SSC Film Studies

In the treatment scene, how is the spectator punished?

The spectator is punished as throughout the first part of the film we are aligned with Alex and we have given him our allegiance, however during the scene we witness Alex being almost tortured by the scenes that he is seeing and it makes us feel uncomfortable during the entirety of the scene. This is punishing us as the first part of the film is used for our own entertainment and as Alex is our protagonist and is the character we’ve given our alignment to we enjoy his violent acts, but seeing him in a position like this were he is weak and being treated in such a manner causes us to sympathize with him in the scene and feel as uncomfortable as him in it.

There are various ways in which the spectator is caused to feel uncomfortable in the scene, through various camera shots and through the use of mise-en-scene. An example would be the close ups of Alex during the treatment scenes. This causes us to feel his punishment as we can clearly see him not enjoying it, and the cold metal bars in his eyes makes us feel extremely uncomfortable and pulls us out the comfort zone that we have built while aligning with Alex during the first part of the film. His performance also makes us feel uncomfortable as we know it is the non violent side of Alex that we are seeing and it is very uncomfortable to see him the predicament he is in during the treatment.