Textual analysis of :A Clockwork Orange

As we believe that A Clockwork Orange is one of our main influences we wanted to look at the effectiveness of it's opening.

Immediately, at the beginning of the intro it contains loud and tense music as the audience is introduced to a character, the fact that he is looking straight at the camera conveys to the audience his dominance and power over the audience.Conforming to the conventions of a thriller in that a dominant figure is usually present.

 Which highlights to the audience he is a character of high importance and danger. Furthermore his clothes and apperance convey to the audience he is not a character of  mainstream society at the current time and highlights that the film may be set either in the past or future. As the camera remains fixed on him his eyeline remains directly at the audience without blinking remaining in contact with the audience.


As it zooms from his face he appears in the middle of a larger group which shows the audience  he is a main character of high meaning to  the plot. As he drinks the glass of milk he does so slowly showing he is not being rushed and breaks a stereotypical view of what the audience would expect people to be drinking in a modern day bar. As their environment is revealed it appears most of the characters are male apart from the mannequins which shows they may be living in a society highly dominated by males and that their view of  females may be highly dated. Furthermore the main group of character are situated at the back of the bar this is done to further portray a sense of fear surrounding them in that they are feared or hated by others.



Then a voice over of the main character can be heard as if they are narrating to the audience this has been done to build a relationship between this character and the audience and eliminates any confusion for the audience who may begin to be confused by the complexity of the storyline.At the end of the opening when the character say 'ultraviolence' the consistent soundtrack becomes louder and faster portraying to the audience a sence of forboding for the action of the next scene.