But, if you can't make a case for the whole thing being a "horror-show," you certainly can with this scene, as Alex enjoys the "hospitality" of his host, Mr. Alexander—the very man he crippled earlier in the film—who has just realized that the young man he's rescued is the same one who led the attack on his home years earlier. The fellow is already a bit unhinged (and ironically, he is ideologically in sympathy with Alex over the "aversion-therapy" he received in prison), but knowing the kid is alive and in his clutches has him completely off the rails (and Patrick Magee's blood-vessel-bursting performance turns that description into an understatement). Magee had a history with the Hammer Studios that specialized in horror films and his quivering, spittle-flying acting here is, at the very least, unsettling. Stuck between him and "The Man Who Would be Vader," it's no wonder Alex is a bit worried...scared...frightened.
Filled with dread.
And that's what horror is all about. Dread. Horror makes us familiar with the dreadful without...hopefully...making a commitment. It is both nerve-wracking...and a bit thrilling in one throbbing heart-beat. We get to stare at the abyss without it staring into us. We get to hunt the tiger and not become the tiger. We get the adrenaline but not the jail-time.
Horror gives us both the thrill of bad and the choice to avoid it.
And, ultimately, choice is what A Clockwork Orange is all about. Choice and what we do with it.
The Set-Up: Alex (Malcolm McDowell) is a bad kid. "Ruffian" is much too refined a word. He's a sociopath who rapes and pillages his way through a London of the future and is completely incorrigible. After a series of crimes, including a brutal home invasion and a murder, he is finally arrested (set up by his former gang-members) and sent to prison. While there, he is recruited for a scientific experiment in behavior modification of the criminally-minded that is being championed by the current government. Declared cured, he is released back "into the wild," where his ability to fight back is compromised by the treatment—"the Ludovico Technique"—and he finds himself preyed upon by the very people he originally attacked.
Circumstance, coincidence, Fate, or a particularly dark-humored Justice finds him in the care of the very man he'd earlier attacked and beaten (Patrick Magee) and his care-taker (David Prowse—he would later become the man in the Darth Vader mask). That man—a writer of some repute—has plan for little Alex. Oh, yes, he does.
But enough of words. Actions speak louder than. Action, now. Observe, all.
INT. "HOME" — NIGHT
ALEX Good evening, sir.
MR. ALEXANDER(very weird) Good evening.
MR. ALEXANDER No, my health doesn't allow it.
ALEX(to Julian) And you, sir?
JULIAN No thank you.
His face contorted in rage.
ALEX Phoned some friends, sir?
ALEX Help me, sir?
MR. ALEXANDER Help you.
MR. ALEXANDER They're very, very important people...
MR. ALEXANDER Julian. This will be these people now.
ALEX Look, sir. I'm sorry to have troubled you. I think I ought to be going, sir.
Julian bars the way.
MR. ALEXANDER No, no my boy. No trouble at all.
Dolin and Rubinstein enter with Julian.
MR. ALEXANDER Good evening, sir.
ALEX How do you do, sir?
DOLIN Hullo.
RUBINSTEIN Hullo.
ALEX Very kind of you, sir. Thank you very much.
ALEX Yes, sir. I suppose you might call it that, sir.
DOLIN Hahaha, and how are you feeling now?
ALEX Much better, thank you, sir.
DOLIN Feel like talking to us. Answering a few questions?
ALEX Fine, sir, fine.
ALEX Thank you very much, sir.
DOLIN But first we'd like to find out a few things about you.
ALEX What would you like to know, sir?
ALEX Yes, sir.
Rubinstein takes out a notebook.
He leans over and looks at her writing in notebook.
RUBINSTEIN So now you have the same reaction to music as you do to sex and violence?
ALEX Oh well, it's... it's not all music you see, Missus. It's just the 9th.
RUBINSTEIN You mean Beethoven's 9th Symphony?
ALEX That's right. Er... I can't listen to the 9th any more at all. When I hear the 9th, I get like this funny feeling.
RUBINSTEIN When you say this funny feeling, you mean the state of mind brought on by the treatment they gave you?
ALEX That is correct, sir. And then all I can think about is like...
ALEX Snuff it, sir... um... death, I mean, missus... Er... I just want to die peacefully like with no... pain.
ALEX Um... well, put it this way... I feel very low in myself.
Words by Anthony Burgess and Stanley Kubrick
Pictures by John Alcott and Stanley Kubrick
A Clockwork Orange is available on DVD from Warner Home Video.
* The language that Anthony Burgess created for the hooligans in the future he called "nadsat"—a combination of rhyming slang and Russian. Burgess was convinced of future Russian influence in the future, so he incorporated it into his language. For the record, "good" in Russian is "хорошо," which is pronounced "horoshrow."
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