A Clockwork Orange - Opening Scene

The film begins by using editing to cutting straight into the first shot rather that fading in as most films would, this disorientates the audience and begins to manipulate them from the first shot of the film. This first shot is with a close-up of Alex looking into the camera , therefore looking at the audience which starts a personal relationship with the spectator and begins alignment as he is the first person we meet in the film. This shot only includes Alex in the frame and the other Droogs are not brought into the frame until the camera tracks back. This tells the audience straight away that Alex is the main character as Alex is also visually different to the other Droogs due to his eye makeup. The audience also align with Alex straight away as it is his voice on the voiceover during this first shot introducing us to the set and characters, this invites the audience into Alex's world and makes him come across as a likeable character and our guide to this unfamiliar world, this makes the audience align with Alex as we cannot understand this world without him.

The mise-en-scene used in this scene shows models of naked women used as furniture in the milk bar depicting women as objects, from this we learn Alex's ideological view and psychologically prepares the spectators for the ouse invasion scene where Alex rapes an innocent woman. By Kubrick preparing the audience for this scene, the audience will not be shocked by Alex's actions and they will therefore stay aligned with him.

Once the camera has tracked back, Alex is positioned at vanishing point therefore it draws out attention to him. The mention of ultra-violence in Alex's voiceover is not included until this point when the camera is at a distance from Alex which distances him from the violence and makes the audience continue to like Alex and align with him.