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Kubrick is careful not to specify the time of the film (roughly toward the end of the 1970s), so it becomes a kind of cautionary fable. Its violence is totally stylized, dreamlike, absurd. It is all set to music, ranging from Beethoven ("Ludwig van" is a big favorite of Alex's) to Singin' in the Rain, which Alex croons happily as he tap dances about, kicking one of his victims. Language is likewise abstracted. Alex's street slang hints at influences from Russia ("devotchka" for girl, "malchiks" for boys). Even what passes for normal language has been drastically altered, as when the Minister of the Interior says, "But enough of words—actions speak louder than. Action now. Observe all."
This kind of madhouse fantasy finally leads to a dead end, an ultimate negation. The political extremes in the film are both represented as the two sides of demagoguery. The Minister of the Interior is a kind of well tailored Goebbels, an unctuous fascist. His opposite number is a radical writer named
Alexander (Patrick Magee), who is given to saying things like "The common people must be led! Driven! Pushed!"
As Alex, Malcolm McDowell is sensational. His performance has the range and dynamism that signal the arrival of a new superstar. As for Director Kubrick, his work is stylistically almost flawless. If there was any doubt after 2001, A Clockwork Orange confirms Kubrick as our most audacious film maker. There have been many visions of a malign future on film (1984, Things to Come, Fahrenheit 451) but none quite so unsparing and so ruthlessly witty. Kubrick adapted the script himself from Burgess's book, and the intellectual symmetry of the writing is admirable.
Yet, as with the novel, there is something troublesome about the film. A Clockwork Orange does not engage us fully on an emotional level. There is something about it a little too neat and too cold. The wit is there, and the ironic perception. It is funny and it is frightening, partly because of the world it presents but also because of the dispassionate attitude it adopts toward that world. One misses a sense of grief or of rage, and finally, a portion of humanity.
He calls them, with some disdain, "your usual Kubrick anecdotes." He can even tick off, in rapid succession, the most common stories about himself. There is the grooming story: how his wardrobe consists almost exclusively of blue blazers, gray trousers, black shoes and socks, thereby ending any worry about what to wear. Then there are the stories about his mania for safety: how he will not ride in a car going more than 30 m.p.h. (unless he is behind the wheel), and how he wore a special helmet while working on some of the intricate 2001 sets.