Architecture and buildings

Well bad things of that kind happened and still happen in areas that aren't in any way modern, in fact my own niece was almost a victim back in 1990 when she and her friend were attacked a mere few hundred feet away from some terraced houses in our traditional Welsh Valley.

I imagine the filmakers were just using the then new and shiny modernist locations in a way to say that people have progressed and yet evil nasty things still can happen. Or you can give people better housing and lifestyles, but it doesn't always turn them into better people though?

As for the modernist/concrete/tower block revolution, well the brakes were put on after the Ronan Point disaster of 1968. It seemed the quickly and cheaply constructed "system built" Tower Block was flawed and it took a minor gas explosion to prove that.

Still we're now entering a new phase of modernisation here in Great Britain and High Rise aparments are very much back in vogue. But their not council, no their for inner city business folk and several Tower Blocks have been constructed in the city centre of Cardiff a mere 30 miles away from me.

In fact if you watch the Doctor Who spin-off series "Torchwood", you'll see the main character standing on top of one such apartment block called "Alto lusso".

"You're Only Supposed To Blow The Bloody Doors Off!"

The exteriors of 'The Offence' were filmed in Bracknell in 1971. I watched some of the filming in Wildridings (council estate). I lived in Wildridings from 1967 until 1979. Bracknell was one of a number of satellite 'new towns' built around London to take people out of deprived housing in London and put them in a far 'better' environment. In the sixties, people who came to Bracknell to work in the new industries there were offered their choice of council houses, most of which had been constructed no earlier than the 1950's - abolsutely no problem finding a home in those days. When we first moved to Bracknell it still had a lot of its original charm - the old High Street still had all the stores that had been there for many years and there was a sense of community about the place. At the time Lumet was filming The Offence, Bracknell was beginning to expand rapidly. The old High Street was being rebuilt and more housing estates were being contructed. By the end of the 1970's Bracknell was very different from when I moved there. So many people had moved in and the infrastructure expanded and redeveloped so rapidly that it had become a very souless place with a rapidly rising crime rate. I left Bracknell in 1997 and I was very glad to get out. The point I'm making is that Lumet's portrayel of Bracknell as an example of the failure of the 'new town' experiment is ironic considering that the Bracknell of 1971 could be considered paradise compared to what it evolved into.

Also check out Richard Burton's character's quote in 'Villain' - "What a dump, work all week and sh*g the missus on Saturdays". Villain was filmed about the same time as The Offence and Burton's character makes that quote as he is standing outside Clarke & Eaton (a glass manufacturer) staring across at Wildridings. Yeah, Bracknell certainly got some bad press back then. :)

Oh and finally, if you watch the original Casino Royale movie with David Niven, when he is being chased in his Bentley by the remote controlled milk float, the town he is being chased around in is...Bracknell, circa 1967.

I don't know what the statement was meant to be, but I have to say that no other film struck me so much with architecture and landscapes.

Every single thing in this entire film, from the streets to the inside of the police station (that looks like the Death Star made out of molded concrete), is gleaming, brand new, and almost a stunning work of architecture and civic design for living, yet at the same time it is the most depressing thing you've ever seen.

You'll long for the South Bronx after two hours of this place, what with people doing thankless work all day and being stuffed into planned cubbyholes at night.

This film, in my opinion, hits that mark even better than Layer Cake or A Clockwork Orange, and demonstrates the urban design of Sleeper or The Lathe of Heaven, but in real life. After seeing only a few minutes of this, I was asking myself, "Where the hell did they find this place to film? Not surprising that two guys would turn their minds to child rape just for the escapist element of it!"

This is a truly excellent film, and the architecture, coupled with the cinematography, is the best part. The music is amazing, and the sound is just incredible, both production sound mixing and effects.

Please watch this film!!!

I thought that the architecture was Outlandish (geddit?). Most of the buildings looked like expressionist pissoirs.

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

What struck me the most about this film other than the plot was how unbelievably dark the scenes were (in lighting.) I missed most of the beginning, coming in around 25 minutes in, so perhaps I missed all of the scenes with light in them. It seemed like from when I started watching to the end there were almost no daylight scenes. The night scenes were so dark that even when I turned off every light in my living room and kitchen and even a light from down the hallway, I had trouble making out the detail of what was happening in this giant, black mass. Sometimes it just looked like solid black, but then I would sense movement somewhere in the black of something else even darker black doing something. My eyes often couldn't make out what I was looking at. Even in Johnson's flat where there were presumably some lights on, they didn't seem to shed much light. All of this darkness made it all the more startling when we saw the parrot in his flashbacks - I thought, "Wow! Color!" What any of this means other than that it was his "dark night of the soul" I don't know. It seemed almost Dickensian to me, the opposite of bright, shiny and modern.

I thought that it was significant that the bacon station was unfinished - everywhere else was new and clean and tidy but the station resembled the inside of Johnson's head. I was rather surprised that they didn't find a standard social outsider to torture a false confession from.

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

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