A Clockwork Orange review

A Clockwork Orange

Directed by: Stanley Kubrick

Cinematographer: John Alcott

Made in: 1971

A Clockwork orange is about the protagonist Alex who is an "ultraviolent" adolescence in the UK in the near future. He has a lot of good fortune but ultimately ends and he's detained by the law after his mate’s stitch him up and sentenced of manslaughter and rape. In prison, Alex hears about an untried project in which criminals are trained to hate violence. he has the treatment and his punishment is condensed and ends up back on then the streets in which he started. Ones on the streets he gets a taste of his own past actions.

My favourite part in Stanley Kubricks: A Clockwork Orange is at the beginning were four teenage boys drinking milk in a milk bar.

The metaphors in the film is mainly metaphorical in the words Alex use as you can tell what he is saying even though he is saying something else. I hope to do this in my film also using a voice over saying about beautiful things but showing ugly things. The film has a twist of surreal as this film is set in the future, mine is set at present date but still about the area and the people that are in it like ACO. What I like about ACO is that it dose not tell you its in the future but you can tell this by the style of the mise-en-scene (naked manikins with unusual coloured hair, and the outfits which the four boys are wearing) as this is not the type of things we would expect to find in a milk bar for children in the present day..

There is a lot of controversial topics in this film and that was the reason why I picked it, nearly all surrounding the theme of sex. Firstly the naked manikins with unusual hair suggest a sexual and futuristic concept to the scene. From the outside this is the only noticeable object of sex. Now this looks odd as it seems to be four innocent children drinking milk which is seen by most people to be the drink of young children or babies, but they are resting on a ‘erotically positioned’ manikin of a naked lady. Going back to the milk, apart from the hidden meaning of the inner child there is another one of a sexual nature. They are holding their glasses in a way which looks like they are holding there own penis in an offensive way which you would not expect from children drinking milk. Looking at it from this point of view the milk now becomes a much more fitting symbol of sex than say a beer or tea. I also think the colour has a strong significance to the shot as it is mostly white, this hints towards purity and youth. In my film I will be having it black and white to give a dark, grimy and depressing feel to the short film. In the Korova Milk Bar it is an interesting shot as it is very contradicting of itself, which in turn makes it a fantastically interesting idea.

Lastly focusing more on the teenagers in the shot as I also will be using youth as my mainly characters, they all have large crotched pants. This highlights the fact that they are very sexually orientated young people with only one thing on their mind, though the teenagers in my film are not as sexually orientated, sex if normalcy a force behind anti-sosal behavers. Also Alex and his drougs are part of a gang just like the youths in my film. Looking at their facial expressions they are not of a sweet youthfulness but aroused and showing a readiness of what they are about to do. All of this sets the scene nicely for what they are about to do and tells you a lot about them before the film starts (in the film they beat up, rape and even kill people!) referring back to my short film ones again I also plan to show youth as how I see them, smoking, swearing etc. and not quite hard working people. Though we all know that they do these thinks we turn a blind eye and I hope to highlight these issues just like ACO.

In my opinion the use of objects like the manikins is appropriate as it sets the scene and gives a lot of important information about the type of people in the bar, what they do and plan to get up to without the use of words. I plan to do the same but with cigarettes and because and people link beer with trouble. The part of the cinematography/ mise-en-scene that stands out to me the most is the colour white. I do not think this scene has been digitally manipulated in any way; this enhances the scene in making it more believable.

Comparing my film in more detail to ACO, they both use symbols to represent things that add layers to the meaning of both films, but A Clockwork Orange uses more hidden ones and is linked with a theme, unlike my film which the visual look is one of the hidden theams.

The music in both are films are very important I feel as a different sound track would give a different meaning and would have come across differently to the audience. One more thing that makes these two films the same is that they are very iconic images, like you could show Alex’s eye to most people and they will know what the film is and in my film the speed up images of the train station in Eastleigh, the railway and the iron man is very well known to everyone that has been to the town. I hope my film will create a emotional reaction for people that know the town well.