Film: A Clockwork Orange (1971)

One film that is famous for its portrayal of "bad" behaviour is Kurbrick's now cult classic: "A Clockwork Orange".

In 1972 Kurbrick self censored and banned his film from being viewed in the UK after suffering pressure from the media and politicians. After they blamed his film for the rise in crime within the UK during the 1970's.

As this article fully explains, http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0012.html , Kurbrick banned the film in the UK for rest of his life time after reports of "copy cat" crimes. Tramps being beaten to death and rapes of young girls to the soundtrack of "Singing in the Rain" were reported.

However, the press only emphasised the extreme cases. Besides murder and rape A Clockwork Orange also deals with the less extreme yet still immoral behaviour of drug taking, speeding, driving under the influence and vandalism. Things that I believe viewers of the film were more likely to "copy cat", yet the press never covered them as these are things that did and still happen almost everyday.

Now, eleven years after Kurbricks death you can pick up a DVD copy of A Clockwork Orange for £3 and myself, only having being legally able to watch this film for two years, have already viewed it twice and own a copy. In fact, it is one of my favourite films, but although I possess no urge to mimic any of the behaviour this doesn't mean everyone will feel the same way... does it?

Personally, I believe placing such a heavy ban on the film only upped the film in appeal. I've heard stories of how people travelled far and wide just to watch it. It was dangerous and that was exciting. Some people like to rebel, fact. By banning the film the actions and behaviour shown were made appealing.

Ok, so it isn't like the main character's, Alex, bad behaviour, extreme or otherwise, is not punished. Audiences watch Alex find himself in prison and also enduring aversion therapy. The film does express that these actions do have consequences. Just because these do not work on Alex does not mean that Kurbrick is implying it is ok for audiences do these things. I think it was more about the idea that Alex is a "bad egg", to put it lightly, and the mature and intended audiences I think get that.

Overall, I feel the only reason this film was banned was because of it's extreme behaviour, if people really felt like the film should have been banned for it's easily mimicked behaviour there would have been more coverage given to the immoral issues than just the extremes. But more importantly a lot of modern films e.g. Trainspotting, would have never made it past the cutting room floor. In a way A Clockwork Orange did immoral and "bad" behaviour a favour, as it made them look harmless in comparison to the extremes that they are placed against. Although it is quite obvious that the "bad" behaviour was the beginning of the extremes it appears this was over looked due to the shock of the extremes and is why, in many cases, it is still over looked today.