The Problems of Post-War British Society in A Clockwork Orange, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Movie Review Example

The Problems of Post-War British Society in A Clockwork Orange, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Novels and films serve as both mirrors for the societies that produce them and also, at their most effective, catalysts for change within those societies. The three novels/films that will be discussed here are classical examples of reactions to the problems and opportunities faced by post-war Britain. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning deals with a gritty side of British life, the so-called “kitchen sink drama” that portrayed the working class in a serious manner. Sex, divorce, unwanted pregnancy and abortion were now the centre of attention rather than the periphery. In The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie similarly damaged people are considered, particularly the title character who draws a few to her but rejects many others. A Clockwork Orange portrays a nightmarish future world, taking several features of 1950’s/1960’s life to their logical conclusions. The title is suggestive of all these works: the people appear to be alive on the outside, but are “clockwork” (dead) within. The extent to which novels and films can reflect actual problems within society versus the fact that they are reflections of an individual author’s/filmmaker’s view of the world is one that can never be entirely resolved. In reality, novelists and directors live within societies and are thus influenced by them, yet at the same time they are portraying their individual perspectives. Three very distinct novels, such as The Prime of Miss Jean Brody, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and A Clockwork Orange, reflect often nightmarish versions of society. A common theme among all three of them is the place of the individual within society. That is, how far can the individual act in a purely independent manner versus the need to conform? Each novel tackles this question in a different manner and comes to contrasting conclusions. The main characters in each novel are indeed “individualistic”, in the fact that they follow their own course (often counter to what ‘society’ wants for them), and their often difficult fates illustrate the dangers of being an individual. The issue of conformity versus eccentricity is as relevant today as it was in post-war British society, and thus can inform a discussion of problems that are being faced today. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is set in Scotland during the 1930’s. As such it represents a consideration of the interwar rather than the post-war period., but many of its themes resonate to the latter period. The teacher of the title is determined to actually teach the young women at her school in the sense of the genuine meaning of the word education. That is the Latin ex (out) and ducere (to lead). She seeks to introduce the girls to a whole range of what life has to offer, from the history of Rome to the history of her love life. Her version of teaching would be controversial today, let alone within the 1930’s. Her utter honesty with her students effects them deeply, and influences their lives for better and worse long after they have left the school. As Hager (1999) suggests, she “mirrors the complexity of human life … Jean Brodie is genuinely intent on opening up her girls’ lives, on heightening their awareness of themselves and their world, and on breaking free of restrictive, conventional ways of thinking, feeling and being.” The is concerned with the advantages and challenges of such individuality – it is not entirely laudable. Brodie is the kind of pure individualist who sees matters in terms of absolutes rather than moderation. Thos who are “lucky” enough to be influenced by this woman live a kind of high-energy and high-risk life that they either thrive within or which destroys them. The fact that all the characters are involved within a comfortable middle-class world that makes them somewhat remote from the world. Thus Jean Brodie considers herself to be a “feminist” and yet admires men such as Hitler and Mussolini because of their supreme confidence and individuality. In the movie of the novel (released in 1969) , Maggie Smith gave a remarkable performance that earned her an Oscar. The movie version stressed the individual, almost androgynous power of Jean Brodie, rather than the beauty which is often mentioned in the original novel. This fits with the stress of the time on the individual. Individualism also occurs with Saturday Night and Sunday Morning in which, Arthur Seaton, a young Nottingham factory worker, who is having an affair with Brenda, the wife of an older co-worker. He also has a relationship with Doreen, a woman closer to his own age. When Brenda gets pregnant, Arthur takes her to see his aunt to perform an illegal abortion, which fails. Brenda's husband discovers the affair and gets his brother (a soldier on home leave) and his brother's friend to give Arthur a serious beating. Brenda decides to keep the baby and bring it up as her husband's son. The film ends on an ambiguous note, with a recovered Arthur and Doreen discussing marriage and the prospect of a new home. While the film and the novel differ in their plots and focus on some points, they are similar in their concentration on an aggressively “non-attractive” character who acts in an amoral, even at times evil manner towards all those around him. The pressures of a life lived in an unethical manner catch up with the characters. A decidedly unsympathetic character is the major protagonist in A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess. Burgess portrays the alienation present in modern British society through use of an invented language (Nadsat), that utilizes Russian, cockney slang and invented words among other vernaculars. The central question that Burgess poses in his portrayal of Alex and his gang is whether the individual is doomed to such behavior if he is to be truly individual in a society that seeks control. Once Alex is subjected to the Lodovico technique he becomes a law-abiding citizen, but is essentially an automaton that has lost his free will. Once the process is reversed there are two very different endings offered by Burgess. In the American version, it is made clear that Alex will probably return to his violent way of life, whereas in the British version Alex ends up renouncing violence after meeting Pete (from his old gang) who has become a married, respectable member of society. Alex, in a rather unbelievable epiphany, decides to give up his violent life, even though he states that his actions were perhaps inevitable. Burgess seems to be suggesting, in this British version at least, that the society that has produced them will eventually suck them into a morass of conventionality. Alex’s transformation might be compared to that of Jimmy Porter when he is shown to be rich, upper middle-class in Dejavu (in the 1980s) after his working class claustrophobia in Look Back in Anger. In A Clockwork Orange it happens within the same book. The film version of A Clockwork Orange was one of the most controversial in history. As is often the case with the move from novel to book, it both simplified and yet exemplified some of the features of the book. The opening image of the movie, in which Alex and his droogs (his gang) sit in the Korova Milk Bar, has become something of an icon of teenage alienation. Alex stares at the camera with a kind of amused malevolence, intent apparently upon hating the society that has given him so little. The use of unforgettable images, music and cinematic technique within the film has created a situation in which it exists in a symbiotic manner with the culture that it is criticizing within Burgess/Kubrick’s dystopic vision. Thus the view of future has, in some ways at least, come to pass through the effect of the film on youth culture. Some of the fashions of the 1970’s stemmed from the strange mixture of clothes that are portrayed in the movie. The famous brainwashing scene in which Alex has his eyes clamped open has been referenced in numerous other works, film, cartoon and novel in nature. The fact that the viewer is distanced from the violence that he/she is seeing through the strange language and the stylized nature of the action is constantly commented upon by the film itself. Thus the casual way in which Alex usurps a supposedly benign piece of popular culture (Gene Kelly singing “Singin’ in the Rain”) has effected any viewer’s hearing of the song ever since. Later in the same scene, as he is just about to rape the wife of the writer how has let them into his house, Alex looks at the “writer” (the audience through the writer’s POV) and says, “viddy well, my little brother, viddy well”. Within the argot of the film this means, “look well, look well”. Kubrick, in a manner that was impossible through the verbal nature of the book, accentuates the fact that the audience normally “enjoys” seeing such scenes of violence. They vicariously perform acts of violence themselves: even the most respectable English gentleman in the audience rapes the woman along with Alex. It is the avoidance of the truth of human nature in general and of British society in particular that A Clockwork Orange brings to the fore. This “truth” is the essential alienation of many individual citizens that lies beneath the veil of respectability that often seems to cover the truth of their lives. How might Jean Brodie, Arthur and Alex be seen as reflective of British society after WWII? First it is their striving for individuality against a background of convention. Each, in their own way, seeks to be “true to themselves”; and each, in turn, leads to destruction of many of those around them. The cultural snobbery of Jean Brodie is reflected in a kind of glass darkly by Alex and Arthur, who come from a society commonly looked down upon by those within society, and who act accordingly. Alex and Arthur merely live up to society’s low expectations of them. The hopes and optimism of the Labour Party’s accession to power after WWII led to the disillusionment of the young men who no longer had an Empire to work for, and who saw their own influence shrinking within an increasingly divided society. The attractions of the “-isms” that so seduce Jean Brodie, so much that she would seemingly admire a soon-to-be monster such as Hitler, would become lost within a cult of the individual hedonist in Arthur and Alex. The fact that these hedonists often make themselves (as well as the people around them) rather miserable, is merely an ironic comment upon the nature of post-war British society. Near the end of A Clockwork Orange a subtle piece of scripting that is rarely commented upon occurs. The Home Secretary, in explaining why the Lodovico technique is a good idea, falls into the vernacular of the very thugs that he is trying to “cure”. There is little difference between them, so Burgess and Kubrick seem to be saying. In a song from the 1960’s The Who pronounced that, “take a look at the new boss, same as the old boss” in their song that could have been Alex’s theme” “Teenage Wasteland”. If that rebellion would lead to the optimism, and some might argue genius of The Beatles among the few, the many would languish in a kind of impotent stasis. Arthur and Alex represent what can happen within that stasis, while Jean Brodie offers the rare (but often futile) course out of it. But as the suffering of those around her shows, such individuality is only for a few, and for even fewer if happiness is to be gained. ___________________________________________ Works Cited Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. Faber, London: 1962. A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick (director). 1971. Spark, Muriel. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Harper, New York: 1999. Sperb, Jason. The Kubrick Façade Scarecrow, London: 2005. Stiltoe, Alan. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Plume, London: 1992. Read More