into Clockwork Oranges (Ourang is Malay for "Man"): they are not being good from choice (sentiments later echoed by the prison chaplain). The film reflects this: many bad scenes in a Clockwork Orange are accompanied by jolly music; if we are to experience them as we should, we have to do it consciously, by realising they are bad, and not because the director tells us so through the use of music and images.

Summary written by Steven Pemberton {Steven.Pemberton@cwi.nl}

Alex, a violent juvenile in the near future, is caught after a number of brutal rapes and murders. While imprisoned, he submits to a controversial experiment to make criminals ill at the mildest suggestion of violence or conflict. Now Alex's victims want to welcome him back into society with the same enthusiasm Alex had always exhibited when performing his crimes.

Set in a futuristic England (circa 1995), the film follows the career of a young man named Alex whose main pleasures in life are classical music (especially Beethoven), rape, and random acts of "ultraviolence". Alex is approximately 15 years of age at the film's beginning, and about 17-18 years of age at the film's end. Alex provides a voiceover narration through most of the film, relating his story in a fractured teenage vernacular called 'Nadsat', a combination of Slav, English, and British slang.

Eventually Alex is caught, and is sentenced to 14 years in jail, of which he serves 2 years. He is then 'rehabilitated' by an experimental program of aversion therapy (called the Ludovico technique), spearheaded by the government in an effort to solve society's crime problem. The therapy renders him incapable of violence (even in self-defense), but in an unintended side effect, also makes him unable to enjoy Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The doctors whisper to themselves that 'it can't be helped' and that this is 'The punishment element, perhaps?'

Stripped of the ability to fight back, Alex soon falls afoul of two of his former partners-in-crime (who, having both joined the police, nearly drown him), and some of his former victims. He is then captured by anti-government activists (one of whom is a former victim seeking revenge) who drive him insane by playing Beethoven's Ninth; Alex tries to commit suicide by jumping out a window but fails.

After a long recovery in hospital, Alex seems to be back to his former self. While in the hospital, the Minister of the Interior (who had personally selected Alex for the special treatment) visits Alex and apologizes for the treatment program, saying that he was only following the recommendations of his staff. Alex is then promised a position in government if he agrees to campaign on behalf of the ruling political party, whose public image has been severely damaged in the wake of Alex's suicide attempt. The closing shots of the film feature Alex's voiceover saying "I was cured all right...", anticipating his return to creating havoc. The film ends with an erotic and surreal image of two naked women playing in a pool of mud, surrounded by applauding Victorian gentlemen with last part of the fourth movement of BeethovenÐ'Ò's Ninth played in the background.

Character List

Alex - The fifteen-year-old narrator and protagonist. Alex is the vicious leader of a gang of criminals who occasionally go to school by day and then rape and pillage by night. He loves classical music and finds that violence and music provide him with similar kinds of aesthetic pleasure. Alex believes that commitment to idealsÐ'--whatever those ideals might beÐ'--is of paramount importance, and he disdains people who seem to him to be living without purpose. Despite Alex's brutality and his natural leadership potential, Alex remains quite naÐ"Їve and immature, which allows him to be manipulated by both the government and F. Alexander's political dissidents.

Alex

Alex is the narrator and protagonist of A Clockwork Orange. Every word on the page is his, and we experience his world through the sensations he describes and the suffering he endures. He is at once generic and highly individual, mindless and substantive, knowingly evil and innocently likeable.

At first, Alex appears to be little more than a robot programmed for violence. In the world of the novel, youth violence is a major social problem, and Alex represents a typicalÐ'--though highly successfulÐ'--teenager. He dresses in the "heighth of fashion," frequents all of the popular hangouts, and is the undisputed leader of his gang. Like most teenagers