whynotsmile

haven't read the book.

was the story (movie wise) supposed to take place in the late 60's/early 70's or in the future?

a lot of the style seemed futuristic but a lot of it seemed like late 60s crap as well. also, there was really no indication it takes place in the future.n it was almost like kubrick took this time period and just went nutso with it. its ideas are obviously not based in the 70's/60's but a lot of the looks is. so im sorta confused. guess its whatever you want it to be.


just watched the film for hte second time. loved it even more this time around, though the last half does drag a bit.

al_bundy

it was supposed to take place in the future. I thought that's what it says in the description. The weird looking furniture, the futuristic looking car, etc. Today it looks like crap, but in that time it looked futuristic.

It was one of those periodic films when everyone thought in the future the world was going to end, chaos and anarchy would rule, etc.

Drop

To elaborate a little on what al_bundy said, is that I took it from the point of view that something terrible happened and the world didn't progress in a few ways, hence the fact that it looks a mix of future and and the late 60s.

Josh-da-man

At the beginning of the movie, when Alex and his Droogies are kicking the shit out of the old wino, he says something about "men on the moon."

Which I take as meaning that the movie takes place in the same "universe" as "2001 A Space Odyssey." I don't think that was probably Kubrick's intent, but I like to think it anyway.

Drop

Not likely, as the soundtrack for that film is clearly visible in the record store Alex visits.

marty888

Made in 1971, it's set in the "not too distant future" (as the Maltin guide says), but of course would reflect the time it was made, and the concepts of the near future as imagined in 1971.

DonnachaOne

Set in a future that's most probable; exactly like the present, only sicker.

It's my fave future vision, really - just the idea that "there'll be good stuff, there'll be bad stuff, and it'll all be specialized and processed beyond normality".

rushmore223

it's the future. Or better put, a future representation from the time and era it was made.

On a side note, the book is really worth reading sometime. It explains the title as well.

Kubrick was pretty faithful, except that Alex was supposed to be about 14 or 15 in the book, cant blame Kubrick for changing that though, considering all the sex and violence.

obscurelabel

I think the time period is purposely left vague. It is probably supposed to be sometime in the ever-popular "near future", but if one were to view it today, you could probably still say that, i.e., that it takes place in today's near future. I usually think of it as taking place in an alternate reality (but one related to our own) rather than the future.

Pants

There are two important things to note about the time period of Clockwork Orange:

1. While the film is intended to be the future, or "near-future", Kubrick used a lot of existing modern architecture that was in England. He also used several dressed locations that had a near-future feel without having to be seriously retrofitted or futurized. By doing this Kubrick suggests that the future is now; that the asthetics of the future in the world of the film are exactly that of (then contemporary) forward looking modern architecture.

2. The film is designed in such a way that the early part of the film has the most futurism and appears to be emphasizing the "far in the future" narative of the sci-fi film. But at the half way point (roughly when Alex goes to jail) the film starts having less and less futurism to the point where by the end there is very little sign that this is the future at all, and it may very well be contemporary England. This is yet another suggestion that Kubrick is emphasizing that the future is now.

Verbal Gorilla

I think that this film emcopasses as good as any an alternate universe. Obviously there are futuristic elements, but I can't see that that world would follow from the one that existed at the time it was made. That was also a time when there was a movement of "science-fiction as art" where we had books such as Samuael Delany's "Dalgren". I think that this book captures that movement in sci-fi more than any.

das Monkey

Exactly. Like almost everything Kubrick does, the mix of blatantly contemporary imagery with futuristic elements is intentional. Like Pants notes, the future is now. While science fiction, this book/film's concepts aren't necessarily futuristic. From my perspective, Kubrick wants the viewer to be transported to an alternate reality but to constantly feel like this could happen right now. That mission doesn't exactly translate as well for 21st century American audiences, but it's how I felt when I first saw the film back in the 70s.

das

Calculon

Wasn't the car the Droogs stole a '95 something-or-other (Durango?)? This would imply it was set mid-to-late '90s.

MrN

Its a dystopian future - yeah, I do recall the line about the Durango.

(will be watching this film again tomorrow.)

Neeb

There is a school of thought that Clockwork Orange is set concurrently with the events of 2001. This coming from the last shot of 2001 being symmetrical to that of Clockwork Orange.

sundog

How are the two films' final shots similar? 2001 ends with a straight close-up of the starchild, Clockwork Orange ends with a shot of Alex screwing a woman to the applause of a Victorian-era audience.

Now, you can make a case that the FIRST shot of Clockwork Orange (Malcolm Mcdowell in a straight close-up) mirrors the FINAL shot of 2001. But that correlation has nothing to do with the timeframe. It has more relevance to the themes that Kubrick plays with.

And the "Durango 95" line? That thought occured to me as well, when I first saw the movie. But it's not very solid footing. I can say, "since Alex doesn't use the number before the car name, he's not refering to year but model number . . . " and someone can say "well, maybe the model number refers to the year . . . "

A concrete time-setting doesn't matter here. It's a dystopian future (as said above) where prisons are overflowing, the economy's in the shitter, and society is falling into the mechanized pseudo-utopian order that Kubrick usually targets.

majorjoe23

DVD Smurf

Read the book!!! Excellent reading!!!

As implied above, the tale takes place in some dystopia where time to us is unknown, but it is the notions and ideas of the book and film that makes it truly great.

Cheers

DVD Smurf

Gunshy

There is a version of the book (used to be just the UK pressing but maybe it's now all of them) that has a different ending from the movie. I read that a while ago and thought it added another cool dimension to the story. Check it. [makes mental note to re-watch CO]

-Gunshy

Brain Stew

Yeah, Kubrick felt the final chapter of the book strayed far from the main story and so he didn't incorporate it in the movie. I haven't read the novel, but I heard

majorjoe23

Close,

Neeb

That's what I was thinking of. Sorry for the confusion.

Now, that said, how do we know the humans in ACO are not the descendents of the Star-Child from the final shots of 2001?