Study Questions: Week Five

The Old Ultraviolence, from Australopithecus to Dr. Strangelove

to Alex and His Droogs.

2001 (1968), Dr. Strangelove (1964), and Clockwork Orange (1971)

Sex and death are never far apart in Kubrick's films (especially in Eyes Wide Shut (1999), and the relationship is evident in both Lolita and Dr. Strangelove. Lolita marks Kubrick's departure from the familiar genre films which he had made during the 1950s. In adapting Vladimir Nabokov's novel, the director turned his satirical eye on both American culture and on the destructive obsessions which drive supposedly intelligent and sophisticated characters to murder. The same themes move from the personal and domestic in Lolita to the public and the political in Dr. Strangelove. The latter film was begun as a serious drama about the dangers of nuclear war in the manner of Stanley Kramer's On the Beach (1959) and Sidney Lumet's Fail Safe (1964), but soon Kubrick decided that the absurdity of the situation was best treated as a black comedy. Thus the nuclear standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union becomes an arena where chaotic and demonic inner lives of both countries' leaders end in a nuclear holocaust.

2001, A Space Odyssey: Dave, I Think I Am Losing My Mind.

1. What is the condition of humankind at the beginning of the "Dawn of Man" section?

2. What is the significance of the first tool? How is it used?

3. In the famous jump cut from the tossed bone to a space vehicle, what connections is Kubrick suggesting between technology and violence? Between evolution and the idea of Homo farbens (toolmaking humans)?

4. What comparisons might be made between the powerful arm of the proto-human ape and the hand of Dr. Floyd (William Sylvester) floating in space? Between the bone and the floating pen?

5. How does Floyd's meeting with the Russian scientists suggest the encounter of the Australopithicines in the first segment of the film? In what ways does enact a civilized version of the apes in the "Dawn of Man" sequence?

6. Is there any thematic significance in the flight to the moon and the docking sequences, or is it merely spectacle? What is the significance of "The Blue Danube" waltz on the sound track?

7. In what ways does the use of familiar brand names in space familiarize the strange and disorienting?

8. Why is Floyd so insufferably dull? In fact, why are all his colleagues so dull? What cultural contradictions are suggested? Could you argue that 2001 is an ironic comment on the science fiction genre?

9. What does the dysfunctional HAL tell us about the limits of logic, technology, and the intellect? How does the contrast between his voice and his actions offer a critique of polite reasonableness?

10. The final stargate episode has been the object of much critical speculation. Is the light show effective in your estimation? What is the significance of the aging Bowman (Kier Dullea) and his rebirth as the star child? Does he represent a moral as well as an evolutionary advance for humankind? What might be the significance that the eye image at the end of 2001 is matched by the opening eye (Alex's) image in A Clockwork Orange?

Dr. Strangelove: And Don't Forget to Say Your Prayers

1. How does the opening image of the the bomber being refueled together with the song on the soundtrack foreshadow one of the film's central themes?

2. How does the three-part narrative structure (Burpleson Air Force Base, the B-52, and the War Room) serve to build dramatic tension? Why do the sequences in each of the narrative threads keep getting shorter?

3. How are each of the narrative threads given a distinctive visual style (consider the way the camera moves; the way scenes are composed; and the way the characters moce)?

4. Characters in satire are often presented as caricatures to make them the objects of laughter rather than sympathy. How does Kubrick achieve this effect in the case of Generals Ripper (Sterling Hayden) and Turgidson (George C. Scott), Col. Guano (Keenan Wynn), Major Kong (Slim Pickens), and Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers). How do their names contribute to the comedy?

5. In what way does each of the above characters express a bizarre taste for mixing the erotic and the deadly (or to use Freud's terms, eros and thanatos)?

6. What is the significance of the names written on the nuclear bombs: "Hi There" and "Dear John"? How do the names reflect the film's themes?

7. What is the significance of having the Russian Ambassador (Peter Bull) actually trying to photograph the War Room?

8. The references to flouridation of water, the mineshaft gap, and the Americanized ex-Nazi scientist (among others) are very topical and refer to very real events and people. Can you identify them? Does whether you do or not make affest your enjoyment of the film? Why? Why not?

9. In what ways does the behavior of the generals in the War Room suggest that of adolescents? Consider Turgidson's phone conversation with his secretary, the argument over whose forces are the best fighters, President Muffley's (Peter Sellers) phone conversation with the Soviet Premier, and Strangelove's description of life in the mineshaft dwellings after the Doomsday device has done its work.

10. The Strategic Air Command's motto in the film is "Peace Is Our Profession." Ths is not Kubrickian irony; it is the real motto. How does knowing this help explain why Kubrick changed his film from a serious drama to black comedy?

A Clockwork Orange: Viddy Well, O My Droogies

1. The opening shot which begins with Alex's (Malcom MacDowell) eye and pans back to introduce his droogies and the milk bar tells us a great deal about the characters before a word id spoken. What do you learn about Alex and his world?

2. There are numerous allusions to 2001 in the film: the stolen car reads DAV(E) on the license plate, the sound track to 2001 is on sale in a music store, the fight with Billy Boy in the deserted casino and the attack on the aging drunk recall the apes in the previous film, and Alex eating in silence at the Alexander home resembles Bowman at the conclusion of 2001. Are these references merely a director's signature (like Hitchcock's cameos in his films), or are there thematic relationships between the films (i.e. the view of the future, human violence, the use of institutional power, etc.)?

3. In most satires there is a figure who represents the moral perspective from which to judge the other characters (and to find them wanting)? Is there such a figure in A Clockwork Orange? Who might it be?

4. The drunk attacked by Alex and droogs bitterly condemns "a stinkin' world" no longer interested in law and order where a concern with space flight leaves the old ways and people victims of the young. Is there any indication that the old ways (represented by the prison warden and chaplain) were any better?

5. What is the thematic significance of having all of Alex's encounters in the first half of the film repeated in the second half?

6. How does the musical serve as ironic counterpoint to the events it accompanies? For example, the use of "The Thieving Magpie Overture" in the derelict casino scene or Beethoven's Ninth Symphony throughout ("The Ode to Joy in the Fourth Movement begins: "All Mankind will become Brothers').

7. How, specifically, do both the police inspector who interrogates Alex after the Cat Lady's murder, and the Minister of the Interior who sends him to the Ludivico Center both exemplify Machiavellian principles and the ruthless exercise of power behind an exterior of polite hypocrisy?

8. What does the apartment and the clothes of Alex' parents reveal about their characters and culture? In what ways might their sentimentality and their law-abiding natures be seen as worse than their son's lawlessness?

9. In what ways does the future world of A Clockwork Orange resemble George Orwell's 1984? In what ways is it significantly different?

10. Are any of Alex's victims morally superior to him? Consider the behavior of the leftist writer and his political allies, the vengeful old drunks, and the moral nature of the doctors and scientists.