Three Kubrickian Machinic Characters and their Technical Malfunctions

Abstract

Taking as its main reference Gilbert Simondon’s On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects (1958), this article suggests a technical and philosophical interpretation of three types of machinic malfunction that operate inside the mechanic of three Kubrickian characters: Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers) from the eponymous Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Alex (Malcolm McDowell) from A Clockwork Orange (1971), and Private Pyle (Vincent D’Onofrio) in Full Metal Jacket (1987). The goal is to provide renewed interpretative dimensions of symptomatic elements of these Kubrickian characters: technical malfunction, incompleteness, alienation.