A Clockwork Orange Movie: Key Facts

A Clockwork Orange Movie Key Facts

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Full title: A Clockwork Orange

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Lead Cast: Malcolm McDowell as Alex

Supporting Cast: Michael Bates, Warren Clarke, Carl Duerring, Paul Farrell, Clive Francis, Michael Gover, Miriam Karlin, Patrick Magee, James Marcus, Aubrey Morris, Sheila Raynor, Godfrey Quigley, Anthony Sharp, Philip Stone

Writer: Stanley Kubrick (adapted from the novel by Anthony Burgess)

Producer: Warner Brothers

Genre Science Fiction/Fantasy

Language English

Awards

1971 Academy Awards:

Nominated: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing

Date of Release: 1971

Setting (time & Place): A major English city in the future

Foreshadowing: The events in the first half of A Clockwork Orange foreshadow the events in the second half. The characters Alex victimizes in the first half all come back to victimize him. As the second half of the film starts and we see this pattern occurring, we begin to predict the sequence of events that follow.

Major conflict: Society’s desire for order and control conflicts with society’s values of individualism and individual choice.

Rising Action: The first half of the film shows Alex wreaking havoc on society, getting arrested, and then being physically reconditioned against his own violent impulses as a condition of his release.

Climax: Alex is released from prison and finds he is too weak to survive in human society. He has gone from victimizer to victim.

Falling Action: While Alex is in a coma, doctors condition him back to his true nature. During his recovery, the minister of the interior visits Alex in the hospital and they agree to become accomplices in sharing power.