This video is brought to you by MUBI
a curated streaming service showing exceptional films from around the globe.
Try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com slash CinemaTyler.
During the production of 2001: A Space Odyssey,
Stanley Kubrick worked with cinematographer
Geoffrey Unsworth to bring the fantasy of
space exploration to life, but near the end
of the 33-month-long production, Unsworth
had to leave for another job and his assistant,
John Alcott, took over the role of DP (LoBrutto).
As you might remember from my series on 2001,
the last section of the film that was shot
was the opening “Dawn of Man” sequence,
which Alcott was tasked with shooting.
Kubrick maintained complete control over the
photography in his movies, but the shooting
of the Dawn of Man sequence would be the beginning
of a relationship that would carry through
1975’s Barry Lyndon, which would earn Alcott
an Oscar,
Alcott: “and least, but not last, Stanley
Kubrick."
and 1980’s The Shining (Alison Castle).
The overall approach to filmmaking in A Clockwork
Orange was very different than the large-budget
epic 2001, which pretty much took over the
entire MGM Studios in Borehamwood during filming
as well as the massive Stage H at Shepperton
Studios (2001 Wiki).
The production of 2001: A Space Odyssey was
very slow, complex, and most importantly,
costly.
2001 opened to mixed reviews and Kubrick needed
to prove to studios that he could make a relatively
low-budget film.
The budget for 2001: A Space Odyssey ended
up around $12 million dollars while the budget
for A Clockwork Orange was around $2 million
dollars (Box Office Mojo).
This would be like if Christopher Nolan followed
up The Dark Knight
with Memento.
Lenny!
It’s Leonard.
So what was it like for Kubrick to shoot a
low-budget film?
And what techniques did he use to make such
a cinematic movie on the cheap?
That’s what we’re going to talk about
on this episode of Making Film…
And what will you do with the big big big
money?
Have you not everything you need?
When comparing A Clockwork Orange to 2001:
A Space Odyssey, cinematographer John Alcott
said, "A Clockwork Orange employed a darker,
more obviously dramatic type of photography…
It was a modern story taking place in an advanced
period of the 1980s — although the period
was never actually pinpointed in the picture.
It called for a really cold, stark style of
photography" (LoBrutto).
A Clockwork Orange can be divided into three
sections— first, Alex and the Droogs assault,
steal, and rape, second, Alex goes to prison
and is given the Ludovico treatment, and third,
Alex is released from prison where his previous
victims exact their revenge on him (LoBrutto).
In order to separate these three sections,
Kubrick decided on a different color palette
and camera style for each (LoBrutto).
There is a really great piece on the cinematography
of A Clockwork Orange in American Cinematographer
by Vincent LoBrutto where he talks about the
differences in these styles.
For the first section of Alex as a violent
criminal, Kubrick and cinematographer John
Alcott used [quote] "a bright color presentation
with high-key lighting, fluid zooms, and dolly
shots” (LoBrutto).
The prison section is characterized by [quote]
"cool, flat tones, as long takes and subtle
camera moves create a somber and then clinical
atmosphere” (LoBrutto).
And finally, the post-treatment section [quote]
"returns to the environment of the first,
but is rendered in gray and low-key tones.
Flatter lighting and desaturated colors help
to define Alex’s comeuppance” (LoBrutto).
Much of the lighting of A Clockwork Orange
was done using practical lights—or lights
that are part of the location or seen on camera.
You can see many of these Photoflood bulbs
dressing the sets of the Korova Milk Bar and
the Cat Lady’s health farm (LoBrutto).
This was mainly done for speed and keeping
the cost low, but Kubrick managed to turn
unshaded lightbulbs into a style of the future.
Come on with the rain, I’ve a smile on my
face!
Some of the most interesting lighting fixtures
are these large spherical bulbs that appear
in Alex’s room and Mr. Alexander’s house.
In the prison sequence, you can often find
these single unshaded bulbs hanging from the
ceiling.
To fill out the lighting, Alcott used [quote]
"very lightweight Lowel 1,000-watt quartz
lights bounced off the ceiling or reflective
umbrellas” (LoBrutto).
Because the bulk of the light was coming from
practical fixtures in the setting and the
fill-lights were easy to move, this meant
that Kubrick was often free to put his camera
anywhere in the room fairly quick or move
around as needed, such as in shot of Alex
fighting with the Cat Lady.
Alcott liked these lights because they were
so versatile.
That said, there were some scenes that required
a larger lighting setup like the scene of
Alex and the Droogs beating up the tramp.
The lights were positioned to appear like
the light was coming from a nearby streetlamp.
Makeup Artist Barbara Daly said, “We would
always spend a lot of time with the lighting,
which is the one thing I really loved that
Stanley always did was take a lot of time
setting the scene” (Making).
Many of the greatest aspects of Kubrick’s
films come down to the style and composition
of his photography and A Clockwork Orange
is no exception.
Kubrick once said in an interview, "When you
think of the greatest moments of film, I think
you are almost always involved with images
rather than scenes, and certainly never dialogue.
The thing a film does best is to use pictures
with music and I think these are the moments
you remember” (Strick, Houston).
I certainly find this to be the case.
When I think of A Clockwork Orange, I immediately
think of this:
or this
or this
or this:
In the same interview, Kubrick also spoke
about how difficult it is to talk about cinematography
and editing.
He said, "The questions of taste involved
and the decision-making criteria are essentially
nonverbal, and whatever you say about them
tends to read like the back of a record album.
These are decisions that have to be made every
few minutes during the shooting, and they
are just down to the director's taste and
imagination” (Strick, Houston).
There, that’s all there is to it!
But with all that said, Kubrick revealed the
most important thing he keeps in mind while
directing—make it interesting.
You have to make sure that every part of the
story is interesting, every part of the acting
is interesting, every part of the photography
is interesting and so on (Strick, Houston).
So what does this mean?
It means that you can get everything perfect—understanding
the story and characters, believability, and
so on, but it still won’t be a good movie
if it isn’t interesting (Strick, Houston).
You have to find a way to get the audience
to want to engage with what is going on.
Do you ever notice how everyone can’t help
but look at an accident on the side of the
road or how a class of children can’t focus
on anything else once a puppy is brought in?
Kubrick’s brother-in-law and frequent producer
Jan Harlan says that it has to do with “heightening
situations” whether they are good or bad
and that all of our stories are connected
deep down with what we love or fear (Turning
Like Clockwork).
Of course, you have to make sure that you
are heightening in such a way that isn’t cliche.
In order to be visually interesting, Kubrick
tried to come up with a cinematic style similar
to A Clockwork Orange author Anthony Burgess’
literary style as well Alex’s subjective
view of the world (Michel Ciment).
Still, Kubrick says that this all boils down
to intuition over analysis (Michel Ciment).
Part of this intuition had Kubrick looking
to use long continuous zooms in the telling
of this story (LoBrutto).
Kubrick was always interested in the most
cutting-edge technology and if that technology
didn’t already exist or wasn’t widely
available, he’d opt to have something custom
made for his needs.
Legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler tipped
Kubrick off to a man named Ed DiGiulio, who
was the president of Cinema Products Corporation
in LA (LoBrutto).
Wexler told him that DiGiulio was [quote]
“responsive to the demanding requirements
of filmmakers” (LoBrutto).
DiGiulio bought a “standard Mitchell BNC”
camera to modify for Kubrick and add a “joystick
control for smooth operation of zoom lenses”
as well as a “BNC crystal motor” (LoBrutto).
DiGiulio would later modify Kubrick’s Mitchell
BNC camera to be able to mount the ultra-fast
Zeiss F0.7 lens for the candle-light scenes
in Barry Lyndon.
For A Clockwork Orange, DiGiulio didn’t
modify the BNC camera for “reflex viewing”
meaning that you couldn’t use the eyepiece
to see exactly what the camera sees, but this
gave Kubrick “flexibility in the use of
special lenses” (LoBrutto).
Kubrick talked to DiGiulio about getting a
20:1 zoom lens for the 35mm camera.
DiGiulio told Kubrick that they could [quote]
"take an Angenieux 16mm 20:1 zoom and put
a 2x extender behind it so that it would cover
the 35mm format” (LoBrutto).
The problem was that this would lose two full
stops of light.
DiGiulio said, “The next day I get a telex
that’s a yard long in which [Kubrick] explains
to me that the 35mm format he’s shooting
in is 1.66:1…
Then he recites the Pythagorean theorem to
show me how X squared plus Y squared equals
the diagonal root of the sum of the squares
— and to point out that [in] going up from
a 16mm format, I didn’t need a 2x extender,
that I could do it with a 1.61x.
Therefore, I didn’t have to lose two stops
— maybe a stop or stop and a half…
Here he is lecturing me, and I’m saying,
‘Why this smart ass, another one of these
wild-ass directors.’
I called my old buddy Bern Levy, who was working
for Angenieux at the time, and I said,
‘Bern, I’ve got this wacko director who
wants to do this.’
Bern said, ‘Well, you know, Ed, as a matter
of fact we do have a 1.6x extender.’
And I said, ‘Oh, shit.’
This extender existed for some other application,
but the bottom line is that I was able to
take a 16mm zoom lens, put this extender on
it,
and give Stanley the exact lens he wanted” (LoBrutto).
I actually got to see this lens at the traveling
Kubrick exhibit when it was in San Francisco
a while back.
And there it is right in the center there.
The lens would later be used for the long
zoom shots in Barry Lyndon.
Side note: the lens on the left was the one
that Kubrick used for this incredible shot
of Nicole Kidman and Sky DuMont dancing in
Eyes Wide Shut.
The reason Kubrick wanted A Clockwork Orange
to have a 1.66:1 aspect ratio was that there
had been so many issues in the projection
of 2001’s 70mm,
much wider 2.20:1 aspect ratio (LoBrutto).
Another reason for A Clockwork Orange’s
more narrow ratio was because of the dreaded
“pan and scan” technique where television
networks would attempt to fill a square television
screen with a wide image by cutting the sides
off and actually moving the image back and
forth to show things that would have gone
beyond the boundaries of the screen (Alison Castle).
It’s interesting to think that Kubrick kept
television broadcasting of his movies in mind
when making decisions during production.
Before we move on, I want to take a second
to mention this episode’s bonus content.
For this bonus, I made a little story breakdown
tracing how all the different threads are
masterfully weaved together and why this moment
is perhaps the most important in the movie.
It’s just a dollar and really helps the
channel!
You can find it in the description and at
the end of the video.
From the beginning of his time behind a camera,
Kubrick loved the simplicity of composing
images with the subject in the center of the
frame.
He would continue this practice throughout
his entire filmography, but he found that
A Clockwork Orange also needed a more avant-garde
approach in some parts saying, "Telling a
story realistically is such a slowpoke and
ponderous way to proceed, and it doesn’t
fulfill the psychic needs that people have…
We sense that there’s more to life and to
the universe than realism
can possibly deal with” (LoBrutto).
That said, when you watch A Clockwork Orange,
you can immediately see Kubrick's simplicity
even in the most stylized scenes.
Every shot seems to be done with purpose and
with great… pith.
Yeth, pith.
Pith...
Just look at the first scene between Alex
and Mr. Deltoid:
This entire scene is done in just two setups.
When asked how much coverage he shoots, Kubrick
said, "There's always a conflict between time,
money and quality.
If you shoot a lot of coverage, then you must
either spend a lot of money, or settle for
less quality of performance.
I find that when I'm shooting a scene, I shoot
a lot of takes but I don't try to get a lot
of coverage from other angles.
I try to shoot the scene as simply as possible
to get the maximum performance from the actors
without presenting them the problem of repeating
the performance
too many times from different angles.
On the other hand, in an action scene, where
it's relatively easy to shoot, you want lots
and lots of angles so that you can do something
interesting with it in the cutting room” (Strick, Houston).
Kubrick used a small Arriflex 2C camera for
the hand-held action shots that allowed him
to, not only move freely, but get much closer
to the actors than the Mitchell BNC.
A fair amount of the rape scene, the fight
with Billyboy’s goons, and the cat lady
scene was shot using this Arriflex, giving
the scenes a frantic feeling of being too
close to the action happening on screen.
Kubrick did all of the hand-held camerawork
in the film himself
as he did in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Kubrick said, "When the camera is on a dolly
you can go over the action of the scene with
the camera operator and show him the composition
that you want at each point in the take.
But you can’t do this when the camera is
hand-held.
Sometimes there are certain effects which
can only be achieved with a hand-held camera,
and sometimes you hand hold it because there’s
no other way to move through a confined space
or over obstacles” (Michel Ciment).
In a separate interview, he continues this
thought saying, "In addition to the fun of
doing the shooting myself, I find it is virtually
impossible to explain what you want in a hand-held
shot to even the most talented and sensitive
camera operator” (Strick, Houston).
Kubrick decided that he wanted the pivotal
fight with the cat lady to be filmed handheld
showing the full 360 degrees of the space.
During the shoot, Kubrick manned the Arri
2C camera while the crew “crouched down
outside the room” (LoBrutto).
For these shots, it was just the actors, Kubrick
with the camera, a crew member with the camera’s
power-pack holding onto Kubrick from behind,
and a journalist named Alexander Walker who
held onto the crew member from behind (Michel
Ciment).
Walker said, "We were whirling around and
it was very difficult to control the momentum
and we’d end up in a heap on the floor,
or the inertia meant I’d be swung around
and end up in shot.
After the film was released, Stanley sent
me a couple of strips of film on my appearances
in A Clockwork Orange” (Grundy 111).
Perhaps the most striking action scene plays
out entirely in slow-motion.
After a threat to his leadership, Alex assaults
his Droogs at the Flat Block Marina.
Kubrick said, "I wanted to find a way to stylize
all of this violence, and also to make it
as balletic as possible…
Alex’s fight with his droogs would have
lasted about 14 seconds if it wasn’t in
slow motion.
I wanted to slow it to a lovely floating movement.” (LoBrutto).
Actually, let’s see what this would’ve
looked like at normal speed.
It really does show the power of cinema, doesn’t
it?
Another [quote/unquote] “action scene”
was done entirely in one static shot.
Alex picks up two young women from a record
store and brings them home for a wild romp
in his room to the William Tell overture performed
on synths.
In the record store, which was actually the
basement of the Chelsea Drugstore on King’s
Road, Kubrick used an Angenieux 9.8mm lens
that allowed
for a 90-degree field of view (LoBrutto).
The lens was pretty dang fast at f.95, so
Kubrick was able to shoot in relatively low
lighting conditions (LoBrutto).
They shot the record store bit over a couple
of days and Kubrick developed a little crush
on the brunette, who was Australian (Commentary).
She asked for her name to be taken off the
credits because she didn’t want her parents
seeing the movie back home in Australia (Commentary).
I have no idea if they ever found out, but
seeing as A Clockwork Orange is one of the
most famous films ever made, you have to wonder
if they did.
All-in-all, the William Tell sequence took
28 minutes to shoot with “two exposures
a second” (Commentary, Castle).
The large Mitchell camera blocked the doorway,
so they couldn’t get in or out.
Because Kubrick was going to speed up the
film and replace the sound with music, he
directed the actors throughout the scene (Commentary).
McDowell knew about Kubrick's little crush
on the brunette, so he spent extra time with
her to screw with Kubrick (Commentary).
Kubrick would eventually say, “Okay, that’s
enough.
Enough!”
With McDowell giggling the whole time (Commentary).
The William Tell scene was one of the main
reasons that the movie got an X rating.
Apparently, the argument was that pornographers
would simply speed up their sex scenes to
get a lower rating (Commentary).
Cultural historian Sir Christopher Frayling
said that this speeding up and slowing down
of film works to distance the viewer with
what is happening (Turning Like Clockwork).
In this way, you gain a heightened awareness
of the filmmaking process allowing you to
separate yourself from the film a bit and
look at it as something that is being presented
to you by an author.
Kubrick almost always keeps the viewer at
arm’s length, keeping you [in my opinion]
more fascinated with what’s going on than
emotionally invested.
Most of the characters in his movies don’t
really reveal their backstories or have grand
character arcs where they learn a valuable
lesson and change,
but despite always having strong impactful
endings, Kubrick’s movies never really seem
to end when the movie is over.
I find myself continuously thinking about
them and feeling the need to revisit them
like a great catchy song.
When asked why he decided to do the William
Tell scene in fast-motion,
Kubrick said, "It seemed to me a good way
to satirize what had become the fairly common
use of slow-motion to solemnize this sort
of thing, and turn it into ‘art.’
The William Tell Overture also seemed a good
musical joke to counter the standard Bach
accompaniment” (Michel Ciment).
It seems a major influence for this scene
comes from a Japanese queer film from 1969
titled Funeral Parade of Roses.
And that isn’t the only reference to the
film.
If you’re ever in the mood to watch something
super off-beat and insane with tons of interesting
cinematic techniques, then you should definitely
check it out.
Kubrick also seems to reference 2001: A Space
Odyssey in A Clockwork Orange
and, no, I don’t mean the soundtrack in
the record store—Kubrick followed 2001 with
A Clockwork Orange and if you watch them back-to-back,
you’ll see 2001 end with this image and
A Clockwork Orange begin with this image (Alison
Castle).
In kind of a cheeky way, Kubrick follows a
look from an evolved being to a look from
a person that contains many of the worst possible
traits of humanity.
Another instance of Kubrick ‘making things
interesting’ happens in a joyride the droogs
take on their way to commit their “ultra-violence.”
Vincent LoBrutto says these shots were [quote]
"photographed on a process stage, with the
passing scenery in the nighttime background
plate glowing in ghostly fashion.
The high-contrast rear-projection footage
is overly bright and nearly monochromatic,
recalling a similar effect created for F.W.
Murnau’s Nosferatu in scenes featuring the
vampire’s black carriage eerily racing through
the night.
Intercut shots representing Alex’s POV of
the road were slightly undercranked and ostensibly
lit by the car’s headlights” (LoBrutto).
Kubrick had used many projection effects on
the previous 2001: A Space Odyssey and LoBrutto
says that Kubrick likely used this 'heightened
reality’ to [quote] "convey the euphoria
of his drug-addled characters” (LoBrutto).
Kubrick also used rear-projection for this
shot in Eyes Wide Shut
to make it look more dream-like.
Things get even more fantastical when we actually
enter Alex’s deranged mind in the form of
daydreams or thoughts or drug-induced wig-outs.
Kubrick said, "The book describes things stylistically
that I couldn’t film” (LoBrutto).
For these sequences Kubrick looked at old
Hollywood movies (Michel Ciment).
Some of the images are from stock footage,
but others are near parodies of other movies (LoBrutto).
When asked about the biblical scene of Alex
whipping Jesus, Kubrick said, "I thought Alex
would have imagined it that way.
That’s why he uses the American accent we’ve
heard so many times before in biblical movies
when he shouts, ‘Move on there!” (Michel
Ciment).
As for the scene of Alex listening to Beethoven,
Kubrick said, “I just wanted to have him
visualizing some very inappropriate images
one might think of while listening to Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony.
Violent images.
The cavemen sequence came from One Million
Years B.C., the film with Raquel Welch.
[Alex] would imagine things he had seen in
films” (LoBrutto).
LoBrutto also reveals that this shot: was
[quote] "based on a shot seen in the black-comedy
Western Cat Ballou, which Kubrick elaborately
restaged” (LoBrutto).
I’ll leave you with one last quote from
Kubrick on intuition and adaptability—
he said, "As much as there are hours in the day,
and days in the week.
I think about a film almost continuously.
I try to visualise it and I try to work out
every conceivable variation of ideas which
might exist with respect to the various scenes,
but I have found that when you come down to
the day the scene is going to be shot and
you arrive on the location with the actors,
having had the experience of already seeing
some of the scenes shot,
somehow it's always different.
You find out that you have not really explored
the scene to its fullest extent.
You may have been thinking about it incorrectly,
or you may simply not have discovered one
of the variations which now in context with
everything else that you have shot is simply
better than anything you had previously thought
of.
The reality of the final moment, just before
shooting, is so powerful that all previous
analysis must yield before the impressions
you receive under these circumstances,
and unless you use this feedback to your positive
advantage, unless you adjust to it, adapt
to it and accept the sometimes terrifying
weaknesses it can expose,
you can never realize the most out of your
film” (Strick, Houston)
Are you like me and often find yourself endlessly
scrolling through a streaming service’s
catalogue looking for something to watch?
It’s difficult when the bad and the good
are all mixed together.
Well, MUBI has solved this problem in a really
unique way.
MUBI hosts just 30 films hand-selected by
film lovers, not an algorithm, and they add
a new movie every single day.
MUBI hosts a variety of great movies ranging
from award-winning masterpieces and festival-fresh
gems to cult classics and those hard-to-find
movies that you always keep an eye out for.
What I love about MUBI is how they curate
their releases into retrospectives, specials,
and specific sub-genres like Apocalyptic movies.
Right now, you can watch one of my favorite
Jean Pierre Melville movies, Le Doulos, starring
the ultra-cool Jean Paul Belmondo from Breathless.
It has one of the most suspenseful endings
I’ve ever seen.
Definitely make sure to check it out!
Try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI dot com
slash CinemaTyler, that’s M-U-B-I dot com
slash CinemaTyler for a whole month of great
cinema for free "...or join me on Patreon
at the $5 level and get extended access to
MUBI as a perk"
Thanks for watching!
