by Roberto Lasagna and Saverio Zumbo 1997
For A Clockwork Orange, your first collaboration with Stanley Kubrick, and not to mention the first film in which you'd had a role, to what degree were you inspired by Burgess' novel?
The novel A Clockwork Orange colorfully describes characters that live in a distant future. Kubrick instead wanted to take it in another direction and create a kind of temporal ambiguity, which could be closer to the time in which we were living. So we didn't create a completely new world because he didn't intend to make a pure science fiction movie.
And regarding the main aspect of your job, that is designing the costumes,
it seems you were inspired by Burgess...
The one thing for which I stayed true to the book was the design of the
codpieces, that is the protection pieces used by the droogs. In the novel they
are more elaborate, but I preferred a simpler design. Given that it was my first
experience in the professional world of cinema, Kubrick gave me a lot of
guidance to introduce me to the broader preparation of his film. In the first
place he took me along to check out sites and sent me to photograph certain
settings under the direction of the production designer. Kubrick wanted me to
understand what he was looking for. So my primary work tool was a camera, a
Nikon with wide-angle lens. We photographed a lot of places because SK is the
kind of director who wants to make his selection only after he's exhausted all
possibilities. He has a kind of artistic and intellectual eagerness. And he
always calmed me down, telling me not to worry about the overall organization,
just the images. As I continued in the job I elaborated on my designs and at a
certain point we spoke about it. Among other things I revealed my plan to dress
the droogs in white, as in fact they appear in the film. This was the starting
point. In that period gangs and skinheads were a societal reality, spoken of
constantly. I was in London at the time and, even if I stylized, I was inspired
by what I saw around me.
He always told me that the head is the most visible element
in a film and that I should start from there. I worked with Barbara Daly the
make-up artist and Leonard the hair stylist, two great artists and dear friends
whom I'd introduced to Stanley. Leonard had recently gotten an idea for electric
and extravagant colors that were later used in the punk look. We worked together
on A Clockwork Orange to give purple and green highlights to the hair of the
little girls in the milk bar sequence that Alex takes home. Too bad it's so hard
to see those details on the screen. Barbara and I decided that the droogs would
have to have very stylized make-up. The most successful one was Alex's eye with
the fake eyelashes. First we tried to put fake eyelashes on both eyes; it gave
him a strange look but wasn't terrible enough. But when we took one set off we
understood that the eye that still had the long fake eyelashes gave him a
relentless, surreal look, apt for his character. Kubrick really liked it.
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