Monday 26 January 2009

Opening Sequence Analysis 1 - A Clockwork Orange


The film I have chosen to write is Stanley Kubrick’s 1972 film adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel about a dystopian future, A Clockwork Orange. Upon its release, A Clockwork Orange had great reviews but was surrounded by a large amount of controversy because of it’s graphic depiction of violence and rape. Kubrick’s received death threats over his film and then took the drastic step of removing it from circulation in British cinema. After Kubrick’s death in 1999, the film was eventually re released in 2000.
The opening sequence of Clockwork is one of cinema’s most iconic. Different coloured slides show while long drawn out organ notes play during the credit sequence. The first camera shot we see is of Alex (the protagonist) sat in The Korova Milk Bar. The shot is an extreme close up of Alex’s eye, showing the make up on his eyelashes. This constructs Alex as a mysterious character because it is counter typical for men to wear eye make up. This is a common trait of a thriller in that they do not often reveal a lot about their character in the opening sequence. The camera then begins to zoom out and reveal more about the surroundings and Alex himself.

As the camera zooms out, Alex begins to narrate to the audience. He describes how he and his friends, Pete, Dim and George are sat in the milk bar, preparing to go out to partake in some “ultra violence”. The narration is very monotonic and therefore constructs Alex as someone who is comfortable with violence. Alex also speaks of The Milk Bar. He speaks of how the milk they serve is laced with narcotics and gives him the kick he needs just before he goes out to commit his horrendous acts of crime. The zoom continues until all of Alex’s droogs are in view, along with much of the milk bar. The entire scene has the intention of disorientating the viewer by showing them a very unfamiliar environment. The clothes of the characters are not like anything any audience would have seen before, be they from 1972 or the present day. The décor of the bar is very strange too. Instead of the traditional four-legged coffee table, the droogs are sat at sculptures of naked women in some form of crab position. The walls are decorated black with “nadsat” graffiti written over them. Nadsat is the name given to the many colloquialisms Burgess created in his novel and it is another technique used to disorientate the viewer. Uncertainty about what the language around them says, creates some fear in the viewer because of their lack of knowledge about the situation surrounding them.


This scene is very stereotypical of the thriller genre in that in not revealing a lot about the setting, characters and plots, the film places the viewer in an uneasy situation. This keeps the viewer very interested as they cannot predict a lot about what they will see next and therefore cannot become comfortable. However the long take and zoom out camera shot is counter typical of the genre. Thrillers will usually use a high tempo to their cuts so Clockwork's rejection of this idea is bound to be unsettling for those who are used to a more traditional thriller format.


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