Clockwork orange is a 1971 film adaption of the 1962 novel of the same name. The film features disturbing, violent images, facilitating its social commentary on psychiatry, youth gangs, and other social, political and economic subjects in a dystopian, future Britain.
The film is based around a boy named Alex, and him and his 'Droogs' go around doing extremely violent things such as rape, beating people up, fighting one of the other many youth gangs and stealing. Eventually Alex's Droogs betray him, and he ends up with a 14 year prison sentence for murder. Two years into the sentence Alex is offered a chance to be a volunteer for the ludovico technique, which he accepts. This technique involves drugging and strapping the subject to a chair, propping his eyelids open and forcing him to watch violent images. Alex is initially pleased with the violent images he sees until the drugs being to make him feel nauseated, his favorite composer Ludwig Van Beethoven is also being played and Alex realises that he will then feel nauseated when he hears this music. After two weeks of the treatment Alex is part of a demonstration to show that he is 'cured', and he is shown to be incapable of committing any crimes or fighting back. The question of the film is that there is no morality without choice, so is it right, or fair to do that to Alex? When Alex is released he fins that the police have took his possessions and his parents have rented out his old room. Alex, now homeless, encounters the man whom he beat up, and raped his wife. This man then attacks him using the beethoven music along with several other friends. Alex is then saved by two policemen who turn out to be two of his former Droogs, who drag him to the countryside to beat him and almost drown him. Alex wakes up to find himself being treated by Mr. Alexander and his manservant, Julian. Mr. Alexander does not remember Alex from the earlier attack but has read about his treatment in the newspapers, and sees Alex as a political weapon to usurp the government. As Mr. Alexander prepares to introduce Alex to fellow colleagues, he hears Alex singing "Singin' in the Rain" in the bath, and the memories of the earlier assault return. With his colleagues' help, Mr. Alexander drugs Alex and places him in a locked upstairs bedroom, playing Beethoven through the floor below. Alex, in excruciating pain, throws himself from the window and is knocked unconscious by the fall.Alex wakes up in a hospital, having dreamt about doctors messing around inside his head. While being given a series of psychological tests, Alex finds that he no longer has an aversion to violence. The Minister of the Interior arrives and apologizes to Alex, letting him know that Mr. Alexander has been "put away", and offers Alex an important government job. As a sign of goodwill, the Minister brings in a stereo system playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Alex then realizes that instead of an adverse reaction to the music, he sees an image of himself having sex with a woman in front of an approving crowd. He then states, in a sarcastic and menacing voice-over, "I was cured, all right!"
Problems started when the press reported a spate of supposed copy-cat crimes. The first and most famous was the case involving a 16 year old boy beating a tramp to death.
Edward Laxton reported in the Daily Mirror, "The terrifying violence of the film A Clockwork Orange fascinated a quiet boy from a Grammar School...And it turned him into a brutal murderer". Laxton continues, "The boy viciously battered to death a harmless old tramp as he acted out in real life a scene straight from the movie A Clockwork Orange”
A clockwork orange began to be developed into an euphemism in the press for referring to teenage crime and social deviance.
The youth of the day saw A Clockwork Orange in a completely different light. Waht they saw was a representation of a life they had already lived. In working class urban areas the violence and the tribal identity of Alex and his Droogs was a reflection or football hooliganism, gang fighting and loyalty to your friends.
Moral panic was created by the press about the effect the film had on groups of teenagers and encouraging societal deviance and stories were reported in newspapers with headlines such as "'Clockwork Orange' gang found guilty of killing bar manager" and "Girls 'kicked gay man to death in attack like scene from A Clockwork Orange'".
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