Power Relationships in Kubrick’s “Middle Period"
I. INTRODUCTION
Dominant characters featured in Stanley Kubrick’s three most prominent films exhibit a struggle both heuristic and civic. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and A Clockwork Orange (1971) were released concurrently and comprise what is often noted by many film analysts such, as Pat J. Gehrke, as Kubrick’s “Middle Period”. Grouped as a collection the films serve as a testament to the iconic director’s distrust of unchecked dogma. Kubrick was quoted in an interview with Michel Ciment, “There is no deliberate pattern to the stories that I have chosen to make into films. About the only factor at work each time is that I try not to repeat myself.” And though Kubrick confessed no conscious array in the grand scope of all his films, the narratives of his “Middle Period” perhaps suggest one of an unconscious or subliminal nature. At face-value their stories appear radically different, yet if one collates the three films in the context of a trilogy, a recurring theme of “ideologies justify submission” quickly develops.
Dominance and submission are the only relationships understood in a Kubrickian world where manipulative forces effectively employ politics, technology, pharmaceuticals, rhetoric, and even music as instruments of warfare. But not one of the aforementioned is as effective a weapon or resource as the withholding and manipulation of information. In its pure form, accurate information must be defended against those who hope to abduct and wield it for their own selfish purposes. Intentionally deceptive information functions like a surgical scalpel: it transplants a false reality in the place of a truthful one. Dominant parties in each of the “Middle Period” films, use regulated information as the device of their manifest destiny.
Ideologies serve as a form of programming for the human brain. Once they are coded into an ideology, Kubrick’s become representatives of a righteous crusade. Any rights lost in the furtherance of that crusade are justified as appropriate sacrifices to the larger collective cause. In fact, there is a glaring instance in each “Middle Period” film where a dominant character, validating the use of unforgiving submission methods, utters some variation of the phrase “it is regrettable, but necessary”. General Buck Turgidsen, Dr. Heywood Floyd, and Dr. Brodsky utilize this mantra to convince themselves and their peers that sympathy for the submitted is detrimental to one’s own dominance. But these are merely the three characters who explicitly voice such sentiment. Kubrick’s “Middle Period” features an intricate web of dominant characters and the parties that submit to them. In this web, the ends always justify the means, and whether it is willful or involuntary, submission is always a part of the greater good. By our outside standards the credos of certain domineering characters may appear insidious, but inside a Kubrickian reality it is difficult to label their actions as quintessentially evil. Dominant parties of the “Middle Period” films view themselves as agents of order amidst a cloud of chaos. To them, assimilation is merely a tool of their trade. Each filmic realms features certain characters who outwardly deem that the veracity of their ideology far outweigh its indignities.
II. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Kubrick labeled his film Dr. Strangelove as a “nightmare comedy”. And though the director uses satiric wit to deliver his message, it remains one of grim prophecy. “The visions that get at the difficult truths are not usually the ones that soothe us, and those were Kubrick’s vision.” (Kagan, 246) After witnessing the mass destruction of a nuclear holocaust, the film’s key players fail to abandon their short-sighted ideologies, even though past faulty logic is to blame for their current quagmire. By the film’s end history is surely doomed to repeat itself. Theorist Randy Rasmussen postulates on the film’s overarching conflict in his book, Stanley Kubrick: Seven Films Analyzed, “Dr. Strangelove is a satiric odyssey through the labyrinth of one of modern civilization’s most elaborate creations: military deterrence in the nuclear age. The struggle for power and security within the structure is fought by numerous, overlapping identities: nation versus nation, one military service versus another within the same political organization, organization versus individual, individual versus individual, and individual versus himself.”
U.S. Air Force General Jack D. Ripper is the epitome of the manipulative personalities apparent in each of Kubrick’s “Middle Period” films. In his mind Ripper’s absurd rationale gives him the government’s authority to declare war on the Russian people. Superficially, Ripper’s plight is masked as a support of American democracy in the face of Russian communism, but underneath beats the unpredictable heart of individual lunacy. Ripper’s first exercise in dominance is upon the meek RAF Captain Lionel Mandrake. Mandrake’s tame disposition is no match for General Ripper’s forceful language. In contrast with the directness of Ripper’s line, “The base is being put on condition red… It looks like we’re in a shooting war,” Mandrake’s question of, “Couldn’t this all just be a drill?” appears feeble and futile. Mandrake is deeply programmed into his own ideology of strict adherence to rank and file, and Ripper exploits him by painting a false picture of the crisis. Though he clearly has his own doubts about the existence of a Russian invasion, Mandrake believes that as a subordinate officer under Ripper’s command a challenge to his commanding officer’s authority would violate modus operandi. Mandrake cannot help but submit himself to Ripper’s ruse and enact “Attack Plan R”. Ripper’s nonsensical ramblings of “precious bodily fluids” and fluoridation conspiracy theories allow Mandrake to at last reject the plastic inauthenticity of the erroneous Russian invasion. Armed with an unaffected perception of the intercontinental situation, Mandrake attempts to coerce Ripper into giving him the recall code. Unfortunately for the RAF Captain, General Ripper’s devotion to his creed is so strong that he would rather die as its martyr than live as its greatest vulnerability. In Ripper’s mind, loss of life is but an insignificant sacrifice if it enables his intended plan to continue after his death.
General Jack D. Ripper seizes ubiquitous control of Burpleson Air Force base’s radio and CRM-114 machine, the only means of communication with all the soldiers stationed on-base and patrolling the skies. Ripper makes quick use of his exclusive influence over the base personnel and projects himself as the reliable voice of reason over the base’s loudspeaker. He seeks both to dehumanize his Russian opponent and also to ensure that his men remain loyal to his cause: “Your Commie has no regard for human life. Not even his own. The enemy may come individually, or he may come in strength. He may even come in the uniform of our own troops. But however he comes, we must stop him!” Theorist Randy Rasmussen would identify Ripper’s dominance over Captain Mandrake as “individual versus individual”, and Ripper’s biologically-fueled internal conflict as “individual versus himself”, so naturally Rasmussen would label the mad General’s submission of an entire branch of the United States military as “individual versus organization”. Misleading the crew aboard the B-52 bomber requires little effort; the plane’s means of communication are limited to a single source. The CRM-114 machine provides impersonal, one-way broadcast messages that identify the mission parameters for the B-52 crew and therefore their reality. Ripper cleverly fashions a new, indelible reality for the plane’s crew by exploiting the limitations of the CRM-114 machine in tandem with Attack Plan R.
Though it could be argued that the United States submitted itself to an ideology of Soviet distrust, President Merkin Muffley reminds the audience, while chiding General Buck Turgidsen, that “It is the avowed policy of our country never to strike first with nuclear weapons.” When Turgidsen counters that Ripper has already invalidated such a naive agenda, Muffley hotly exclaims “It was not an act of national policy!” And Muffley is absolutely correct: though the United States military provided the tools and means for Ripper’s campaign, officially speaking it was the General’s insane motives that commenced the international debacle. Without Ripper’s unwarranted initiative the two sovereign nations would have remained in the equivalent of an innocuous shouting match. They certainly would not be on the brink of annihilation. But Turgidsen’s difficulty in understanding Muffley’s contention becomes elucidated once the viewer considers what motivations drive the General’s pugnacious mind.
The reasons behind their support of nuclear assault are polar opposites, but Generals Jack Ripper and Buck Turgidsen envision the same conclusion. One General defends the sanctity of the human body while the other General defends the very principles upon which democratic liberty is built, but both agree in the extermination of the Russian populace and its communist ideals. Randy Rasmussen writes, “[General Turgidsen] is bombastic, closed minded, and inconsistent”. And indeed Turgidsen is so blinded by political ideology that he actually defends “a total commitment” to Ripper’s plan. Turgidsen’s brazen accusations of the Russian political administration’s lawlessness and godlessness only hint at the extent of his fanaticism. But much like Ripper’s confession about “precious bodily fluids”, it is Turgidsen’s proclamation of “two regrettable but nonetheless distinguishable post-war environments” that truly exposes his warped belief system. Turgidsen has developed a trained form of mental acrobatics to disassociate him from the genocide’s cruel inhumanity and retreat inside a delusional bubble of statistical support. In his submission to these twisted beliefs, the U.S. death toll is excusable if Russian casualties outnumber America’s.
Dr. Strangelove provides the scientifically rational solution to the self-serving hardships introduced by Jack D. Ripper. John Baxter writes of the opportunistic Dr. Strangelove in his book Stanley Kubrick, “[Dr. Strangelove] is the one-man embodiment of the arms-race.” The news of the Russian “doomsday machine” paralyzes President Muffley and forces him to adopt a new reality. He then calls on Dr. Strangelove, a man who in a past international conflict was a member of the National German Socialist Party, as his chief scientific advisor. President Muffley’s expectation for a trustworthy opinion to come from a former Nazi is no more ridiculous than Turgidsen’s earnest support of Ripper’s gambit against the Soviets. Dr. Strangelove brilliantly enters at the War Room administration’s most susceptible moment, and preys on their mutual insecurities as he seizes control. Much to the collective chagrin of the American political leaders, the Russians are unsuccessful in defending their land from the final Ripper-guided B-52 and their Doomsday Machine is activated. The Earth is literally torn apart and Strangelove shepherds in the new world order by quickly outlining his personal vision of the future. The first tenant of Strangelove’s plan is to devise a computer program that can grade the usefulness of any living Americans by an assigned numeric value. He assures the War Room members that their governmental status prequalifies them for the safety guaranteed by “some of our deeper mineshafts”. Strangelove’s next assertion to the cowering men states, “With a ratio of ten women to every man, I estimate we would re-attain the present G.N.P. in twenty years.” The promise held in the statement entices the overly-virile General Turgidsen. The General’s inquiry about an implied abandonment of all future monogamous relationships may well have been the campaign slogan that propelled Dr. Strangelove into autocratic dominance. Proud sponsorship of computer-calculated survival rates and coordinated breeding patterns allow Dr. Strangelove to effectively transform the nightmare conditions of the American post-apocalypse into his own private petri dish.
Dr. Strangelove serves as a frightening illustration of the extreme lengths individuals will go to enforce their beliefs. “[The film] works as a purgation off fears and desires… the characters are sharply observed American stereotypes who form a dehumanized spectrum leading to the mechanized Strangelove…” (Kagan, 135) Kubrick uses the radical personas of his characters to highlight an unpleasant social phenomenon. “Ideologies will outlive individuals” is a motif that the director repeats in his next two “Middle Period” films, 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange.
III. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
“Are we simply a product of our environment, or are we capable of mastering our environment?” This is the question that dwells at the core Stanley Kubrick’s futuristic masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the interview with Joseph Gelmis, Stanley Kubrick explained, “I think one of the areas where 2001 succeeds is in stimulating thoughts about man’s destiny and role in the universe…” And in 2001 mankind’s vocation lies in his race’s rapid expansion and advancement. Though the film’s communication with its audience is largely achieved through visual representation; it is its silent moments rather than its frank dialogue which often convey the film’s greater theme. 2001 explores early man’s adoption of tools, current man’s reliance on them, and lastly future man’s struggle to dominate them.
Kubrick chose to begin his psychological saga with an introduction to man’s most primitive ancestor, Australopithecus. By physical standard they are nearer to ape than modern homosapiens, but socially they display all the rudiments of humanity. Even in their earliest depiction in the film, the ape-men gather in tribes and crudely emote to one another. They appear to be a peaceful clan, but modest intra-tribe ownership altercations do occasionally occur. The boldest of the ape-men, Moonwatcher, is the assumed clan leader, a social position which grants the choicest supplies before any other clan member. Moonwatcher’s dominance is not disputed until the arrival of an opposing tribe of ape-men. The new tribe’s leader quickly assesses the bounty of Moonwatcher’s watering hole and desires it for his own. They hoot and shout but never strike each other; the vocal assault marks the extent of the ape-men’s combat. The rival tribe’s leader has a louder voice and Moonwatcher’s wounded ego ultimately submits. The arrival of the imposing alien monolith guides Moonwatcher toward innovation. Inspired by the alien craftsmanship of the artifact, the inventive ape-man repurposes a discarded thigh-bone into the world’s first tool. His new bone-club allows Moonwatcher to place his most formidable challengers into submission, and with them felled, the environment is all his. The bone club functions much like the hydrogen bomb in Dr. Strangelove and allows Moonwatcher to circumvent reasoning with his opponent. The ape-man does not even need to consider the dubious ethics behind murder, he must only eliminate those who might. “Able to manipulate a tool, he is a man; and as a representative of mankind, he has answered the call to adventure.” (Hoch, 168) By adopting a carnivore’s diet, prey and foe all fall before the might of his invention. Moonwatcher has effectively molded a new reality for his tribe and cemented their paramountcy as a species.
Over several epochs, the advent of technology that provided a boon for Moonwatcher’s control has since degraded into an unhealthy crutch for modern man. “Perfect order and perfect function decrease the need for human inquisitiveness and control,” writes Robert Philip Kolker in his article, “Dr. Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey”. No longer does it feel as though man may hold technology as Moonwatcher held his bone-club, but rather that technology cradles mankind in its cold, mechanical bosom. By submitting himself to technology’s will man has enhanced the limits of his purview, but also must share his power of domain. In space mankind must make compromises that technology does not. His movements are slow and unsteady, while his tools have the coordination to dance amongst each other in a celestial ballet. In this expanded world, man serves as a bystander and no longer a participant in the flow of modernization. He has allowed his tools to surrogate his basic senses, and he no longer trusts his own eyes and ears. In mankind’s submissive state, his tools have developed their own intellect and have gained a logical processing capability that surpasses his own. Man believes that technology has advanced his race but actually his destiny has been placed on auto-pilot.
While submitting himself to the robotic desires of technology, modern man in 2001 still urges to dominate his peers. Dr. Heywood Floyd represents the perseverance of governmental institution in the future. As an individual he remains unimpressed with the miracle of space travel and passively sleeps through most of his voyage to the crater, Clavius. As an extension of “The Council”, he quickly asserts his dominance over Russian delegates and agitated base personnel alike. His guarded interaction with the Russian scientists, namely Dr. Smyslov, confirms the existence of competing political factions in the distant future. The universality of space travel’s advent has done little to eliminate the distrusts garnered by nationalism. Dr. Floyd confirms Dr. Smyslov’s suspicions of a base-wide shut down on Clavius, but chooses not to make the Russian privy to the true reason behind it. Rather than engaging in the brutal physical encounters of his primitive ancestors, Dr. Floyd weaponizes the phrase “I’m not at liberty to say” in order to submit his opponent.
His confrontation with the Russians is hardly the sole instance in which Dr. Floyd uses his allegiance to The Council to deflect personal blame. In his meeting with the roomful of Clavius officials, he stands above them at the podium and expresses reassurance that the rumors of epidemic are entirely false. He explains that it is merely a tactic employed by the terrestrial ruling body, to defend their sole claim to the lunar monolith. Similar to the ploy used by the demented General Jack D. Ripper, Floyd and the Council surcease all outside influences from investigating Clavius, and guarantee themselves exclusive ownership. Defense of The Council’s agenda prompts Dr. Floyd to at last reveal his individual feelings. He tells the Clavius personnel that he finds government secrecy “personally embarrassing”, but also “accepts the need for it.” Like General Turgidsen’s plea to President Muffley of “two distinguishable futures” Floyd lays down the phrase in defense of a disputed ideology.
Astronaut Dave Bowman and supercomputer HAL9000 may have once stood together in support of the same ideology, but their need for self-preservation comes at the expense of their companion. They share the same motivation to complete the Jupiter mission, but their growing distrust of each other soon drives an enormous wedge between them. HAL9000 was designed to impart perfect and unquestionable logic, but a flaw in HAL’s logic comes as a terrible awakening for Dave Bowman. “Expected to predict mechanical failures aboard Discovery before they occur, and even to specify the manner of the failure, Hal is as inescapably locked into his prediction as the Soviets were into their programming of their Doomsday Machine in Dr. Strangelove.” (Rasmussen, 83) The astronaut realizes that the supercomputer serves as the intellectual and regulatory center for the spaceship, but also believes that HAL’s improper computations could prove dually disastrous for all human life aboard. When Bowman confronts HAL and gives the supercomputer a chance to explain its inaccurate prediction, HAL audaciously attributes the imperfection to “human error”. The computer even posits that in any past instance of human logic countering a computer’s, the human’s perception always proves incorrect. Dave Bowman maintains a façade of indifference in HAL’s presence, but after withdrawing to a pod, the astronaut voices doubts to his sole human companion, Frank Poole. The bluntness of his confession transforms the supercomputer from a sympathetic entity to an annoying obstacle. Armed with the belief that HAL’s malfunction will inevitably harm them, the two humans conclude that they must deactivate HAL’s cognizance. Unbeknownst to them, the supercomputer has the ability to read lips and uses the skill to gain access to their plan before it can fully materialize. In HAL’s mechanical eyes, the union formed between Bowman and Poole is a dormant threat to the Jupiter Mission, and he must kill the two men to prevent it. The two men who initially shared in HAL’s devotion to the mission have devolved into lowly assassins. HAL’s reduction of the two humans to the equivalent of a computer virus is enough justification for his homicidal plan. Though Frank Poole is lost in the fracas, Dave Bowman refuses to accept HAL’s dominance and quickly mounts a counterattack. Ignoring the supercomputer’s near-human pleas to cease, Bowman descends into the depths of the HAL’s processing center with the intent to dismantle its personality. The astronaut is cautious to leave HAL’s life-support systems online, while merely disconnecting the problematic aspect of HAL’s awareness. In one grand, symbolic motion humanity at last triumphs over its tools and upholds its role as the rightful master.
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey envisions a future where man’s acquiescence of a technological will threatens to replace his ascendancy over his domain. The monolith’s appearance serves as an alien invitation to mankind. It requires only that Earth’s inhabitants collectively rise to their challenges and actualize their potential. But somewhere along the way, humanity lost sight of their goal and succumbed to the very contraptions initially designed to aid them. As Mark Crispin Miller words it in his article, “2001: A Cold Descent”, “…That long, enlightened course of ours has only brought us back to something too much like the terminus we once escaped - only this time it is not the forces of mere nature that threaten to unmake us but the very instrumentality that originally saved us.” Fortunately, hope remains for those willing to abandon technology’s artificial comforts and unite once again under the ideology of human-powered innovation. Unfortunately it is these exact convictions which motivate the dominant characters of Kubrick’s next film to oppress those less able of body or mind.
IV. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
The contest for control between the savageness of individualism and the sanctions of institutionalism serve as the basis for Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. The film’s narrator, Alex DeLarge, is a rebellious, young gang leader whose insatiable greed for hegemony betrays him and ultimately places him under the thumb of one authoritarian force after another. In 1971, Stanley Kubrick said about the film and its protagonist, “Alex’s adventures are a kind of psychological myth. Our subconscious finds release in Alex, just as it finds in dreams. It resents Alex being stifled and repressed by authority, however much of our conscious mind recognizes the necessity of doing this.” (Kagan, 167) The film studies the individual’s programmed loss of free will during the protection of communal order and security. Kubrick’s central argument for the film stands firm: whether incarceration or rehabilitation, the white-wash ideologies of crime prevention fail their subjects and by extension fail the community. Both solutions neglect to examine the impetuses of those they submit: prisoners have a high rate of recidivism, and behaviorally deviant patients are rendered into incomplete humans through their treatment. The methods employed against abnormal behavior are not able to reduce the amount of violence perpetrated; they merely transfer victimization of that violence onto a new set of individuals.
At first introduction, Alex DeLarge hardly fits the description of a typical, sympathetic protagonist: he is violent, sexually-driven, and flagrantly disestablishmentarian. Alex’s interiority also performs as the film’s narration, and thus the audience is intrinsically compelled toward his skewed perspective from his preamble, “There was me-- That is Alex…” At the time of his introduction Alex is a full-fledged criminal, and the master of his own fate. Additionally he is the “droogan leader” of a street gang, and thus capable of imposing his will upon his followers. He allows his minions little in the way of personal expression, and disciplines them to remain in line with his crusade for social disorder. His instructional approach is one of “I will lead by example” coupled with the promise of strict punishment by physical abuse: he is the first to strike the drunken bum, he is the facilitator of the scrap with Billyboy’s gang, and his devious ruse allows his gang entry into the home of the Alexanders. And from his euphemistic descriptions of these heinous acts, he is able defends his them as necessary before his band of droogs. Alex’s demand, like General Jack D. Ripper’s is one of simple but stern ordinance, “Assimilate or be eliminated.” Catlady’s resistance to Alex’s advances results in a bout described by Randy Rasmussen as “a battle between unyielding wills”. Like Moonwatcher and the bone-club Alex brings the massive, artificial phallus down upon her skull. Though some theorists argue that these aberrant deeds are a misguided commitment to social protest, they are in actuality just simple feats of self-indulgence. In his initial escapades, Alex avoids confrontation with authority figures, but his injustices don’t go unnoticed for long by those in municipal command. In his article, “Deviant Subjects in Foucalt and A Clockwork Orange” author Pat J. Gehrke asserts, “[The film] is a narrative about an individual who transits through at least four subject-positions: a criminal, a convict, a patient, and a citizen.” Alex’s dominance and influence are repeatedly unseated and then appropriated to the persons or institutions for which he once had so little regard.
Alex’s arrest by the local police force and his resulting detainment in Staja 84F mark the power transition in the scoundrel’s life. In his narration, Alex implores sympathy, “This is the real weepy and like tragic part of the story beginning, my brothers and only friends.” Suddenly Alex is no longer able to inflict his will and must accept systematic castigation. Police officers and prison guards alike view Alex as a stain on society and not simply an injudicious individual. To gain his submission the police force utilizes the same form of brutality to dominate Alex that he once used on his victims. The prison system demotes Alex’s identity to a serial number and strips him of all traces of his previous life. “[The prison’s reception room] is devoted to neat stacks of boxes containing the personal property of inmates, who are figuratively reduced to manageable blocks fitted into prefabricated slots recollecting the immaculate symmetry of HAL’s Logic Memory Center in 2001.” (Rasmussen, 138) In his new identity, #655321, he must literally toe a line. Order and procedure are the presiding edicts in Staja 84F. Without any emphasis on preventing future crimes, the penal system enables a high rate of repeat offenders.
Unlike the obvious defects of the callous penal system, psychological rehabilitation in A Clockwork Orange masks its ideological blemishes with the contention that domination methods are not punishment, but betterment. In contrast to the prison’s power struggle between the reckless criminal and the domineering warden, the Ludovico scientists influence their subject’s behavior with methods similar to a parent rearing a naughty child. But the coddling tones used by the institute’s professionals bode no greater understanding for Alex’s predisposition to sex and violence. In the eyes of the Ludovico scientists, Alex’s behavior is biologically rather than ethically spurred. Alex volunteers to participate in the Ludovico treatment, but his ideological self-sacrifice is based upon an incomplete perception of what his rehabilitation entails. Much to Alex’s chagrin, these rehabilitation methods include the cutting-edge use of pharmaceuticals along with immersive film screenings to physically curtail his future mental desires. “Like the Doomsday proponents in Dr. Strangelove, frustrated government authorities in Clockwork Orange will seek out revolutionary solutions to a chronic problem.” (Rasmussen, 129) Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony” provides the orchestral accompaniment both to the horrors Alex “viddies” on the screen as well as the ones he suffers in his “guttiwuts”. In his previous life as a criminal, the classical score had always served as a homing beacon for harnessing his most socially-repulsive yearnings. Now, strapped into a chair with his eyes pried open, Beethoven’s booming notes have intertwined with the acute physical illness experienced by his graphic exposure to sadism. Alex’s pitiful cries of “It’s a sin!” in protest to the usage of music as a deterrent are disregarded by the Ludovico’s chief researcher, Dr. Brodsky. “Can’t be helped, here’s the punishment element perhaps” is Dr. Brodsky’s scientific equivalent to General Buck Turgidsen’s soldierly tactics and Dr. Heywood Floyd’s governmental tactics: the pursuit of a noble resolution excuses collateral damage. Each of these empowered men would proudly stand behind the declared sentiment of “But the point is it works!”
Alex’s attempt to reassume his previous lifestyle after enduring the tortures of Dr. Brodsky and the Ludovico Institute is a pathetic failure. “[Alex is] transformed from the clockwork mechanism he was (whether by environmental influence or genetic propensity) into a clockwork mechanism the State prefers him to be.” (Rasmussen, 149) Sadly, his rehabilitation places him at a profound emotional disadvantage to the personal vendettas of his former victims. Most of the punishment levied against him is payback for personal misdeeds. Alex’s deepest wounds are suffered at the hands of Dim, Georgie, and Mr. Alexander who use occupational advantages against him. As deputies of the police force, Dim and Georgie abuse their appointed powers to abduct the helpless Alex and beat him into submission. Like Georgie and Dim, Mr. Alexander is an individual who was wronged by Alex in the past, and now demands satisfaction. The author is a proud member of an activist group whose ambition is to subvert governmental influence over the populace. Once Alex’s musical weakness is uncovered, Mr. Alexander can hardly contain his joy as he blasts Beethoven’s music and indirectly encourages Alex to “snuff it”. Like the conniptions of joy displayed by both Moonwatcher and Dr. Strangelove, Mr. Alexander revels in his new position of power. Mr. Alexander allows his ideology of vengeance to pollute his mind and compromise his sense of morality. And though Alex’s plunge does not usher in his demise, it imperatively represents his individual resistance from the agony of a life without free will. In the dramas of Kubrick’s “Middle Period” one must first fall so that they may later rise and Alex’s literal first step out the window is also his emblematic first step toward reclaiming control of his identity.
English society depicted in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange offers its citizens two frightening alternatives: one in which its anarchic streets are roamed by miscreant gangs and another in which the heavy-handed punishment for reprobate behavior is an amputation of all individual choice. In truth, neither choice can provide a sturdy foundation for a healthy society; both realities position the individual and the institution as diametrically opposed rather than attempt to bolster the strength of one with the other. But a Kubrickian world is an exploitative world, and no relationship contained can ever be mutually-beneficial. Alexander Walker writes in his book Stanley Kubrick, Director, “In A Clockwork Orange it is the darkest of his fears that Kubrick plugs us into, not the fear of accidental annihilation by nuclear overkill, nor even the fear of what the unknown universe may hold, but the clear and present fear he has of man’s surrender of his identity to the tyranny of other men.”
V. Conclusion
All ideologies have the underlying ability to supersede one’s personal value and can trigger a fanatical devotion that significantly narrows one’s breadth of social-reasoning. In 1968, Stanley Kubrick was quoted, “Man in the twentieth century has been cut adrift in a rudderless boat on an uncharted sea; if he is going to stay sane throughout the voyage, he must have something to care about, something that is more important than himself.” (Kagan, 246) Kubrick warns us that this fanaticism and a sense of self-righteousness always lead to widespread obliteration. General Ripper’s frenzied dedication to his self-centered theory descends all modern society into darkness; HAL9000’s vehement support of the Jupiter Mission nearly kills the ship’s entire crew; and the English society treats criminal behavior with brutal oppression and loses sight of the cure. Morality in an organized society is not simply lines drawn in the sand that can be used to vilify those on the wrong side. Great society succeeds after the growth of its individuals is recognized and encouraged. Moral behavior is achieved through self-discipline and not from the mores and communal protocol outlined by society. But as Pat J. Gehrke points out, this is not the reality Kubrick’s stories offer, “…Rather than establishing a world in which the human will is the sole creator and measure of all things, Kubrick’s characters develop agency only as response to subjection and otherness.”
Stanley Kubrick had lofty artistic ambitions in his filmmaking career. In his self-examining article “Kubrick on Kubrick”, the director wrote, “I know I would like to make a film that gave a feeling of the times… psychologically, sexually, politically, [and] personally. I would like to make that more than anything else. And it’s probably going to be the hardest film to make.” His three “Middle Period” films poignantly convey all the idiomatic motivations that drive individuals to their adopted behaviors. And undeniably, his unflinchingly scrupulous perspective serves as a touchstone for the shrouded side of human nature that most film directors will never even attempt to showcase in their entire collective works.
CITATIONS
- Ciment, Michel. “Kubrick on A Clockwork Orange”. http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/interview.aco.html
- Kagan, Norman. The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick. New York: Continuum, 2000. Print.
- Rasmussen, Randy. Stanley Kubrick: Seven Films Analyzed. Jefferson: McFarland, 2001. Print.
- Baxter, John. Stanley Kubrick. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1997. Print.
- Gelmis, Joseph. “An Interview with Stanley Kubrick”. http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0069.html
- Hoch, David G. “Mythic Patters in 2001: A Space Odyssey.” Perspectives on Stanley Kubrick. New York: G.K. Hall & Co., 1996: Print.
- Kolker, Robert Phillip. “Dr. Strange love and 2001: A Space Odyssey.” Perspectives on Stanley Kubrick. New York: G.K. Hall & Co., 1996: Print.
- Miller, Mark Crispin. “2001: A Cold Descent.” Depth of Field: Film, and the Uses of History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006: Print.
- Gehrke, Pat J. “Deviant Subjects in Foucault and A Clockwork Orange.” Depth of Field: Film and the Uses of History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006: Print.
- Walker, Alexander. Stanley Kubrick, director. New York: Norton, 1999. Print.
- Kubrick, Stanley. “Kubrick on Kubrick.” Perspectives on Stanley Kubrick. New York: G.K. Hall & Co., 1996: Print.
