This film is difficult to summarize. I didn't realize it was based on "A Clockwork Orange", even being a fan of the much more famous Kubrick version. It basically is the result of Andy Warhol pointing his camera at the various misfits, hustlers and drug addicts that hung around The Factory, and telling them to "act".
So why is the film deserving a 7 star review? Well, did you ever see one of those ordinary clay pots in a museum, and find yourself fascinated by it because it was thousands of years old? This film is an artifact of another time; an era when sex, drugs and rock n' roll were more interesting, because they were seemingly happening for the first time.
During this black and white"classic" we are treated to a memorable segment of Gerald Malanga dancing so frenetically that we wonder if he suffers from a degenerative neurological disorder. Filled with unnatural energy, he hammers out his various lewd moves with contortions including "the jerk". A bored Edie Sedgwick looks on , first motionless then later unenthusiastically joining in. Is she mocking him? Is she lucid enough to mock? This viewer will never know . In the background we hear several quips of a lascivious and evil laugh, too loud and weird for us ever to forget. If they put warning labels on movies , this one might have one saying "Warning: the following cannot be unseen".
The people who are in the film still living can be seriously labeled "survivors", and they are as deserving of the term as anyone who has experienced famine , disease, or abuse. It is easy to see why the life expectancy of 'the scene" was similar to an infantry man on the front lines of any war, and most in these frames are no longer with us.
I am sure many avant-garde choreographers have been inspired by the head whipping dance segments , "Beevis and Butthead" come to mind. Memorable, original; but not for the emotionally labile.
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