A Clockwork Orange and its Representations of Sexual Violence as Torture: Stanley Kubrick and Francis Bacon

Abstract

This paper offers a discussion of A Clockwork Orange through the comparative lens of the imagery of both Stanley Kubrick and the British painter Francis Bacon and their representations of the human scream. Screaming imagery is ubiquitous in the work of both and this chapter considers how the scream functions in the film as a response to trauma and sexual violence. It considers the representation of sexual violence committed toward two ageing female bodies: those of Mrs Alexander (Adrienne Corri) and the Catlady (Miriam Karlin) and in doing so also views the film through the prism of the twenty-first century #MeToo movement. The chapter considers the relationship between art and (sexual) violence in both film and novel taking into detailed consideration the adaptive strategies Kubrick took toward the treatment of sexual violence in Burgess’s novel (the ageing of the two young girls at the record store for instance) and by extension reconsider the representation of sexual violence and assault in the novel from a comparative contemporary perspective.