preview

A Clockwork Orange, by Stanley Kubrick Essay example

Better Essays

A Clockwork Orange is a Stanley Kubrick film from 1971. Kubrick directed the film and wrote the screen play based on the 1962 novel from author Anthony Burgess. A Clockwork Orange was originally rated, “X” and nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Screenplay, but lost in each category to William Friedkin's The French Connection (filmsite.org). The set design is by John Barry, costume design by Milena Canonero, music by Wendy Carlos and cinematography by John Alcott. A Clockwork Orange was awarded the New York Film Critics Awards for Best Film and Best Direction (FilmReference.com).
Distributed by Warner Brothers, the estimated budget was $2,200,000 with a Gross of $26,589,355 in the USA alone …show more content…

The theory being that distance does not shut off our moral issues and/or questions about the film, but keeps us engrossed in the film while thinking about our own sense of morality. Kipp continues, adding that “Kubrick's lenses are wide and slightly distorted; many of the costumes and sets are painted in vivid, eye-catching primal colors; and half the dialogue is done in a slang mixture of Slavic, Cockney, and Russian” (Kipp). Critic Roger Ebert states that Kubrick uses the wide angle lenses on objects that are fairly close to the camera, so that the lens distorts the sides of the image. “The objects in the center of the screen look normal, but those on the edges tend to slant upward and outward, becoming bizarrely elongated. Kubrick uses the wide-angle lens almost all the time when he is showing events from Alex's point of view; this encourages us to see the world as Alex does, as a crazy-house of weird people out to get him.
When Kubrick shows us Alex, however, he either places him in the center of a wide-angle shot (so Alex alone has normal human dimensions,) or uses a standard lens that does not distort. So, a visual impression is built up during the movie that Alex, and only Alex, is normal (Rogerebert.com).

The story itself takes place in the future and is narrated by

Get Access