From Alex to Riefenstahl: Nazism, propaganda, and Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Abstract

In this article I will argue that graphic violence, though an essential component of A Clockwork Orange, is a side effect of the film’s broader exploration of the subjectivity-sapping power of authoritarianism, and its cinematic correlative: propaganda. I will suggest that A Clockwork Orange may indeed be seen as a powerful reflection on the power of propaganda, through a strategy of mise en abyme of auctorial figures which forces the viewers to either submit to such figures, or to develop a critical resistance. In a first part, I draw on recent empirical studies based on archival material in order to delve into the history of Kubrick’s fascination with authoritarianism – especially Nazism – so as to argue that one of the director’s main source of interest in these regimes lied in their use of cinema to subjugate the masses. In the second part I draw on the narratological approach of Mario Falsetto, presenting the film as an interweaving of various auctorial figures struggling in order to gain directorial power and fascinate the viewers into submission, thus drawing attention for the need to establish a critical distance against all directorial figures, including the film’s own “master of images”. I will also draw on recent empirical approaches – most notably Filippo Ulivieri’s – in order to suggest that Kubrick’s own persona thus becomes part of such a reflection, as the director’s construction of his own image as a tyrannical figure encourages a certain state of submissive spectatorship later questioned by the film’s mise en abyme. Finally, I will discuss the film’s reception and argue that the debates surrounding A Clockwork Orange suggest Kubrick’s meta-filmic reflection on propaganda was misunderstood by a certain part of the public who, instead of developing a critical distance, either submitted to Alex’s worldview unquestioningly – hence the issue of copycat crimes – or, on the contrary, fully rejected the film as a depraved object, two attitudes that are antithetic to the critical distancing the film hoped to create.