There's a fantastic film podcast entitled http://www.cinephobia-radio.com/ I listen to hosted by the estimable Stuart "FEEDBACK" Andrews of Rue Morgue Radio and magazine fame. FEEDBACK is in my humble opinion one of the more passionate, learned, witty and endearingly curmudgeonly voices in film criticism we have today. The reason I shamelessly plug his marvelous podcast as an introduction to this piece is because listening to it occasioned me revisiting the film in question. Well, that and drawing the parallel between Nolan and Kubrick. You see, FEEDBACK has an unhealthy amount of man love for Malcom McDowell in general and his performance as Alex DeLarge in particular and liberally peppers his show with soundbites from Clockwork's humble narrator. Of course I've long held Kubrick's Burgess adaptation in high regard (as I do all his films), but it had been years since I last watched it and hearing those brilliant quotes over and again forced me to rectify that. As for the Nolan/Kubrick comparison, if you bothered to read my orgiastic gushing over Inception you'd know that I believe that film to be the first perfect one of Nolan's thus far decade long career, whereas Kubrick made them perfectly for over 4 decades. Among other things, when I refer to something as Kubrickian, I also mean as obtaining or possessing elements of perfection.
Kubrick started his career as a photographer and his peerless propensity for shot composition no doubt stems from that. You can point to countless imagery throughout the lexicon of film history as being beautiful, evocative and metaphorical, but the way Kubrick filmed was nothing short of mathematical perfection and certainty. Be it the War Room in Dr. Strangelove or the bathroom in The Shining where Delbert Grady and Jack Torrance have their revelatory conversation (one of my favorite scenes EVER), Kubrick constructed each moment in his pictures so as to be able to stand up to every conceivable notion of geometric scrutiny. From his beloved rule of thirds to the chess master's patience and foresight with which he approached blocking his actors, the man understood the language of cinema in a way no other artist ever has or ever will. This vital component of his mastery is in many ways most readily evident in his creative pinnacle, 1971's A Clockwork Orange.
From the opening tracking shot at the milk bar to the closing, slow motion explosion of jovial coitus, the film is a nuclear blast rendered hypnotic trance through his assured control. In the hands of a lesser film maker, unifying the wildly varied tones and moral issues raised in the piece would undoubtedly lead to disastrous self parody. Kubrick however, holds this volatile hand grenade of a film in his palm as it explodes and doesn't even blink. Its visceral depiction of a generation gone mad with destructive lust and unfocused hate and the despicable measures to control it by duplicitous authority is as unsettling as it is prescient. No small feat for a motion picture nearly 40 years old.
As much as I could go on about the meticulous bliss of the visuals, the thing that struck me most this viewing was indeed the performances. FEEDBACK is dead on with his McDowell/Alex preoccupation. It is damn near without compare the most commanding lead performance ever committed to celluloid. Voice over narration is often seen as a cheat, but the way it's employed and performed here is pure charisma and total necessity. Alex savors his thoughts so deliciously that we can't help but get caught up in his worldview, which is a dangerous spot to put the audience in and in truth the whole point of the film. To compliment his melodious voice, McDowell brings a lithe, playful physicality to the role that demonstrates impish childishness underscoring the viciousness of his more reprehensible actions. The moment when he's dropped off for the Ludovico treatment by the head jailer and does that gloriously exaggerated goosestep and jump stop kills me every time. The prim placement of his hands when he discovers Mr. Deltoid lurking in his parents room is priceless. McDowell stomps through every frame of the film like the acting giant he is with supreme confidence and a knowing wink. Truthfully, the only way to describe his indelible essay on youthful maliciousness is gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh.
I would be remiss if I didn't also point out in passing the contribution made by Patrick Magee as Mr. Alexander, the writer who is mercilessly beaten and whose wife is raped by Alex and his droogs at the beginning of the film only to resurface in a physically and mentally degraded form in the pivotal sequence of the final act. It is the only instance of the film where McDowell is upstaged and Magee is so over the top, yet true to the nature of his character, it is literally hard to watch... but in a very good way. I'm dead serious here, Patrick Magee is absolutely terrifying in this film! To understand what I'm talking about, pay special attention to the shot of him after a beaten Alex is sent off to bathe and he fidgets in his wheelchair. Magee somehow, despite all laws of physics and reason, manages to wordlessly convey roughly 432 conflicting emotions and thoughts in a scant 6 seconds. It's absolutely breathtaking and I'm a little shocked more mention isn't made of his deliriously off kilter presence in the film.
Which brings me back to Kubrick. Much is made of his perceived cold, clinical, detached style. I've read and heard numerous assertions that he makes films for the mind and not the heart. I gently advise all who hold that belief to re-watch A Clockwork Orange. The performances are full of more heart and humor than any other film I can imagine. This is clearly Kubrick's influence at work. Yes, the performers are top notch, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the connection between the meta-absurdity of Dr. Strangelove and the appalling self reflexivity of the show stopping Singing in the Rain home invasion that defines Clockwork's intent.
A Clockwork Orange stands as the ultimate filmic treatise on the human animals proclivity for violent destruction and how our neurotic self awareness colors the way we deal with, condemn and ultimately ignore it. It is the cinematic forbear of similarly incendiary works such as Fight Club and Natural Born Killers. It is a film that transcends its time while steadfastly being of it.
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