A Clockwork Orange: The Glamorous Psychopath

In the age of the anti-hero, (think the Lannisters and the Underwoods) A Clockwork Orange’s hero, Alex, stands out as a prototype. Stanley Kubrick created a character who is the prime example of a strange but fascinating subset of the anti-hero type, which we like to call the glamorous psychopath.

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00:03
In the age of the anti-hero, among the Lannisters and the Underwoods, A Clockwork Orange’s
00:09
hero Alex stands out as a prototype and prime example of a strange but fascinating subset
00:14
of the anti-hero type. We like to call the glamorous psychopath.
00:19
[What we were after now is the old surprise visit. That was a real kick. And good for laughs and lashings of the
00:27
old ultra-violent.]
00:28
Unlike with other villains, in the case of the glamorous psychopath, it’s not the backstory
00:33
or some justification like cancer, or abuse, or oppression that explains behavior and keeps
00:38
us grudgingly sympathetic towards the horrible hero.
00:41
With Alex Burgess, it’s his pure elegance and the feeling that he is somehow superior to all
00:46
others around him.
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We are fascinated, because he’s smarter, more cultured, and does what he does better
00:52
than anyone else.
00:54
In the years since, we’ve been seduced by more examples of the glamorous psychopath type:
00:59
Catherine Trammell from Basic Instinct, Kathryn and Sebastian from Cruel Intentions, Silence of the Lambs’
01:06
Hannibal Lecter and NBC’s TV version Hannibal, the Wolf of Wall Street’s Jordan Belfort , and American
01:11
Psycho’s Patrick Bateman.
01:12
The image is so popular, it’s seeped out of movies and TV into the rest of our visual culture,
01:17
For music videos to fashion shoots.
01:20
As the unremitting violence of our entertainment proves, we are an aggressive species, but
01:26
society mostly requires us to suppress our violent urges.
01:30
So the fanciful glamorous psychopath allows us to vicariously experience a cathartic release
01:35
for this aggressive impulse, while remaining just surreal enough to make us feel it’s
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all safely fictional.
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So let’s look closer at how Burgess’ story and Kubrick’s images, music and direction work together
01:49
to elevate Alex from a teenage thug to a cult anti-hero, whose antics we guiltily enjoy.
01:55
[I’ve been doing nothing I shouldn’t sir.
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Alex is highly sophisticated and cultured, embodying a civilized intelligence
02:07
that sets him above and apart from others around him.
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As Burgess puts it, Alex is a human being endowed, even over-endowed with the three
02:15
essential attributes of man.
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“ [1] He rejoices in articulate language and even invents a new form of it… ; [2]
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he loves beauty, which he finds in Beethoven’s music above everything; [3] he is aggressive.”
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Alex is obviously more intelligent and well-spoken than his droogs and the other characters in
02:51
the movie.
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He quotes, he sings, he dances.
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He is ridiculously imaginative and his daydreams are humorous as well as vile.
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His speech and tastes are refined.
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He’s also the only character in the movie who has a true appreciation for art — he
03:12
loves Beethoven as much as he loves violence.
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Interestingly, NBC’s Hannibal Lecter, another cultured, elegant psychopath, at one point
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cooks a human leg to Beethoven’s ninth symphony, one of Alex’s favorites.
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On top of all these charming characteristics, Alex is played by Malcolm McDowell, who can’t
03:44
help but be charming, in a creepy Ramsey Bolton kind of way.
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In short, Alex is more human than any other character in the movie.
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Alex narrates the movie, so this privileges his perspective, but it’s not just that
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— he narrates in a language of his own invention, called Nadsat.
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Nadsat is a mix of Old English, rhyming slang and Anglicized Russian.
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Irvine Welsh points out that this language does more than simply show off Alex’s linguistic
04:33
talents.
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Alex’s lingo forces us to struggle to understand him, grasping at recognizable words and syntax
04:48
to complete his sentences.
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In this way, Alex quite literally forces us to hang on his every word.
05:01
Language reflects how we see the world, and in A Clockwork Orange we can either try to
05:05
understand Alex’s world on his terms, or not at all.
05:09
His narration highlights his nature as a true individual, which (even despite the need to
05:14
protect society from him) makes it somehow heartbreaking when he’s deprived of this
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individuality.
05:21
Kubrick made sure to use every ounce of set to show us more of Alex’s character.
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The room he created for Alex has a cult status of its own — one fan even spent 6 months
05:32
recreating Alex’s bed-cover.
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(Which, by the way, is designed to look like citrus fruits cut in half!)
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Through the decor we see Alex’s idiosyncratic sense of style and his appreciation for music
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and art.
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Also, movie-Alex has a pet snake named Basil, which symbolizes his sexual and violent instincts,
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but also shows that he has enough heart to care for another living creature.
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In the book Alex is only 17.
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McDowell, playing Alex, was 28, but thanks to the script and Kubrick’s set choices,
06:12
he still seems very juvenile.
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He uses a lot of childish words of his own invention.
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He decorates his prison cell wall with a collage of clippings and photos, reminding us that
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he really is just a grumpy teenager — a kid who skips school, demands to have a lock installed
06:34
on his door and cries when his parents upset him.
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Next to his evil hobbies, this childishness seems perverse, but still makes us inclined
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to cut Alex some slack.
06:47
Roger Ebert points out that the visual language Kubrick created for the movie encourages us
06:52
to see the world as Alex does.
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For parts of the movie, Kubrick uses a wide-angle lens, which at close range, distorts the sides
06:58
of the image.
07:00
The objects in the center of the screen look normal, but those on the edges tend to slant
07:04
upward and outward, becoming bizarrely elongated.
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Kubrick often places Alex at the centre of a wide-angle shot or uses a standard lens
07:13
on Alex alone so that he is the only one who is almost never distorted.
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As Ebert puts it, “so a visual impression is built up during the movie that Alex, and
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only Alex, is normal”.
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In the world of a Clockwork Orange, Alex is not alone in his delinquent activities.
07:38
There are other bands of criminals just as violent, if less stylish.
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And Alex’s merry band of sadists prowl a world that is just as morally bankrupt as
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they are.
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Mr. Deltoid is vile, the prison guards are incompetent, the victims are cartoonish and
07:51
unpleasant [the author and the cat lady especially].
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Dr. Brodsky and his colleagues, while “curing” others of cruelty, obviously enjoy the spectacle
08:00
of Alex getting beaten up and humiliated on stage.
08:03
Unlike all these hypocritical characters, who pretend to be good and socially responsible,
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Alex, at least, is honest with the audience from the start, which also helps to get us
08:11
on his side.
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Most of the dialogue scenes in the movie are taken directly from Burgess’ text, but a
08:26
few scenes have been cut or altered.
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Interestingly, all the changes that were made make Alex seem less horrible and the world
08:34
around him seem more horrible.
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Alex’s first three assaults are cut.
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So is the murder Alex commits in prison.
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Kubrick also glossed over certain especially incriminating details.
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For example, the girls Alex meets at the record shop were no more than ten years old according
08:49
to the book, and in the book, Alex brutally rapes them.
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In the movie, the girls are consenting adults and the sex is, if anything, comical, the
08:58
skip-frame high-speed motion making the girls and Alex look like wind up toys.
09:03
Most importantly, Kubrick completely excluded the last chapter of the book, in which Alex,
09:07
wiser and calmer at the ripe old age of 18, starts to reevaluate his evil ways.
09:13
Kubrick dismissed it as “unconvincing and inconsistent with the style and intent of
09:18
the book.” and chose to end the movie on Alex’s return to his natural violent state.
09:23
By making this the last scene of the movie, Kubrick gives it special meaning and weight
09:26
— Alex is violent again and all is well with the world, he seems to say.
09:29
[“Oh I was cured alright!”]
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Kubrick shoots the “ultra-violence” in a way that makes it feel unreal and distant.
09:42
The violent scenes are often set to music or slowed down, and this along with the wide-camera
09:50
lens breaks the illusion of reality.
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Alex and his crew are dressed in matching white suits, their movements are choreographed
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— at a certain point the whole thing starts looking like a zesty dance more than anything.
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Alex, guided by Kubrick’s eye for beauty, manages to make even sexual assault look perversely
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aestheticized.
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Other scenes, with their exaggerated movement and sound effects, are almost slapstick, no
10:14
more frightening than a Tom and Jerry Cartoon.
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The beautified choreographed violence is what made Kubrick’s critics especially angry,
10:21
and what makes the film enduringly controversial and upsetting to many.
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But actually, most of Alex’s violence is shot in a way that makes it allegorical and
10:31
easier to stomach — compared to the hyper-real brutality that’s commonplace today — so
10:35
it’s almost as if we’re not meant to interpret the violence as real or part of our world.
10:45
A Clockwork Orange has a lot in common with a fairy tale, especially in its deliberately
10:50
heavy use of coincidence and plot symmetry – Alex is assaulted by the exact same victims
10:55
that he assaults This fearful symmetry is especially evident in the scene with the author
11:03
torturing Alex – here Kubrick uses the same long pull away zoom shot he used to introduce
11:09
us to Alex in the opening scene of the film.
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This fable-like mythical quality further distances us from the story, because it signifies that
11:21
what we are viewing is an allegory for aspects of our own lives — like our individualism,
11:27
aggression and frustration — set in a world that’s removed from our own.
11:30
In a clockwork orange Kubrick built a world that is recognizable but also weirdly grotesque,
11:36
just like a clockwork orange.
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The costume design, casting and sets are peppered with details that make the whole thing seem
11:42
like a perverse fairytale.
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Alex’s mom is a wispy old lady, crying quietly into a Kleenex, but she wears patent leather
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dresses and colorful wigs.
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Both the young delinquents and respectable opera singers seem to go to the same Korova
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Milkbar where they all, presumably, squirt drugged milk into their glasses out of plexiglass
12:00
breasts.
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The Clockwork Orange world ends up looking more like a funhouse mirror reflection of
12:05
our world, rather than a real dystopian future.
12:08
The central idea of Burgess’ book has to do with the question of free-will.
12:19
Is it better to be bad of one’s own free will, or to be good through scientific brainwashing?
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Burgess points out that when something cold and mechanical, like scientific conditioning
12:30
or state oppression, is forced upon a living thing, the result is perverse and senseless
12:35
— like a clockwork orange.
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Kubrick’s adaptation was very faithful to Burgess’ book, but he understood that in
12:43
the film “the dramatic impact […] had principally to do with the extraordinary character
12:48
of Alex.”
12:50
Audiences and critics alike were horrified by Alex when Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation
12:54
of Anthony Burgess’ novel first came out.
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The New Yorker called Kubrick a “bad pornographer,” while Roger Ebert criticized the film for
13:03
pretending to “oppose the police state and forced mind control,” while really just
13:07
enjoying the nastiness of the hero, Alex.
13:09
But it is precisely this nastiness that keeps the film’s cult status alive and growing
13:15
today.
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So, by the end of the movie, we’ve been seduced by the hero and by Kubrick into actually
13:19
feeling relieved when Alex returns to his natural violent state.
13:23
For a while, watching the film, we enjoy seeing things Alex’s way, with no decency to hold
13:28
us back.
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His antics make us feel powerful.
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They offer an antidote to the anxiety of our own social structures.
13:34
Burgess wrote A Clockwork Orange with the citizens of huge industrial cities in mind,
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like New York and London, whose work is often terribly routine, their food and clothing
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and home standardized.
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“When your life ticks along like a Woolworth’s alarm clock,” characters like Alex offer
13:50
audiences a vicarious respite from all that, allowing us to briefly fantasizing about being
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some exceptional, out-of-this-world creature who ignores the rules imposed by society and
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is good enough to get away with it.