If he could study only one film, David Worth would choose Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. He explains what filmmakers can learn from it.
If I had to choose only one film, to study… I would choose Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 Controversial Classic: A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Why? Because being able to study that film up close and personal changed my life as an independent filmmaker.
During the 1970’s, I was Editing a small feature that I also has been the Director of Photography on called: DEATHGAME. Even though it was only a $150,000.00 film it boasted a couple of Academy Award nominated Actors. Sondra Locke and Seymour Cassel and we captured the film in Anamorphic Panavision, a wide screen very sophisticated camera system that was the state-of-the-art back in that time.
Remember, this was way back in the day before VHS Tapes & long before DVD’s, so the only way that you could study one of your favorite Films or Directors was to go to a screening. That’s why it’s been reported that Orson Welles screened John Ford’s famous film STAGECOACH over thirty time in order to study this outstanding Director’s work, when he was preparing to Direct CITIZEN KANE. The result was that Mr. Welles would often tell his minions that there were… “only three great American Directors: John Ford, John Ford and John Ford!”
But I digress…
I was Editing DEATHGAME and preparing for the Sound Mix by placing each Actor’s Dialogue on a separate 1000 foot 35mm film reel. This enabled the Sound Mixer to set a separate sound level for each Actor. In between each Actor’s dialogue I needed to place what was called “fill leader” in order to keep all of the reels synchronized and the this “fill leader” was old, unused 35mm film prints supplied to you by your film lab.
OK, I was building my sound tracks and running out of “fill leader” so I called our film lab, which happened to be MGM and requested another box… When it arrived and I opened it up, what did I discover? The “fill leader” that I had been sent was a complete 35mm print of Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, with French Subtitles.
I was in Cinematic Euphoria! This was one of my all time favorite films but I had only been able to see it at a screening and had not been able to place it onto an old upright Movieola and study it scene by scene and shot by shot. So I immediately took my work off the Movieola and placed the stunning work of Stanley Kubrick and his Cinematographer John Alcott onto it and began to run my favorite scenes forward and backwards… forward and backwards… Cinematic Nirvana!
When I was viewing the scene where our anti-hero “Little Alex” killed the “Cat Lady” with the large sculpture of a phallus, I came to the end of the scene where I could clearly see that Mr. Kubrick was chasing the Actors 360 degrees around the location with a very wide angle lens on the camera and I suddenly realized that I was able to see all four walls, the floor and the ceiling of this practical location and there were absolutely NO MOVIE LIGHTS!!!
I immediately hit the break on the Movieola and began to go through the scene frame by frame to see what was being used for the lighting. I soon discovered that Mr. Kubrick had lit the entire practical location with half a dozen “light sculptures” in various shapes into which he had placed an array of 100 or 150-watt light bulbs!
I was astounded! This was a true epiphany for me! This was no Roger Corman film, or a small Indie Production: This was a Big Warner Brothers, Stanley Kubrick Film that had been nominated for four Academy Awards!!!
Of course I studied the rest of the scenes in this graphic film and later many other of Mr. Kubrick’s productions and discovered that he had pioneered this visionary technique that was both Actor Friendly & Production Friendly: Building ALL of your Lighting into your Sets or Locations.
Actor Friendly: Because this technique enables you to keep the actor’s “in the moment” and to keep shooting 360 degrees wherever you happen to be filming. Also the Actors do not have to worry about hitting “their mark” or being in “their light” to perform… The entire location has become their Mark & their Light. They are free to roam and discover as is the Director, DP and the Camera.
Production Friendly: Never does a Director have to be told by his or her DP whenever they might ask to shoot in the other direction: “Give me two hours to relight the set”. Those days should be gone forever!
The most recent practitioner of this outstanding technique is one of today’s most visionary Directors: Alfonso Cuaron and his DP Emmanuel Lubezki on the feature films: E TU MA MA TIMBIEN & THE CHILDREN OF MEN… Check them out and see Mr. Kubrick’s technique of Natural Locations, Practical Light & Hand Held Cameras being used in some of today’s most cutting edge films.
This film changed my live as a Cinematographer and Director and I’ve used this technique on the Clint Eastwood film: BRONCO BILLY as well as the martial arts classic: BLOODSPORT and countless others…
I can’t say whether or not Mr. Cuaron learned this astounding technique as I did by studying Mr. Kubrick… All I can say for certain is that Mr. Kubrick was there first! All the way back in the day in the early 1970’s with his outstanding and revolutionary film: A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.
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