I saw it while alone (it was shown on TV) in the late 70’s. I was in my teens.
At the time, I didn’t get the subtle points of the film. I assumed that the message was that it’s better to be “a real you” than a brainwashed sheeple person, even if your true self is an anti-social misfit. (The late 60’s & early 70’s movies seemed to have a lot of anti-authority or anti-conformity messages.)
I wasn’t disturbed by the violence. (Maybe I was too young to fully appreciate it. A war movie seemed like a grand tale of adventure back then, too.)
But I didn’t understand why the movie seemed to be trying so hard to get me to like some punk who was such a dick to everyone around him.
I had a minor eye surgery this past summer and had to be subjected to the clippy things. :eek:
Yes, it was every bit as horrible and uncomfortable as I’d imagined. I wouldn’t let the doctor and her nurse talk about the procedure. They could talk to me, but not about what they were doing. I was too freaked out to find the words to explain it was all related back to A Clockwork Orange.
I’ve seen the film a couple times and read the book a couple times, finding the glossary in the back ever so helpful for making the movie make sense. While all the violence makes me a bit uncomfortable, that’s one of the few rape scenes that I find so over-the-top and ridiculous, it’s actually kind of funny to me. Not the rape scene so much as Alex beating someone to death with a big phallus sculpture. As if Kubrick was literally beating the viewer over the head with his over-the-top symbolism. I found Alex and his droogs caricatures – so twisted, so violent, so nihilist, that I couldn’t take it seriously as a statement about violence. I think Kubrick pushed the violence in that movie straight over the cliff into Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote territory.