Stanley Kubrick
Arancia Meccanica

I was really a kid when I saw it for the first time. I understood little. It seemed to me like an unlikely story, with a wonderful music – even though back then I didn’t know what direct sound was.   

Then a friend lent me an interview with Kubrick. The sobriety of the responses was incredible. I expected to find a man with the same sarcastic and deep humor as Lennon, but instead, the responses seemed to show a great “normality.” Never a boast. Kubrick seemed like a boring guy. The only joke present was this:  “To understand what I wanted to say in  my films, just read the reviews of certain critics.” Kubrick allowed himself to insult the critics. It served me well for the future.

About “A Clockwork Orange,” he only said: “It’s a film about freedom and its value. It’s a film that confronts us with the evilness of a state that forces its citizens to be good.” I was very disappointed. A man who seemed so superior, with that fascinating beard, could not be so  “banal, obvious and superficial.”  And then, when did a state ever do to Alex what they did? From that moment, I began to underestimate the master;  for me,  he was only   a simpleton with good taste in beautiful music and very skilled at directing actors.   Nothing more,  nothing less.

A couple of years passed.  One day, I came across a text  on the history of the Catholic Church. Reading about all the “forced conversions” that Jews and gentiles were subjected to over two thousand years, I understood the depth  of the film's message and the depth of the banal Stanley. It was really that simple. The Church had done to so many people  what in the film the state does to Alex:  forcing him to be someone he does not want to be.  The Church has made a “mea culpa” for these errors only a few years ago, and only because there was a saint at the helm –  otherwise we would still  be waiting.

The book I read contained a phrase I will never forget, and which all of us should carve into our heads: “Even the highest and noblest message can never  be imposed, but only proposed.” How many disasters and tragedies we would have avoided if this obvious maxim had been followed.

Kubrick’s masterpiece sheds  light on the past, and I hope not an unsettling shadow on the future. It’s a prophetic film when it talks about the current explosion of sex and violence. I really hope it is not prophetic when it talks about the rest.

Here is the essence of the film, the greatest “moral film”I have seen, together with “No Country for Old Men”: a state has the obligation to put a criminal in the situation where they cannot harm (and often it does not do this), but it cannot force the criminal to reform. Goodness is  a choice;  obligatory goodness doesn’t exist.

I conclude with a note of color to smile a little, which perhaps not everyone knows. The spit that Alex receives during his “redemption period” has a unique story. Mcdowell said: “Due to Stanley's perfectionism, I had to endure dozens of spits. He didn’t just want the perfect film; he also wanted the perfect spit.” 

Obviously in the Olympus of great films - whether you love or hate Kubrick.