A Clockwork Orange is the second Stanley Kubrick film to be featured in Halloween Month, the other being The Shining. The 1972 film, based on the 1962 Anthony Burgess novel of the same name, is set in a dystopian Britain and follows a gang of thugs who commit acts of “ultra-violence”, and is truly unlike any other film you will ever see.
Since the film’s release you could argue that we are now living in a dystopian society; while the world is crumbling around us, tattoos are becoming more socially accepted (there is still a long way to go) with approximately 20% of people having at least one tattoo.
The “ultra-violence” in the film is rather unsettling, so bringing it back to tattooing, it can sometimes feel as though our tattoo artists are torturing us, and we are foolish enough to be paying them for the privilege to do so. We’re sure most of you can relate to that moment when you’ve reached your pain threshold and you think your tattoo artist is finished, only for them to say they still have ten more minutes of work to do to the piece.
Will A Clockwork Orange inspire your next – or even your first – tattoo?