Arguably the most sinister opening shot in all of film is the extreme close up of Alex DeLarge in Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange.” His intensely focused grimace sets the tone for the entire film, a devilishly and ironically sadistic film.
I watched it in a special midnight showing at the IU Cinema with a gaggle of other co-eds all anticipating a hyper violent cult film. They didn’t leave disappointed (nor did I), but they left surprised, uncertain of how to think or feel. They had never seen a film like it, one with so many gorgeous images, colors and cinematic flourishes.
This audience would likely have more “fun” at a Tarantino movie or a gritty graphic novel blockbuster, many of which are arguably nearing in “A Clockwork Orange’s” quality. But “A Clockwork Orange” tests its audience, challenges it to ponder questions that perhaps have no answers, like what symbolism sitting in an exotic milk bar has or why Alex listens to Beethoven.
Naturally it’s an exaggeration of a British criminal, politician and class system, all of them driven to extremes with the ironic twist at the end being how we now invite the troubled youth back into society and hand him a golden spoon.
But that doesn’t quite get the feeling off your chest that Alex is inherently evil. From the aforementioned first shot Kubrick gives us that impression, as well as every other time he captures Alex’s intensely focused glare in his wide angle lens. There’s also the infamous scene where Alex abuses and rapes a couple while belting “Singin’ in the Rain.” You get the idea a shockingly horrific moment such as that doesn’t happen spontaneously.
I was captivated by its imagery and staging. “A Clockwork Orange” is certainly a hard-to-watch film that even at times feels a hair long in its repetition of violence, but through and through this is a carefully calculated film by Kubrick. Observe the first three scenes of the film: The milk bar, the beating of the Irish bum in the alley and the fight with the other gang in the abandoned theater. All three begin the same way, with an extreme closeup on either Alex’s face, the bottle of whiskey or the ornate designs in the theater. The camera then performs a long and slow zoom out to reveal a series of increasingly shocking and stark imagery. Kubrick is suggesting here that while “A Clockwork Orange” is about a unique individual, Alex, it is most certainly about the broader picture, and how his existence and their reactions to him have impacts on society as a whole.
I used this film as a basis for a column I wrote recently, but the idea is that the cult film has changed radically in the now 40 years since this film was released. “A Clockwork Orange” represented a counter cultural movement in audiences and in filmmakers, and this is part of the reason why it is such an enduring cult classic beside Kubrick’s arguably more acclaimed masterpieces.
Today’s audiences need to see “A Clockwork Orange” to rethink their own assumptions of modern cinema and what we hold up in our own cults today.