Thriller opening scene research

A clockwork orange

 

 

Directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1971, Written by Stanley Kubrick, Anthony Burgess, top billed cast include Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee and Michael Bates. Produced by warner brothers, we can early on sense the nature of thriller as we are given mysterious things to look at. Starting off with a full bright red screen, as the first image of the film, then showing a blue screen, maybe making some form of reference to the brains of a particular character as there are some attitude testing themes in this sequence especially in the time of 1971. Stanley banned his own film in Briton in 1973 until his death in 1999. With this I believe that there is no specific target audience for this film as fans of genres may love or hate it. In addition, this film was made to address various issues prevalent in society such as the oppressive nature of governments, therefore the target audience is the general public over 18 as its rated ‘X’. We are introduced to what we assume is the main character as seen below, although there is no form of dialogise to get a better depiction of this character, but he is there non the less, we are also introduced to the three other men sitting beside him also in the same circumstances. 

 

The use of doing the make-up on one side of his face, along with the idea that this film is set to ravel problems in society, this could be a symbolic connotation to the duality of man, like those ideas presented in the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde a Novella by Robert Louis Stevenson. The non-diegetic soundtrack of an orchestra could present the civilised image of man, and the props of detailed naked manikins could potentially be there to counter that idea with the manic and darker side of society. 

 

 

As the camera slowly zooms out there is no movement among the characters as the rest of the set is revealed, to slowly get more and more uncomfortable for the audience, as I believe this is the aim of this opening scene, is to make the audience on edge and put concepts in front of them that would never imagine and challenge the norms of values of society in the 1970s. 

 

The grand, revelation style orchestra soundtrack adds an aspect to this scene as it makes what is going on in this scene seem celebratory and magnificent. This adds to the tone of the scene as the music could massively impact the connotations of this scene if it were different, but this choice of music internally normalises this type of environmental within the audience when the display on the screen is very much strange and disturbing. There is little to no editing in this scene the only thing to note is the whole thing is done in one scene, not specifying one variant of this display, this is because the director wants everything to be viewed at the same time, with the main character sitting in the same place in the centre of the screen adding to the overall mysterious theme of this film so far. 

 

I think Stanley has been successful in this opening scene as he has done something that would have been completely out of the ordinary in the 1970s and even in the modern day. There are many possible connotations and ideology's that could be potentially linked to things in this scene, such as the fact that actors stand among manikins, could potentially suggest how people in power view people as passive beings for example could be portrayed in this sequence. Therefore, due to the high concept of this opening scene as well as the curiosity and interest that this scene builds especially in the time period, in my opinion is very successful and truly brilliant.