The genius of Stanley Kubrick is such that, whenever he decided to try his hand at a popular, well-worn genre, he would turn out one of that genre’s all-time greatest entries. He’s made movies that rank among the best in the horror genre (The Shining), the comedy genre (Dr. Strangelove), the war genre (Full Metal Jacket, Paths of Glory, and a couple of others) – he was a master of the craft.
He gave science fiction cinema two of its most iconic contributions: A Clockwork Orange, a truly shocking dystopian satire.
2001 Is The Best: It Covers The Whole Of Human Evolution
The opening prologue of 2001, dubbed “The Dawn of Man” sequence, shows how apes evolved into humans: by discovering how to use violence for personal gain. An ape figures out how to use a bone as a weapon and hits apes from the rival tribe that stole its tribe’s watering hole in order to get it back. And so, humanity was born.
The ape then tosses the bone into the air and Kubrick match-cuts to a satellite, summarizing millions of years of human evolution in a single cut. Then, the movie speculates on what the next stage of human evolution might be, drawing on Nietzsche’s “Übermensch” theory.
A Clockwork Orange Is A Close Second: Its Pitch-Black Humor Serves Its Themes
The themes at play in A Clockwork Orange, like dystopia and psychological conditioning and society versus the individual, are served by the film’s pitch-black comic sensibility. This ultra-dark comedy makes A Clockwork Orange a brilliant satire.
The humor in A Clockwork Orange is unnerving, to say the least, but it’s also undeniably thought-provoking, and helps to hammer home some of the ideas thematically tied into the narrative.
2001 Is The Best: It’s Filled With Breathtaking Moments
A movie moment is a truly magical thing, but it has to be earned. Directors like Michael Bay and Zack Snyder try to make every moment a “moment,” but if there’s no build-up or emotional substance, then it won’t have the same impact as, say, Chiron’s swimming lesson in Moonlight.
In 2001: A Space Odyssey, there are a ton of breathtaking moments, from humanity’s first encounter with a Monolith to the birth of the Star Child, and they all feel earned.
A Clockwork Orange Is A Close Second: Nadsat Slang Gives The Movie Its Own Identity
Throughout A Clockwork Orange, Alex and his droogs speak in a fictional futuristic slanguage called Nadsat. The audience is left to figure out the meaning of completely made-up words from their context.
Not only is Nadsat the perfect cultural counterpoint to the idea of Newspeak from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four; it also helps to give A Clockwork Orange its own identity.
2001 Is The Best: HAL 9000 Was A Terrifying Premonition About Artificial Intelligence
One of the messages in 2001 is a warning about the advancement of technology. HAL 9000 encapsulates this perfectly as a way-ahead-of-its-time premonition about the dangers of creating artificial intelligence.
Arthur C. Clarke wasn’t sure about adding the scene in which HAL reads the astronauts’ lips before deciding to kill them, but changed his mind when he found out computers had been designed that could actually read lips. Technology had already advanced too quickly for Kubrick to warn audiences about it.
A Clockwork Orange Is A Close Second: Beethoven Sets The Mood Perfectly
Much like 2001, the soundtrack of A Clockwork Orange is mostly made up of classical music. While both movies use it beautifully, the latter’s combination of disturbing visuals and familiar musical compositions sets the mood perfectly.
The soundtrack primarily utilizes Beethoven, whose grandiose tunes pair unforgettably with the ultraviolence on display on-screen.
2001 Is The Best: The Visuals Are Spectacular
While sci-fi literature creates dazzling imagery in the mind’s eye of its reader, sci-fi cinema has the advantage of being to realize that imagery more literally.
Kubrick made great use of the genre’s aesthetic possibilities with 2001, one of the most visually spectacular movies ever made.
A Clockwork Orange Is A Close Second: Malcolm McDowell’s Lead Performance Is Haunting
There have been tons of debates about whether or not audiences are supposed to be able to sympathize with Alex DeLarge, the psychopathic criminal who is technically the protagonist of A Clockwork Orange, and this debate will never be solved, because Malcolm McDowell’s performance has a haunting dichotomy.
Alex is borderline inhuman, and McDowell’s acting brings a really haunting truth to that extreme characterization. McDowell’s performance as Alex was one of the most significant influences on Heath Ledger’s powerful, Oscar-winning portrayal of the Joker.
2001 Is The Best: Viewers Can Interpret It However They Want
Like most of Kubrick’s movies, but even more so than all the others, 2001 is open to interpretation. Countless film buffs have offered up their own opinions on what the film is about: the search for God, the militarization of satellites, a metaphor for conception etc.
Kubrick was always hesitant to provide a definitive answer to any viewers’ questions, because he felt that if 2001 had one single explanation, then he wouldn’t have done his job right.
A Clockwork Orange Is A Close Second: A Dystopian Future Reflected A Dystopian Present
The dystopian future of A Clockwork Orange reflected a somewhat dystopian present in 1971. In the first half of the movie, a communist government rules Britain, reflecting the fears of the Cold War.
In the second half, an authoritarian far-right government takes over and starts ruling with an iron fist, reflecting the contemporary conservative governments of Richard Nixon and Edward Heath, as well as predicting the rise of Thatcherism.
