Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / Sept. 24, 1979, edition 1 / Page 13
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13 September 24, 1979 13 H0YIIE REVIEWS The Strange World of Stanley GKubrick by Merritt Moseley Stanley Kubrick has never been a director to play safe. He chooses ambitious projects, pro jects which resist easy or automat ic translation to film and which produce challenging movies-but movies which disturb, sometimes without really succeeding at their aims. From Dr. Strangelove to 2001: A Space Odyssey to A Clockwork Orange to Barry Lyn- don, his films have been notable, if not for perfection, at least for something which provokes intel ligent response and usually admir ation and for stylish use of film technique. A Clockwork Orange pre sents a good deal of challenge to the filmmaker. The novel on which it is based, written by Anthony Burgess, is set in the Great Brit ain of the future; it concerns the doings of a gang of violent youths and particularly a certain Alex, their leader; it conveys a depress ing picture of what Burgess imagines the future will bring, a dreary and brutal life; and it deals powerful ly with questions of freedom and dignity in confrontation with psychological conditioning. The book is written in a special lan guage, invented by Burgess, which combines English syntax with a lot of Russian vocabulary. Although it retains much of Burgess's narration, and the Nad- sat dialect of the hoodlums is re tained, Kubrick's film makes much more visual the ideas of the future Burgess imagines. Alex's gang, the Milk Bar where they hang out, the jazzy, funky way Kubrick has filmed their assaults and rapes, are visually very effect ive. Malcolm McDowell, as Alex, gives a strong performance, aided by the fact that no one else stands out as much. The scenes which detail Alex's "conversion"-by means of aversion therapy which conditions him to find violence disagreeable--to normal, nonagress- ive life are fine. What troubles some people is the movie's moral stance. Its technical choices seem to culti vate an admiration for Alex which is aided by his personal charm and McDowell's attractiveness and which rnay accord somewhat queasily with his cheerful murderousness. Pauline Kael's review of the movie charges: "Literal-minded in its sex, and brutality, Teutonic in its humor, Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange might be the work of a strict and exacting Ger man professor who set out to make a porno-violent sci-fi comedy." Her reaction was unusually strong, however, and it is also argu able that Kubrick displays, without endorsing, behavior about which we are free to form our own opinions. If the violence attracts us, it is society's condi tioning. And whatever our judge ment on Kubriqk's ethical atti- ] tudes, the viewer of A Clockwork Orange is in for a major visual, auditory, and emotional experi ence. Although Americans had given a great deal of thought to the possibility of nuclear war be fore 1964, it was not primarily to the comic side of the hydrogen bomb. But in Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Wor rying and Love the Bomb, Stanley Kubrick makes a hilarious comedy about the nuclear holocaust. From its opening tableau-a B-52 bomber refueling in flight, an erotic coupling.set to the tune of "Try a Little Tenderness "--to the ending in which we not only face the unthinkable but, as the title says, love it, the whole issue of the Bomb is converted from somber potential to black comedy. If black comedy is the result of exploiting the comic, rather than tragic, possibilities of disease, death, mutilation, and so on, then a comedy about nuclear destruc tion obviously belongs in that category. And as such, Kubrick's film is the parent of such m^ov- ies as Catch-22, Little Big Man, Bonnie and Clyde, and M.A.S.H. There s a message to it, natur ally: a message about the insanity of our nuclear policy, the blind ness of the course the nation was pursuing and the people in charge of that course. But the message was never obtrusive; and now, when it's difficult to think our way back to the days of backyard bomb shelters and the notion of massive retaliation, when billions of crackers quietly molder in the neglected Civil Defense shelters everywhere, we still enjoy Dr. Strangelove, because its comedy is divorced from local satiric ef fects; it ridicules everything. The war starts accidentally, of course; an error is made somewhere, and Strategic Air Command bomb ers are sent toward the Soviet Union, armed with nuclear pay loads. From that starting point, the story proceeds by means of accident and human irrationality. Preposterous incidents, many of them premisftd ciii the derangement of the military, abound: at one point the man who, alone in the U.S., can call back the bombers refuses; acting on his pet theory that the Communists aim to de stroy the nation by somehow getting at the "vital fluids" of American manhood, he refuses orders and is only subdued after a violent and bloody siege by oth- ^ units of the armed forces. There are a number of spark ling performances: Sterling Hayden and George C. Scott are good as crazy generals; Peter Sellers plays three roles-the President, a British liaison officer, and Dr. Strangelove himself (by some accounts, an early burlesque of Dr. Henry Kissinger, then a Har vard professor); and Slim Pickens is memorable in a minor role. Despite the attractive target which the military mind and war itself offer for the black humorist and the satiric filmmaker, Dr. Strangelove remains so far unsur passed, and maybe unsurpassable, in its type. AN ITALIAN ‘FANTASIA” On Sunday, October 21st, the University Committee for Cul tural and Special Events will pre sent the second film in the Sunday Night Movie Series, "Allegro Mon Troppo," directed by Bruno Bozzetto. According to Time Mag azine, Bozzetto "outdoes Disney." Showings will be in Lipinsky Auditorium at 6:30PM and at 9:00PM. DR. strangelove: OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB. "... outrageous, daring, in ventive, devilish, macabre and scintillating comedy.” —SATURDAY REVIEW ^ Peter Seilers, George C. Scott Columbia; Directed by Stanley Kubricl( Some sixty international awards honor Stanley Ku brick’s oddly titled DR. STRANGELOVE: OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB. A wildly comic nightmare that sees the Presi dent of the United States and the Premier of the U.S.S.R. cooperate in a bizarre effort to save the world from total disaster. Screen satire at its finest and funniest, DR. STRANGELOVE is “Outrageous, daring, inventive, devilish, macabre, and scintillating comedy," SATURDAY REVIEW. Sunday • OcL 7 • 7 A 0 pm Lipinsky AuA
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