Malcolm McDowell's A Clockwork Orange DVD Commentary (2007)

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Notes | Transcript

Notes

This was recorded in 2005
It wasn't released until 10/07
Someone named Nick Redman co-hosts. All I know is he's from the UK and is listed as a "historian". I have never heard of him, can't find info out about him, he has nothing to do with the film and adds nothing to the conversation. For example he didn't even know that Alex's hometown was Thamesmead, something anyone interested in the film would know and information that is readily available on this site for many years.

Transcript

I only wrote down what Malcolm said and put spaces in between comments.

I don't think in those terms, if I'm offered the part and lucky enough to get it I play to the best of my ability. We are talking a different era, the early 70s, I just finished the 60s. I finished up my first film if…. in 1968 playing a rebel, It was that performance that Kubrick cast me for Alex. I asked why he cast me and he said 'when I read the book I couldn't get your face out of my mind for that character', so I didn't have to audition. He wanted a thug with great intelligence and lucky for me I fit the bill.

That's a bit of information which I didn't know. This was the only set which was actually built, it was a disused factory in Elstree. Is it Liz Moore herself the model? (for the milkbar statues)

Paul Farrel a wonderful performer. I want to go back to that opening shot, it's a brilliant piece of Kubrick. He's on a long shot starting up really close and then he pulls back. In the dailies he said 'did you notice you toasted the camera and the audience?' Yes. 'Why did you do that? I didn't notice.' I wanted the audience to know they were in for a wild ride.

Attack on the tramp
Paul wasn't the first choice, he was an old actor named Billy something. He was the best at changing something to get something he wanted. At first we shot the scene in Aylesbury with huge plastic ducks 30 feet high, it was very surreal. There was the guy coming home from the library and Alex grabs these antique books, priceless stuff. He grabs them and says, I'll never forget the line, 'There's the mackerel of the cornflake for you.' The actor couldn't make it for the retribution side so we changed quickly to Paul and made it a drunk.

Fight with Billyboy
It was Tags Island I believe Chaplain performed there. This to me was the least interesting thing to shot, it was basically an all action scene. It was a stuntman's dream after months of nothing to do. Beautiful girl here. The scene of the closeup when he opens the knife is one of the best in the film. I don't know what happened to him. He was a very good thug.

I think it was the first time the pen pocket radio mics where over used. He got them from Germany, I didn't post sync one line of the film. All the stuff ,even on the embankment, one of the busiest streets in the film even with horns blaring. All of this is us, the major stuff...The Beatles have got a lot to answer to with these cuts. That's isn't me. That's Warren who plays Dim. All these cuts are action filmmaking.

Beethoven is really the extra character. I knew Beethoven's 9th somewhat. During the film and after it I lived and breathed Beethoven. Stanley is one of the great exponents of music in the film. I saw him once with his earphones on his study and he went shush. I thought he was listening to the 9th and after 20 minutes he took the phones off and said, 'Gee Malc another near miss at Heathrow airport.' He was listening to the traffic controls, that was our Stan.

The ninth is a trademark of the Third Reich if you like. Even though he isn't by any means a Nazi, this is the dichotomy of the part. It's one of the most challenging roles a man could play - a thug, but a man with all these sides we can enjoy and like. First his appreciation of life, its' infectious to an audience, even though he's doing these immoral things you go with him because he's so likeable. He's raping this woman doing Singin' in the Rain.

The thing is Burgess foretold a lot of things in his book. I think this is one of the most successful translations of a book to a film. The book is a classic and you have to be wary because most books make terrible films. Atmosphere is so difficult to capture in film. Stanley knew exactly what he was doing. I think he chose this film because he just did 2001 and it was way overbudget. The chairman was dropped because of 2001. Stan decided to make a low budget film and this was his one, he wanted to make a film for little money.

Thank god he purchased the rights to the book.

We'd just shot the end of the film which was exhausting and euphoric. To find the end of the film we were so excited and happy, then to come in at 8am the next day for this sequence. I was exhausted so was Stan, elated and exhausted. I sat around for 4-5 days. In the script it was 'the droogs threw bottles through the window' and it was not particularly brilliant. He would never shoot anything unless it was magic. He said, 'Malc, where is the magic?' Adrienne Corri came up to me before the shoot and said, 'Malc, you are going to find out I'm really a redhead.' I said oh really? OK. She was absolutely adorable. Anyway we were sitting around and after 4 days Stanley came up to me and said 'can you dance?' I said can I dance? Stanley? I went Singin' in the Rain, boom, started to improvise it. He was laughing so hard. He said come with me. We drove back to his house and it was a half hour away and he got on the phone to New York and bought the rights to it. We went back for a week or 10 days to shoot that sequence, but it really is key in the film. It shows a satirical side, it is very funny, very black, scary, but thrilling.