apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I always thought the film had a strong showing of Soviet "bourgeois" life and its gritty reality. I could only see the film once. I thought it was pure horror.

I've always loved the edict "future=mirrors". And also how they've incorporated what was an avant garde aesthetic at the time into the homes of older folks who usually carry the ideas of design from the time of their youths with them into old age.

Oh, and the Milk Bar reminds me of the dresser Wary Meyers did in Tossed and Found!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sHdIhtuqhZk/Sucz-HZoCTI/AAAAAAAABYI/bWc3_bs8cyc/s1600-h/warymeyersdresser.jpg

I remember that the technology was quite a challenge. They used the futuristic Thorsten turntable.

I agree with Sousani. I cannot stand to watch the film now. The violence and misogyny are unbearable. The decor of the milk bar is the unspeakable product of a puerile imagination. But, coming out of the decade that produced Playboy clubs, it is perhaps to be expected.

The feeding scene, however, was brillant.

Yeah, I too have never had any desire to see this again and only remember vile scenes from it. Would really need convincing to see it again.

I always imagined my grown-up home to look like a Kubrik set (well, mostly Space Odyssey...) And I'm still working on it!

Great post, very thoughtful.

Kubrick was a genius. With respect to imaginative set design, both Clockwork and 2001: A Space Odyssey were simply awesome (check out the space lobby in 2001 with the Olivier Mourgue djinn chairs).

I think in cinematic design, art imitates life and vice-versa... i.e. inevitably, set designers/ directors can't escape taking cues from their present cultural notions of past, present and future... and when viewed in retrospect this always becomes apparent.

For example, if you look at Metropolis, the 1927 sci-fi film, the set design is pure German expressionism and art deco of the 20's/ 30's; the original Star Trek set reflects late 60's modern right down to the haircuts and uniforms... and even films depicting the past can't escape current cultural references -- like Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra (1934) which depicts ancient Egypt with a full-on art deco look, again, right down to costumes and haircuts.

When A Clockwork Orange is seen in retrospect, you can see all the design elements that seemed futuristic in 1971, and then Kubrick extrapolates them in an exaggerated way to suggest "future".

Much of the design "opposites" that he uses were actually cutting-edge concepts already established by the design community in the late 1960's.... like the modernist all-white home of their victims, which was Richard Rogers' Skybreak House outside London... and where Alex gets aversion therapy was shot at Brunel University in London.... an example of late 60's brutalist movement in design.

Both of these examples reflect how the design community itself (rather than the film) often goes "opposite", particularly in modernism... and then the film picks up on these very forward trends and pushes them even further. So art imitates life, but this film also influenced 1970's design... so life imitates art.

I believe there's a huge male / female divide in response to this movie-- men generally praising, women usually saying they would never see it again. BTW-- he wrote it based on an experience that happened to his wife.

Wow, I bought the movie off Ebay to see what the hpe was about, I could only watch it the one time and recently sold it at my yard sale. VERY disturbing movie but I love Malcom McDowell! The sets in the movie were amazing!

My favorite room was the bedroom.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/suzy8track/2682334487/

I'm a female, and I love this movie. Yeah it's disturbing; that's the point. It's not violent just for the sake of being violent, unlike those Saw movies. I think it posed some interesting questions about morality and retribution. Stanley Kubrick did a great job bringing the novel to life.

No kidding. Agreed JaneLane. I'm a female as well and have a definite appreciation for this movie, as well as Kubrick's other films. Growing up, my brother has always kept a very extensive movie collection and he'd let me borrow whatever I wanted. At the time, this movie didn't really bother me as much as it did most recently... it's still a very well done film and a wonderful novel if you can get through some of the language, it's a bit difficult lol

I find the movie to be haunting and disturbing to this day. I saw it in high school and was really upset by it. I get it, but I wish I didn't. I too find it horribly misogynistic.

the first time I saw clean, modern, new architecture so thoroughly filthy and debased, as in the lobby of Alex’s apartment building

Heh, my first thought: oh, look, it's the main lobby for the upperclassmen dorm at an art school.

Movie's design, overall, just screams 70's at me, and for some reason it seems even more dated than many/most of Kubrick's other futuristic works. Content-wise, I get the thesis and think it's a provocative one, but find it more intriguing to consider the differences between first version of book, second version, movie version, and the why's for each.

And all of that generally gets drowned out by my response to every MacDowell close-up: "OMG, he's so younnnnng! A baby! A mere child!" repeatedly until a certain someone (who's only 2yrs younger than MacDowell) gets huffy and insists on turning the movie off.

Heh.

Add me to the list of women who loved "A Clockwork Orange." My older brother acted as adult accompaniment so I could see it when I was a kid. I was precocious.

Another lady and rabid fan of the movie here. I definitely have several images from Kubrick movies in my home style file. The ending scenes in 2001: A Space Odyssey are fabulous too.

Another female lover of both the movie and Anthony Burgess' book (as well as his other books).

Female fan here. Love the movie, the visuals, and the book. All classics. Awesomeness is not gender specific.