It Sounds Crazy

Throughout all the chaos in this world that we live in, the one thing
that helps me keep my peace of mind is music.  Music is full of emotion
that can pull your spirits out of almost any bad situation.  In movies,
music is used to convey emotion, and sets the mood for each scene.  In
Stanley Kubrick’s movie rendition of A Clockwork Orange, Ludwig Van
Beethoven’s symphonies express the power behind music and its emotion in
a disturbing fashion.  I don’t think anyone thinks of rape and violence
when Beethoven’s 9th symphony comes into one’s ears.  The scenes of
violence are hard enough to watch as it is, but with Beethoven
cheerfully blaring in the background, the mood is transformed.  It is
transformed into something that the senses can handle.  That is the
power of music.  Even after being dead for almost two centuries,
Beethoven’s music lives on because of his musical genius.  The notion
that Beethoven’s music was meant to convey anything dark about the world
seems like madness.  His music is pleasurable to listen to, and it sets
the highest standard of what music really is.  For Alex DeLarge, a
hooligan with a lust for pleasure, Beethoven is his escape from facing
the reality of the atrocious crimes he commits.  To Alex, his acts are
not sinful because he doesn’t see them to be.  One can really understand
this when Alex goes into special government treatment and is forced to
watch scenes from the holocaust and other acts of violence with
Beethoven’s 9th symphony playing in the background.  Without being able
to look away or stop listening, the sheer horror he was forced to
witness caused him to hate the song.  It’s interesting to note that Alex
kept screaming “it’s a sin” pertaining to the fact that they were
playing his favorite composer of all time during the treatment.  It
ruined his ultimate listening pleasure.  When I think about it, if I was
forced to watch the most violent and disturbing of acts while listening
to my favorite band, I can’t fathom how badly that would damage me
psychologically.  After Alex is “cured” from being able to commit
violence, he is reunited with F. Alexander, a man who he crippled and
raped his wife.  It is ironic that F. Alexander wants to lead Alex to
kill himself, but only at first because he believes that the government
killed his wife by letting young gangs run rampant.  It is purely out of
hatred, something that Alex can no longer possess.  One can fully
understand the traumatizing pain that was inflicted on F. Alexander when
he hears Alex singing the song that was sung while his wife was raped
and killed.  In the end, Alex is used for political change, and promised
a good life if he helps one particular political party to keep order.
Throughout the whole story he is in the middle of a world of chaos, but
he finds clarity and happiness through music.  The music allows him to
envision and embrace his deepest desires, no matter how blind he is to
his own sin.

On an interesting side note, my father has a similar experience with
music.  Ever since I can remember, there have been a handful of times
where my dad and I have been listening to the radio, and this one U2
song comes on and my dad has to instantly turn it off.  I never really
understood why he did this until one day when he wasn’t close enough to
the radio to turn it off, and he got really angry at me when I didn’t
turn it off in time.  The song had played for maybe 15 seconds, and my
dad was dry heaving; about to purge.  He explained to me that one night
when he was younger, he was violently sick from alcohol, (I think
possibly some other drug) and the song came on the radio and ruined it
for him forever.  He says that he gets a flashback of the same horrid
sickness he felt over thirty years ago.  I found this hard to believe
that someone could be so psychological damaged that a song could induce
that anxiety and panic.  The thing is, my dad’s favorite band is U2!  He
told me that ever since then, he’s never even been to another U2 concert
in fear of them playing the song.  I could definitely use the song as a
weapon against him, much like what I viewed in A Clockwork Orange.  Not
that I would ever do that though.  I definitely found the techniques
used in the movie to brainwash people with sound to ring true through my
dad’s experience.