Clockwork Orange Stuff

In my Film and Lit class we are watching Clockwork Orange. This is a response I posted. We have only watched the first half of the film thus far (though I have seen it before).

I think Christian makes some really interesting points about the way that criminals and the authorities have a weird, symbiotic relationship. I once worked with a guy who had a hard upbringing with some gang affiliation and he told me that he felt the cops were just another gang, but better funded. While I don’t necessarily agree, I think that this really demonstrates the kind of relationship demonstrated in the movie. Alex proves to be intelligent in a Machiavellian way when he deals with his ‘droogs’, however he also demonstrates intelligence in the way that he interacts with the authorities. He says all the right things. Even when he is bloody in the interrogation room, he is trying to convince them that while he committed a crime, it is really the rest of his gang that is more responsible.

It is in fact Alex’s intelligence that I think makes the film most disturbing. He is someone who is smart in his way, but probably feels as though he is above other people. He clearly looks down on his parents and on adults and women and really, everybody. He seems always to be working some angle, even when he is in prison he works as an alter boy and volunteers for the procedure (which we will see on Thursday), because he thinks that it will get him sprung sooner.

As for organized chaos, I’m not sure that I believe that the chaos is organized, as much as it has been operationalized. The system has adapted to accept the violence and chaos rather than address the circumstances that produce it.