Crasses et Voluptés

Given the freedom to choose, Kubrick seems to be saying, some people will inevitably choose to be violent, yet for the state to deny men freedom of choice is itself an act of violence. Both these extremes—the justification of state violence and the glorification of individualistic violence—are often labeled fascist. A Clockwork Orange pits them against each other, opting ultimately (and uneasily) for the individual when the state is forced by the scandal of Alex’s suicide attempt to restore him to his antisocial old self. Kubrick’s pessimism is thus fully expressed. “Man isn’t a noble savage, he’s an ignoble savage,” he told a Times reporter. “He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved—that about sums it up. I’m interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it’s a true picture of him. Any attempt to create social institutions on a false view of the nature of man is probably doomed to failure.”

Seth Cagin & Philip Dray