Labouring on A Clockwork Orange (1971): finding the voices of creative, technical, and administrative workers in the Stanley Kubrick Archive

Abstract

Those films directed by Stanley Kubrick have frequently been analysed and interpreted through the perspective of the producer-director’s authorial control. However, documents in the Stanley Kubrick Archive can allow for the voices of a myriad of overlooked, forgotten, and even hidden labour to be restored to the history of these films. Focusing on A Clockwork Orange (1971), the article considers how that film was purposely promoted by Kubrick and his publicist at Polaris Productions as having almost been single-handedly produced and created by Kubrick. The article challenges and deconstructs this self-promotion myth of Kubrick’s control by critically reading against the grain of archival documents such a progress reports, unit memos, and correspondence in order to uncover the extent to which other media labourers around the world were involved in, and continue to be involved in, the film’s production, distribution, exhibition, and marketing. In taking this approach, the article aims to work towards a greater understanding of production hierarchies on A Clockwork Orange, to question the way in which archives of canonical film directors are used by researchers, and to examine how archives contextualise or even marginalise the voices of below-the-line media labourers.