Classical Music In A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange

Over the past two weeks we saw, for one more time, that Kubrick has a very distinct and tremendous understanding when it comes to using classical music. For “A Clockwork Orange” the writer of the novel, Anthony Burgess, has some kind of obsession and own taste about classical music, when these two understanding combines we get a unique synthesis, it is mostly Kubrick’s, though. In the following part of this paper, the use of music will be examined in order of the course of events in the movie:

Before the first scene, a very mysterious, kind of sad and ominous but hopeful music welcomes us along with a bright red image. It has a very different sound, like it is out of our world. Before we see any of the scenes it is making

The music feels like it can be used in a Charlie Chaplin movie, and with the music and high-speed the scene feels like a slapstick. The music is again used in this scene and the following scene with Dim and George, ironically and turned the scenes into a comedy.

In the scene of the woman with the cats, we see a combination of number of themes such as music, sex, art and violence. We hear Rossini again in an ironic use, the fight between the woman and Alex seem like a dance and the death of the woman projected like a comedy with exaggerated faces of actors and moves of the camera. Therefore, the music fits the scene nicely. Being attacked with a Beethoven bust is seems like a reference to the future of the movie.

After Alex has found guilty, in prison scene we hear Rossini again. Here, the piece fits the mood for sad and unfortunate fate of such young man being imprisoned. In the prison how hard he acts like he has changed, he always sees himself among violence and sex. When he is about to be selected for the experiment group for Ludovico technique, a piece from Elgar starts to play. Which is commonly used as a graduation march, we can associate it with Alex’s departure from the

We hear Purcell when Alex and his old friends who have become police officers, bumps into him. I think Purcell is located here to make a reference to their past experiences and the old times they were on the same road and same places together as a gang.

After Alex was driven to suicide by the 9th Symphony, he is placed in a hospital where his parents and the minister visits him. Before and during his parents’ visit, we hear a different and more upbeat version of Purcell’s piece. It fits the mood of the scene behind the eyes of Alex and his mental state. When the minister visit him, as he feeds Alex, it is looking like this interaction is humiliating for him and Alex enjoys it. They get mutual benefit from their arrangement and Alex gets 9th Symphony as his reward. As we can see from his expressions he now can enjoy this music, presumably he will be able to act violent again. The 9th Symphony was a part of the technique that puts Alex in that position, and it seems like a nice way to mark the end of his troubles with the same