I was in 7th grade. My friend calls me. He says, "Daniel! I just read
this amazing book, and this guy actually creates his own slang! There's a movie,
too. Let's go rent it." The next thing I know, I find myself at his
house, and he's popping in a tape with the strange title of A
Clockwork Orange. I sit down to get
comfortable, and I'm suddenly glued to the set as I see nothing but red on the
screen, with pulsing electronic music moving through my ears. Suddenly it cuts
to the close up of Malcolm McDowell's face. On his right eye are fake eyelashes.
The camera tracks back and I see the surreal Korova Milk Bar. That was it, my
friends. From that moment on I knew nothing but the adventures of Alex, our
humble narrator. When the movie finished, I sat back, exhausted. But I was a
changed man. Before that point, my appreciation of movies was simply casual. My
favorite movie was Star Wars. After A Clockwork Orange, that was
all over. I became a certified film buff, and an obsessive Kubrick fan in
particular. But despite the fact that 2001 was more revolutionary, or Barry
Lyndon had more beautiful cinematography, I have and will always maintain
that A Clockwork Orange is the best Kubrick film, simply because it was
the first movie that made me truly love film.
Cut ahead several years, and I'm doing some volunteer work for the American
Cinematheque, an organization that shows rare films, obscure films, classic
films, just good films in general. I'm working at the theater (they were showing
Australian documentaries), when a girl walks in, needing to use the bathroom. As
she comes back out, it turns out she knows one of the volunteers. As they begin
some small talk, she mentions that she was buying a ticket for the next night, a
showing of A Clockwork Orange, with Malcolm McDowell there to discuss it.
Needless to say, I was out the door before she was, shelling out $10 for a
chance to see my favorite movie on the big screen, with the star in tow. And a
good thing I did, too, because a few minutes later, it sold out. The next day I
got there at 6:30 (the show started at 7:30), and there was already a line of
people waiting to get in, as well as a line of people trying to get tickets
(slackers). They let us in at 7:00. I picked out a prime spot in the middle of
the theater (so as to get the best sound mix, in case this was the new print
with 5.1 sound that Leon Vitali had just remastered). I watched the people
stream in, and eventually struck up a conversation with the woman next to me.
She was from Italy, and apparently had written her college thesis on Kubrick's Lolita.
Apparently, A Clockwork Orange was also the first movie that made her a
film buff, but, being from Italy, she had never seen it in English! This showing
was her first time seeing it in the original English (after the show, she told
me that the Italian dubbing was very good, but still didn't compare with seeing
it in English).
Eventually, Malcolm McDowell entered from a side door to a tremendous amount of
applause. He came up to the front, took the mic, and said, "I'm very
glad to be here tonight, since they don't usually do these things until after
you're dead." He then gave us an anecdote to set us on our way for the
film. He talked about the opening shot, and how they worked on it for a full
day. A few weeks later, Kubrick came up to him and said, "Malcolm, I
just saw the rushes of the opening, and I noticed that you raise your milk glass
to the camera. Why did you do that?" And Malcolm replied, "Well,
Stanley, I wanted to let the audience know that they're in for one HELL of a
ride!" To which Kubrick simply said, "Oh…o.k."
And with that, the film started. Right away I knew it wasn't a remastered print.
The sound was obviously in mono, and the print was scratched and dirty. I guess
I'm a DVD snob, but I can only imagine how amazing the new prints would have
looked and sounded in a real theater. Still, seeing the film on the big screen
was eye opening. You could see spots of acne on McDowell's face, as well as
other small details (notice that in the montage of newspapers scene, Alex's last
name is given as "Burgess"). The audience was responsive and lively,
obviously right in tune with what Kubrick was trying to do with the movie. The
sped up orgy scene was greeted with applause. It was most definitely a
successful showing of a landmark film.
We all applauded over the ending credits, and then McDowell came down to the
front, along with a moderator, and began to talk. He talked about how the film
was originally received ("I thought we were making a comedy. I remember
it came out and I thought people needed more of a sense of humor."),
wearing those eye clamps ("They scratched my corneas. Stanley told me if
I was to be out because of it, I should be out for a week. We could make an
insurance claim."), and Kubrick's eccentricities ("Kubrick had
a lot of theories, and most of them were CRAP. Some of them, though, were
amazing. But most of them were crap."), among other things. He was very
personable and chatty, in fact, he talked so much that the moderator had to
practically cut him off in order to wrap it up for the night. Hearing these
various stories really enriched the experience of watching the film, as I got to
learn how much sweat and blood went into making it. McDowell called Burgess a
genius, and told us that he had to read the novel three times before he actually
understood it. He talked about how Kubrick cast the three handmaidens by simply
taking shots of women's breasts, and then when they picked the three actresses
who would play them, he realized that they had no head shots to tell which
breasts belonged to which actresses. He mentioned that Kubrick had a very hard
time telling an actor what he wanted in a scene, which is why he always did so
many takes, as opposed to director Lindsay Anderson (who directed Malcolm in
three films, if…, O, Lucky Man, and Britannia Hospital)
who always liked to talk about the character and performance. He talked about
how Kubrick's training as a still photographer stuck with him as a filmmaker, as
well as how Kubrick would drive 5 mph on the way home from a shoot, blocking up
the entire staff behind him. When the moderator finally did finish it up, I felt
sad that I couldn't hear McDowell talk for days, as it was obvious he had plenty
more stories to tell. By the end of the night, the whole atmosphere had become
magical, as McDowell had so much respect and love for not only Kubrick but his
fellow actors and even the audience who had come out to see him.
© 2001 Digitallyobsessed.com
Archived 2001-08 Alex D. Thrawn for www.MalcolmMcDowell.net