A Clockwork Orange

The roles Beethoven plays are shown through his music, posters and statues. Beethoven image is much like a religious icon throughout the movie. In the first scene the audience hears Beethoven is in Alexander 'Alex' de Large bedroom. Alex is trying to unwind after a hard night of violent acts, and popped in the exhilarating song, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. We begin viewing repeated images of four Jesuses crucified in a whimsical chorus dance, a Boa snake slithering around the room, which brings to mind the garden of Eden. All this is happening in Alex’s bedroom, which is painted a pure white signifying purity, a place where Alex is cleansed of all his sins.
Beethoven images are use throughout the film. For example, he is seen on the window curtain and a poster of Beethoven in his room. Later in another scene the viewer hears the sweet, sweet sounds of Beethoven being played is in Alex’s bedroom again; during this he starts having a threesome. This is an unusual thing because the song and the threesome in the movie are both sped up fast. Just before that scene Alex dresses up as Beethoven and goes shopping for music. He plays the role of his idol, Beethoven, to seduce the two girls back to his bedroom to have the sexual threesome. One more image of Beethoven is shown, that I remember, is the scene of the murder of the old red haired woman with the many cats, she tries to beat him with a statue of Beethoven just before he kills her with a large statue of a penis.
The poniant scene where one character learns the identity of another character solely through the use of a song is toward the end of the movie when Alex is at the home of the writer, Mr. Alexander. Alex is relaxed in the bathtub, just after his brutal beating and happy that Mr. Alexander does not recognize him. In the emotional happiness Alex starts to sing “Singing in the Rain” when Mr. Alexander goes to check on him and by Alex’s voice, Mr. Alexander realizes that he is the same brutal thug that rape his wife.
The music played in the first half of the movie is peaceful, emotional and exhilarating. It is showing the emotion of Alex happy and horny. We hear Classical music played during Alex’s acts of stealing, rape, murder and violence merely because it feels good, giving the audience the emotional stamina of Alex during these acts. The tempo of the music and the action are similar because to Alex it is an act of art. The music in the old rundown theater is very dramatically played out like a ballet than violent gangs fighting. The music that accompanies their gang fight is another classic song that is uplifting and sounds in oppossion to the act of violence.
The music in the second half of the movie when Alex is sent to jail for murder the music is up beat and uses the graduation march as the background music. The music is implying Alex is going through an educational system, being reformed. Alex, while in the jail, was every polite and helpful after taken out of his element.
One trivia fact that I learned from IMBD.com is that in the scene where Alex is beat up by police, “Kubrick uses no music, suggesting that the police are simply brutal thugs, not artists working in the medium of violence.,” which is an astute strategy for Kubrick. The art of murder is a profound experience through the eyes of a mad man, but to the unimaginative police, it is more upsetting than Alex’s violence and murder. Alex’s old brothers taking revenge on him as empowered policeman and disturbingly beat him and drowned in a horse troft. “Stanley Kubrick uses no music, and the blood flows, suggesting that the police are simply brutal thugs, not artists working in the medium of violence. (IMBD)”
After Alex is brainwashed into feeling sick at the thought of violence or sex, they condition him with the song Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Alex stumbles to the writer’s house once more where Mr. Alexander discovers Alex is responsible for his disabling injuries and indirectly for the death of his wife. Mr. Alexander tortures Alex with a recording of Beethoven's 9th the same electronic version of Beethoven, which accompanied the mind-control film in prison.
I think the director wants to make the audience to question the reasoning in using classic music. And to make the view not feel the same way Alex does in his violence rages in turn making the audience feel sick of what Alex is doing. These songs are emotional and the opposite of violent. We feel the passion in the sounds because it is one of the most uplifting song ever made making the audience happy, which is creating and depicting the same feelings Alex is have at that time.
My reaction is that I enjoyed the movie, but it is a cult classic that I have seen many, many times. The movie “A Clockwork Orange” is getting right up there with “Apocalypse Now”, constant reference to the film are always brought up for discussion. I think it is because the films are a very thought provoking dialogue and imagery. Stanley Kubrick is allowing use to look in side the character Alex. Even though we maybe disturbed at time by some of the insights in to Alex like his idea on rape and sex of woman.