The metaphor of dance in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket

Abstract

This article is centred on the role of music in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Full Metal Jacket (1987). In these films music becomes audible and images seem to emanate from it. Dialogue and voice-over seem to be used, in the majority of cases, in the same way as music, because they are adopted for their rhythm, for their signifier, and not for their signified. The mise-en-scène, the editing, the dialogue and voice-over seem to obey the rhythm of music. Moreover, thanks to these cinematic features, the style of the source novels A Clockwork Orange (Burgess, [1962] 2000) and The Short-Timers (Hasford, [1979] 1980) is, respectively, translated and highlighted in A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket. Thus, these two films become emblematic examples of the director’s deep sensibility to the style of the adapted books.