Does any film have a more entrancing, seductive opening as A Clockwork Orange? Here was Kubrick, after 2001, at the height of his cultural fame and recognition – in Joseph Gelmis’ terms, the ultimate Film Director as Superstar – and at the height of his control of the medium and of us. As an audience we’re mesmerised from the start, by the slow, slightly-distorted, slightly-disturbing strains of Purcell played on a Moog; the glaring primary-colour of the credit stills: bright red, blue, and red again; and the opening close-up on Malcolm McDowell—the young McDowell, at his most handsome, arrogant, and bewitching.

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