A young boy kills his classmate. In court, his lawyer tries to ease out by blaming a film for having such a inhuman effect on the young impressionable mind. The voice of dissent against the film is heard in media and few protestors become violent enough to release threats to the filmmaker and people associated with the film. Distraught and disgusted, director decides to pull off. For almost three decades the self-imposed ban continues. In different part of world, film garnered a notorious reputation for its extreme ratings and wide condemn. A Clockwork Orange opened the can of worms so carefully preserved in the name of moral and ethics.
Moral Police, across the globe and over the ages, have blamed liberal arts for crimes and threats to society. Certain studies might have proved a point or two in their favor, the reasoning is not good enough to curtail the rights of an artist. Moral policing, on many counts, led to oppressed social conditions and that has done much damage to society. As the lawyer pointed out the influence of the film on his under-age client, it was interesting to know how did he chance upon the film despite of censorship. Was the question on the filmmaker or on the system?
Despite of the violence, like many of Kubrick’s films ACO is considered to be one of the finest films ever made. Much of the cult following is due to the deeper meaning of all violence and the action taken to curb it. The anti-establishment undercurrent of the film where system freely alter privacy of an individual, though convict, highlights the side-effects of the action on personality of the person. To a great extent ACO is a strong statement against many contemporary policies by governments across the world.
The cultural impact of ACO is immense. While the debate is still on, co-existence of filmmaker’s moral responsibility and relevance of censorship are still pretty ambiguous topics.
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