Viddy well my brothers... Viddy well - More Peels from the MK-Orange

  A Clockwork Ultra

  On the surface, PWS (pre-wild speculation) A Clockwork Orange is a film masterpiece based on the book by Anthony Burgess about a youth culture violence in a near future society. The main character, Alex DeLarge leads a violent gang that rapes and beats it's way through life until he's caught, entered in an experimental rehabilitation project. In the British version of the book, there is a final chapter where Alex eventually matures enough to regret his violent, lawless youth.
   I once found a discussion board which attempted to answer what was the meaning of the film. I recall the Kubrick was mentioned only in passing while the majority of focus was on the book. Much speculation was around Burgess searching for meaning after he and his wife were assaulted in a home invasion.


 

I don't know if that is true. I should also mention I haven't read the book.

   Now, I will commence with the wild speculation, utilizing the works of Kubrick, Miles Mathis and Adam Gorightly. All inaccuracies and conclusions are mine, and I refer you to works of these individuals on their own merit, not on my interpretation. I'm obviously not in their league as researchers or writers.

Also, here's link to a great article regarding the book and film by Theodore Dalrymple:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_1_oh_to_be.html

The Act, the Masks, the 'Shadows in the Mirror' 

McDowell stated "If Kubrick hadn't been a film director he'd have been a General Chief of Staff of the US Forces. No matter what it is—even if it's a question of buying a shampoo it goes through him. He just likes total control." 
Filming took place between September 1970 and April 1971, making A Clockwork Orange the quickest film shoot in his career. - Wikipedia  (emphasis mine)

 

Examples of Eyes Wide ...

My speculation begins with the correlation of the film with the Manson Family murders.



Miles Mathis regarding Paul Tate:

"In 1959, the Tates moved to (Cafe?- FN)Verona, Italy, where Paul Tate was stationed at Passalacqua, the headquarters for SETAF (Southern European Task Force). This links him to Operation Gladio. General Maletti—commander of Italian military intelligence at the time of the Tate murders—later testified in court that the CIA had been involved in many false flag operations in Italy and Europe, including murders and bombings, “for the purpose of creating an Italian nationalism that was capable of halting what it saw as a slide to the left.” Sound familiar? Maletti added, “Don't forget that Nixon was in charge and Nixon was a strange man, a very intelligent politician but a man of rather unorthodox initiatives.” Nixon was in charge in 1969, but Operation Gladio had been instituted by Allen Dulles much earlier, and it was financed in large part by the US, through the CIA, which Dulles led under Eisenhower and Kennedy (1953 to late 1961). The Operation kicked into high gear in the late 50's to counter growing “leftist” movements, especially in Italy. We must assume that is why Paul Tate was in Verona in 1959 with his family. Paul Tate was not just military, he was a colonel in intelligence, which indicates he was probably involved in Gladio."

Manson 69 - 70 CWO - 71

Sharon Tate and Slim Pickens:

Viddy Well, My Brothers - A short piece about Clockwork Ultra

Peeling an MK- Orange

   Let me state now that I believe that the primary theme of Clockwork Orange is mind control.

   Allow me to quote from an interview with Kubrick regarding CO:

"The central idea of the film has to do with the question of free-will. Do we lose our humanity if we are deprived of the choice between good and evil? Do we become, as the title suggests, A Clockwork Orange? Recent experiments in conditioning and mind control on volunteer prisoners in America have taken this question out of the realm of science-fiction." 




   The similarities with MKULTRA (The documented CIA excursion into mind control) are ramapant.
The CIA pushed forward with MKULTRA with the idea that they were trying to keep up with Soviet and Chinese research demonstrated on POWs in the Korean War.


   Now, while I was researching the Clockwork Orange and Manson connections,

Michel Ciment: In your films the State is worse than the criminals but the scientists are worse than the State.

Kubrick: I wouldn't put it that way. Modern science seems to be very dangerous because it has given us the power to destroy ourselves before we know how to handle it. On the other hand, it is foolish to blame science for its discoveries, and in any case, we cannot control science. Who would do it, anyway? Politicians are certainly not qualified to make the necessary technical decisions. Prior to the first atomic bomb tests at Los Alamos, a small group of physicists working on the project argued against the test because they thought there was a possibility that the detonation of the bomb might cause a chain reaction which would destroy the entire planet. But the majority of the physicists disagreed with them and recommended that the test be carried out. The decision to ignore this dire warning and proceed with the test was made by political and military minds who could certainly not understand the physics involved in either side of the argument. One would have thought that if even a minority of the physicians thought the test might destroy the Earth no sane men would decide to carry it out. The fact that the Earth is still here doesn't alter the mind-boggling decision which was made at that time.

 

It's just my interpretation but it's just seems that Kubrick says one thing but means another. 'No sane man'? Was it the politicians that pushed to have the Hadron Collider move forward? I mean, after all, "...it is foolish to blame science for its discoveries..."

Then there's this piece that really snapped my head. Responding to a question about the level of violence in the film, Kubrick says:

"It is absolutely essential that Alex is seen to be guilty of a terrible violence against society, so that when he is eventually transformed by the State into a harmless zombie you can reach a meaningful conclusion about the relative rights and wrongs. If we did not see Alex first as a brutal and merciless thug it would be too easy to agree that the State is involved in a worse evil in depriving him of his freedom to choose between good and evil. It must be clear that it is wrong to turn even unforgivably vicious criminals into vegetables, otherwise the story would fall into the same logical trap as did the old, anti-lynching Hollywood westerns which always nullified their theme by lynching an innocent person. Of course no one will disagree that you shouldn't lynch an innocent person -- but will they agree that it's just as bad to lynch a guilty person, perhaps even someone guilty of a horrible crime? And so it is with conditioning Alex."

I feel like I'm hearing two very different things here. One is, that it was necessary to show the horrible things Alex does, in order to balance what the state does to him. If your goal is to show, "It must be clear that it is wrong to turn even unforgivably vicious criminals into vegetables..." then why do you need to make it difficult to see the State is '...involved in a worse evil...?" Am I missing something?

I also feel that Kubrick's answer is a powerful statement against mind control and the manipulation of public opinion, no matter what the motivation behind it. In the beginning of the interview with Ciment, he states,

 Is this what Kubrick referred to as a decision made by politicians? 

The shadow that MKULTRA casts is larger than many realize. 

So my point is, was Kubrick speaking from the viewpoint of a guilty conscience? Or as a possible victim or witness to other victims?