The protagonist of the mythical film, narrator in the documentary ‘The forbidden orange’, maintains that “today we are anesthetized by the violence we see on television”
Malcolm McDowell (Horsforth, United Kingdom, 1943) assures that the spirit of Alex DeLarge, the protagonist of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ still accompanies him “like that distant cousin you see at dinners from time to time.” Kubrick waited for years to find an actor to play the charming sociopath from ‘A Clockwork Orange’. And when he saw “If” by Lindsay Anderson, he called McDowell, who admits not having met any director of his talent. “You see him on the cover of ‘Time’ and ‘Newsweek’ and discover that the photos are his, that was where his obsession with control reached,” he explains. «He was a fascinating man, I have never met anyone like him, capable of making masterpieces in all genres. I asked him how he managed to direct. And he answered me: I do not always know what I want, but I am clear about what I do not want ».
McDowell, narrator of the documentary ‘The Forbidden Orange’, has never stopped working and
on the IMDB web it accumulates almost 300 movies and series. As soon as he is under the command of the “charming” Rob Zombie, although he does not like the horror genre, as he appears in series such as ‘Entourage’ and ‘Mozart in the Jungle’. Never, he assures, is carried away by nostalgia. I don’t like to look back. Whenever they ask me what my favorite movie is, I say it’s the one I’m about to do ».
-He maintains paradoxically that he has never been so free acting as with Kubrick, a control freak.
-There is no paradox. Kubrick always kept control down to the smallest details of what he had under his control: the script, the environment … Once the lead actor was chosen, control changed hands. He had to trust his interpreters, in fact I trust myself. During filming he fired many. He made a gesture and you knew that that day he was going to fire someone. That scared and saddened me. He said that he did not have time to explain the causes of the dismissal. We would stop filming for a day or two, hire someone else, and go back to work.
-Don’t you think that this violence to which your character is exposed in the Ludovico treatment we see it constantly today on all the screens to which we are exposed?
-Definitely. Today we found that Stanley fell short. He would invite me to his house and show me Nazi propaganda films, much worse than the ones in the film. They were terrifying. I think Kubrick thought that the public was not prepared for something like that, could not show something so terrible. Every day we are anesthetized by the violence we see on television. Remember that ‘A Clockwork Orange’ was released in the middle of the Vietnam War, when every day children and towns were seen burning because of napalm. This was worse than what you saw in the movie.
-Were you sorry that you didn’t have a relationship with Kubrick again after filming?
-Unfortunately we lost contact for reasons that I am not going to enter. You work with Stanley Kubrick once. You have a chance, period. We both moved on to other projects and lost contact. That doesn’t detract from the relationship we had during filming. I wanted that man and he wanted me, it’s something you see in the movie.
– It maintains that you do not choose the films, that they choose you.
-You do what they offer you. I’m not that type of actor who does what he has to do to get a role, I don’t care about that. Hopefully, I always hope that something that comes out is good. When I was young I only wanted to work on the best movies. That lasted for a couple of years. I didn’t get anything that I liked, so I went to see my manager in London and said, ‘Denis, what do we do now?’ ‘Well, not that it gets much. Here’s a movie that may interest you, a war story with Anthony Quinn and James Mason, called ‘The Passage’. A terrible script, the only thing that was filmed that year in England. I told myself that I was a professional actor and that I had to act. You know what? I had a great time. I loved working with James Mason, we both had dinner together every night. He was an amazing guy. That is why I say that the movies choose me, I am not Tom Cruise or the one who is now Tom Cruise in the market. I have always found work. And there are always hidden pearls out there.
Stnaley Kubrick and Malcolm McDowell on the set of ‘A Clockwork Orange’.
-When are you going to write your autobiography? It has to have a thousand stories to tell.
-I’m still an actor. Now I’m going to Los Angeles to work with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. And I have four projects and a series for next year. When do I sit down and write? The day a writer appears wanting to tell my story, maybe I will. I record and have someone write it, that is.
-And what would be the most interesting chapter in the book?
-Wait until it is published to buy it … ‘Caligula’ would be fun. That has been the most ridiculous experience as an actor that I have had in my professional life. You look back and it seems funny, but when it did… Yes, ‘Caligula’ is the key chapter. And my relationship with director Lindsay Anderson, which has been great. My favorite director by far.
-What has the cinema given you?
-The cinema is my life, I don’t know how to do anything else. I’ve been doing this for sixty years. I also include television, which I have worked on a lot in the last ten years. Love it. There is not that much difference between shooting a movie and a series. I like fast work on television.
-Have you thought what would have happened to your career if Kubrick had not chosen you?
“And what would have happened to him without me?” Because he had the book and the script in his drawer for years until he found an actor. I don’t know, I think the first movie is always the most important, the one you don’t forget. And without ‘If’ I wouldn’t have done ‘A Clockwork Orange’.
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