The controversial 1971 adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s button-pushing novel remains both utterly repellent and utterly compelling
Throughout his career, Stanley Kubrick never cared much about ingratiating himself to the audience, so it’s an achievement that A Clockwork Orange, his controversial adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel, is the most repellent film of his career. That’s not to say it isn’t an audacious and frequently brilliant film, but watching it can feel like getting into a 136-minute argument – with Kubrick, with yourself, and with a society that wrestles imperfectly (and often unjustly and tragically) with issues of law-and-order and individual rights. There’s something here to infuriate people on both ends of the political spectrum, and even if you accept it as a satire that has no ideological allegiances, that can be infuriating, too. And this is to say nothing of its extreme unpleasantness.
Yet we should neither run from difficult arguments nor hide from art that confronts us as seriously as Kubrick always did, and while A Clockwork Orange has settled into the pop-culture firmament – multiple references in classic episodes of The Simpsons will do that to a film – it still feels dangerous and vital 50 years later. As his previous work, 2001: A Space Odyssey, has settled appropriately as the great monolith of screen science fiction, A Clockwork Orange continues to be a moving target, liable not only to provoke you differently at different points in your life, but also from scene to scene. If it were released today, it would be a Three Mile Island-level event for the take industry.