A Paper About The Movie a Clockwork Orange – 1971

Liberalism and neoliberalism try to make a world order without wars with international organizations, a world government, in which all states are cooperative rather than competitive and without borders especially economically and full of liberty. It can be possible because they think the human nature is not evil, it is good and helpful. Although anarchism thinks just like that human nature is good, it says there is no need a government or state. It totally rejects a world government idea. Human being itself is self-sufficient to live happily according to anarchist idea. To sum up, as it mentioned, anarchism rejects the mainstream theories and their subsequent new versions in these terms. This critical theory affects many and it became talked in many books and many movies.

One of them is “A Clockwork Orange” which will be reviewed in this paper. “A Clockwork Orange” is the movie based on the novel has the same name written by John Burgess Wilson or Anthony Burgess (1917-1993) in 1962. Around those years, Burgess got sick and needed to earn money, and because of that when he was writing to be paid, suddenly he created his scary dystopia which affected many people deeply. The dystopic novel adapted into an American movie lasting 136 minutes with same name by perfectionist director Stanley Kubrick in 1971. It nominated for four Oscars and won many other awards. The story is about a young maybe disgusting boy’s, Alex, long journey from a horrific gangster lifestyle to prison, and from the prison to a robotic lifestyle which is dictated by the state. This movie is favored an anarchist one but actually, in the movie, anarchism is not talked directly, especially the individualist anarchism can be seen rather than an anarchist revolution which tries to destroy and eliminate the state ruling. It will be analyzed in several part comparing and explaining with the theory of anarchism. At the beginning of the story, there are four young school boys as gangsters who do not care the rules and order in society. These boys at all nights drink drugged milk, in a terrifying bar where there are many naked women bodies used as tables, which makes them provoked to assault innocent people’s lives and rights. There is no exceptional night that the boys extort somebody, steal valuable watches or diamonds and rape some women. In first stage, there is of course state, but it is too weak. No one obey the rules especially the young boys, moreover there are many gangs of school-aged male human beings. And another point that is noticed, the sexuality in the story. Human body both male and female is very worthless and no one respects it.

All walls, homes and bars are full of naked human body and sexual organ images such as portraits and statues. In short, the system is damaged and the atmosphere is very eerie. To connect it with the anarchism, actually this type of a life style is not directly connected with anarchist theory. Because it sees human being is good and when s/he become totally free from state pressure, human being make contact with other and cooperate and create a beautiful, peaceful world. However, in the movie, the naughty boys run riot when they feel a decrease in state force just like realism foresees. The old drunk man in the street which is beaten by these young guys in the first scene says that, there is no respect to older ones because there is neither order nor rule. It reflects to directly anarchy in domestic and the anarchy impels the people’s evilness and creates conflict just the opposite of what anarchism says. Moreover, at the same night, the gang fights against another gang which catches a young woman and try to rape her. Then Alex and his boys enter a home own by an old author and his wife in that night. The gang beats the man and rapes his wife who tries to help them while they saying there is an accident and they need to call the ambulance to be able to enter the home.

All this story makes people horrified because the anarchist theory never ever talks about these possibilities when people led alone. It just talks about the beautiful cooperation and kindness of human beings but isn’t it a little bit utopic? The movie shows all realities. Another striking part of the movie, the anarchist boys have a hierarchy in each other. Alex is the chief and when they rebel against Alex, he show his power and make them obey his rules. It tells that even in a small group just includes four young people has a hierarchical order and even in this hierarchy there is conflict. So, how it can be possible to self-governing by all people in the world without any war? This question also shows how much a utopic idea is anarchism. And according to the theory, human being is good and cooperative but at the end of the first part of the movie, Alex and other boys break into a mansion and Alex kills the innocent lady who lives with her tens of cats. His friends leave him alone, and the cops arrest him. These totally challenges the idea of anarchism, firstly good human kills an innocent person and also cooperative human beings leave their friend alone although they are all criminal. It makes anarchism a frivolous idea which cannot be verified with real life examples and makes the critics coming from anarchism to mainstream theories fallacious. After arresting Alex, the second part of the movie starts. Firstly he is beaten in the police station because of killing an innocent human.

Then he is sent to prison. He spends his two years with murderers, rapists and thieves but he is lucky because prison’s priest takes him to help the rituals. After some abuses from other prisoners, he is chosen for an experiment under the state control which is for making people forget and disgust the violence in themselves. In experiment, a lot of things are used on Alex. For example, firstly he is vaccinated, and then the doctors show him very disturbing photos and videos including murders, bombs, and rapes over innocent people. He is not allowed to blink by using a special machine on his eyes. Most of the time he screams but the show does not stop. At the end of the experiment, Alex is putted on a stage in front of the statesmen to show the outcome of the experiment. They create a man without wildness and violence unlike before. A man is sent to beat Alex in front of all spectators and as they expect Alex does not fight with the man when he attacks him. After this scene, a naked woman is sent and Alex even does not look her. All audience applauds him while standing up because the state achieves her goal. She creates an angel from a murderer. All the story since here is totally rejected by anarchism because the theory almost rejects the idea of state, but in these scenes state, herself, uses power over a weak human being who choose being bad with his own will turns to a robotic good creature without will. It is not just a thing which should be eliminated but also immoral. While anarchism saying state should leave people alone and it is an institution should be got rid of, on the contrary state starts to use illegitimate and immoral experiments over her citizens.

According to anarchism, conflict cannot be got over using power. If people have a chance under full of freedom they choose being good but under state ruling they cannot enjoy their freedom and rights and it causes the conflict. State failed to make an order over citizens and in international realm and will not be able to be successful by using her immoral authority and corrupted power over free will of human beings. In the movie, there is a guy who thinks just like that, state cannot use a person as a test subject. The state cannot take the right of choosing being good or bad by own will of the citizens. -Actually according to anarchism there should not be citizenship.- It creates classes and differences between people as ruling and ruled one. Who is the guy? The man is the author at the beginning of the movie, when he is writing something, his door is knocked and the stories’ stars -the four boys- come and get into his house and beat him and rape his wife, and also after this violence his wife commits suicide. He is not aware of it but with his ideas he helps Alex who is a brutal murderer and rapist. But he does not know Alex actually. If he knows him, does he continue to try to stop the state’s experiment? Actually it is the question to directly anarchist idea that when someone beats another one, there is nothing to stop that violence because state is eliminated. Actually theory says there will not be any violence but it is the human nature, how it can be trustable? In this movie, it is queried. Also, the third and last part of the movie will give an answer to it. After getting out from the prison, he cannot adapt his new life. He is beaten again by cops and threw around the author’s home. He comes again this home and is taken inside. At first, the authors cannot remember him but after a while he recognizes who he is. After a while, he makes Alex getting shocked and throw himself from the window. He does it for two reason, first he tries to use this suicide against the state’s this application and the other reason is taking revenge of his wife.

Alex gets hurt and the suicide is written on newspapers as a failure of the government. At end of the story, the president comes to Alex in hospital and tries to give some bribes to prevent them talk to newspapers against the government. All these scenes show that theories, especially anarchism in the movie, are fallible in sometimes so having great ideas especially utopic ones makes this fallibility even much more. First of all, the author is a human being and has desires, so he betrays his thoughts and spends a young boy’s life for revenge against to Alex himself and advantage against to state. Anarchism fails in here, because it says human being is good and cooperative rather than selfish. The advocate of the theory betrays the idea first. Of course state fails also but it does not verify the anarchist idea. Anarchism tries to protect liberty of human being however state also tries to protect rights and security of the human being. At the end, the story shows all complexity of the theories and realities. For a general review, anarchism is a utopian theory while it has worthy perspectives of life and order. As mentioned in the story, human being cannot be known exactly or cannot be defined as good by anarchist and liberal/neoliberal theories or bad by realist theory. Actually just like Kenneth Waltz says, human being may be both but instituting a theory based on human nature is not a sturdy origin. But it does not mean that state should create robotic human beings who do not have own will to choose being good or bad.

As anarchism says, people should enjoy their freedom and rights limitlessly but there should be an overarching authority which prevents the conflict. People should choose their acts but there should be sanctions for them to prevent violence. Actually when going to the beginning, in other words looking creating the state idea first, if there was no violence and no terror between people they did not want to give their own rights to an overarching authority. The state idea based on the security need. In the state of nature, even the weaker one could kill the stronger one in her/his sleep. People needed something to avoid it and created state. If they were successful in state of nature about preventing the violence, they did not need state. Is state is successful all the time, of course not. But for most people, state ensures the security except failed ones which is the danger itself of their citizens. In such a world and though the historical background saying human nature is good and cooperative, when s/he has a chance, s/he shows her/his pure goodness and s/he is able to govern her/himself alone is very utopic when comparing the mainstream theories and history. To sum up, the movie indicates some points such as human selfishness, state failures and violence without order and within order. The anarchism which is told in the movie, is in contradiction with itself, but not just anarchism has contradictions, but also state ruling is shown how selfish and corrupt.