Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick is known for his outrageous style for his time. In 1962 he directed the well known film ‘Clockwork Orange’ which was taken off of screens in Great Britain because of the obscene amount of sex and violence that people of that time didn’t think was acceptable. The public was so shocked with what they were seeing as Kubrick didn’t hold back at all with the amount of sexual acts he involved in the film and how the camera could see all. Kubrick is seen as being quite vulgar as there are many nudity scenes which sometimes involve rape and made the audience feel uncomfortable when they are watching. I think this is what he intended to do as he directed films of a horror/thriller genre and he wanted to surprise people. The film also involves a huge amount of violence and crime which is another aspect of Kubrick’s style as we see this in many of his films. An example of this is in ‘The Shining’ which consists of the use of violence as a way to protect yourself but also as a way to intimidate someone. ‘The Shining’ is a horror so it has a very dark setting and style but I think this also is because it has Kubrick’s approach to horror. In his films we also see an unusual twist on characters and circumstances which makes the plot interesting for the audience to watch. An example of this is when the character Jack in ‘The Shining’ is a good family man and by the end of the film he is mentally ill and threatens his family. In this film there is also a use of spiritual presence which adds to the surrealism of Kubrick’s films.

Similarities

Both ‘Kidulthood’ and ‘Clockwork Orange’ are films that represent youths in a bad way. ‘Kidulthood’ is a much more recent film than ‘Clockwork Orange’ and we see a slight difference in the way the characters dress and the representation of society is slightly different but the films have many similarities.

The youths are seen using violence in both films as a way of getting their opinions across and getting their own way. In ‘Kidulthood’ the gang bully other people by using mental and physical violence. They also influence other people to use physical violence as they see it as a way of keeping their high place in the school ground hierarchy. This is similar to ‘Clockwork Orange’ as they too use violence but they don’t do it for the social hierarchy, they do it to be rebellious and break the rules that adults set.

In ‘Kidulthood’ we see disrespect for adults when a teacher approaches one of the gang and he takes no notice of what the teacher tells him to do. This shows us how the younger people of this area have control over the adults because they are seen as this frightening gang from the violence they use. This is also not what the audience expect to see as naturally you are meant to respect your elders. We definitely see this in ‘Clockwork Orange’ too as the boys are tricking their parents into thinking that they are going to school and working when actually they are getting up to no good. When the boys burgle the couple’s house we see this as another sign of disrespect as they are ruining what the couple have worked for and are extremely vulgar and disrespectful when they rape the woman.

This is another aspect that both directors decided to focus on, how the youths talk continuously about sex. In ‘Clockwork Orange’ there is a lot of desperation seen in having a romance and they seem to rape women at every opportunity they get. However in ‘Kidulthood’ it is all about who has slept with who and it is seen as a huge embarrassment if you don’t know the latest. In both films they make sure that sex is seen as one of the main priorities of the gangs.

Even though there is a big gap between when the two films were released they still both give this bad image of youths by using shocking and inappropriate actions.

Theories

Marcel Danesi believes that youth is seen as very precious and important and from this some mature adults act immature to try and hold on to that youth. People can get this idea of that you should hold onto your youth as long as possible from the media that surrounds us. An example of this is one of the mum characters in the teenage girl film 'Mean Girls'. The way the character dresses and her style is very influenced by the way her daughter dresses. This gives the impression of the character trying to be a 'cool' mum and wants to not act her age. The character even says in the film "I'm not like other mums, I'm a cool mum", this adds pressure onto mature women to try and keep up a youthful appearance. We also learn that the mum has had plastic surgery to enlarge her breasts which shows again how important to the mum character her appearance is and she doesn't want to be seen as a regular mum and she has even gone to the extremes of having surgery. For mum's that have seen this film they must feel that they have to try and look young to not embarass their children and to give their children a 'cool' mum they need to act in this way. The mum character also talks to her daughter and daughters friends as if she is their friend and not a responsible adult. She uses abbreviations such as '411' when she wants to hear the latest gossip from the girls. This shows her dialogue includes shortened words that youngsters use and by using them herself she feels that she is keeping up with the trends, this shows that she is acting immature to appear as a 'cool' mum. She also says "You girls keep me young, ahh i love ya so much" when her daughter tells her to go and fix her hair. This dialogue definitely proves that this character wants to keep young and act like the teenage girls. I think that in this film the character has been exagerrated but mum's watching may feel that they need to keep their youth too to be able to have a closer relationship to their children.