I recall seeing a movie in the 1980’s about a dark city set in some futuristic setting where people were being coerced into becoming addicted to a drug that altered their sense of reality and at the end the scene panned out to show that the world they lived in was either a clock or a part in a clock. I think the lead was someone who looked like Tom Waits.
The timing is a little off but it’s possible you have inadvertently answered your own question – the ‘dark city’ you describe sounds a lot like, well, Dark City (1998).
There was no Tom Waits type lead in Dark City that I can remember, but from a similar time frame there was a dark steampunk style sci fi movie called The City of Lost Children starring Ron Perlmen and he did look like Waits when he was younger. Maybe the two films are getting conflated?
no coerced drug use in either.
I just saw Dark City a couple of nights ago and thought it might be the one I was trying to find, but alas, it was not. Thanks Popfiction. Good lead.
Allen — thanks also. Ron Perlman might have been the lead in this other movie. Good call. The City of Lost Children looks excellent! But alas, not the movie I am trying to find again.
I’m pretty sure it’s not “A Clockwork Orange”, yet I can’t help but be amazed at the coincidences – you used the word “clock” many times in your description (I don’t think the ending involves clock shapes though), the characters are being subjected to drugs which alter their behavior, and it’s a dark, futuristic setting! I’m only mentioning this because it’s curious.
It is curious, but not the movie I’m trying to remember. Thank you for your ideas, though.