Mark Friedberg 2

Oftentimes, movies draw from other films, books, historical texts, comics or even personal knowledge and experience to create the physical world for the characters. What makes the film, Joker, feel so original is that it pulls from so many sources and types of inspiration to create an entirely unique, visually stunning world that stands the test of time.  

In an exclusive interview with Interiors, we spoke with Mark Friedberg, who is the Production Designer for Joker.

INT: You have previously said that you never wanted to work on another superhero film, so what was it about Joker that made you want to come on board?

MF: I didn’t want to work on the movie because I was afraid it was another comic book franchise. I rarely go see those films and have only worked on one (The Amazing Spider-Man 2). I prefer drama and boldness and Art. Finally, I was persuaded to read Todd’s script and was hooked by page 10. 

After that, my only concern was that the filmmaking wouldn’t be as bold as the brilliant script. But when I sat with Todd Phillips and discussed this, it was clear that he was going for it, no holds barred. Once I heard that, I was in. In the preamble, it states that the stakes are real. That this is a real place - not a fantasy. A place we can all relate to. As I read on, I saw that there is some version of Arthur in many of us. Luckily, most of us can control the very human feelings of hurt and rage. We find semi productive ways to prove our existence, which seems to be getting harder and harder to accomplish. The power of the script is that we are with Arthur. We commiserate. We even kinda sympathize with his plight. But as he starts to form the delusion of his own power born out of violence, we part with him. Hopefully. It is edgy and different for everyone. It is a powerful kind of real. 

INT: What were your early conversations with Todd Phillips like about the look of Gotham and Arthur's world?

MF: Gotham is real. It is not a made-up world, not a fantasy world, not a mythical world. It is a world that we understand because we live in a version of it. A hard world that constantly bears down on us. A world where the social contract is fraying, where there is no empathy, where all is corrupt and dirty. A world where the stakes are real. 

Specifically, Arthur’s Gotham is a world of textures. Ironically, many people have told me that they found the film to be beautiful when it is made from peeling paint, pocked concrete, dripping water, defacement and lots of garbage. But maybe for some of us, that is beautiful. And it’s also horrible. Hence the upside-down and inside-out world of Arthur. He’s not a tragedy; he’s a comedy. He’s not a hero; he’s a villain. Up is down and all is sideways. It wasn’t that it was just a poor, decaying world. It was a world that was once nice and is now falling apart. A place that was once a society and is now a scrum. All the dog-people fighting for the scraps.

INT: There have been many depictions of Gotham City over the years but the Gotham presented in Joker seems to be the most unique and have the most character. We know that there was research into era appropriate films such as Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, but were there certain Batman texts or films that were used as inspiration? Or did you try to create a Gotham that was distinct to Arthur and how he viewed the city? 

MF: The City is a character in the story and it is Arthur’s antagonist. As Taxi Driver’s New York City does to Travis Bickle, Gotham bears down on Arthur Fleck. In a way, it manifests him and his experience. He takes it personally. He has a relationship with the place. In fact, it’s possible that the place we see is only in his mind, even if it isn’t through his mind’s eye the way we see it.  In his mind, he goes from practically not being recognized as existing to becoming the city's revolutionary leader.  

Even though we tried not to, Gotham City’s “Mythic Status” was something we had to deal with. On some level, the past versions of Gotham didn’t matter to us. The point of tackling a myth is to interpret it in your own way - in your own image. Our image was about darkness and decay but also about a version of humanity. I think that’s what people are relating to. 

My main inspiration for the world of Gotham was not other films. It was my own childhood on the streets on New York City in the 1960’s and 70’s. Todd grew up there as well so there was a shorthand and an understanding that only folks who have been through it can relate to. When we look at photos of that era, they don’t look real. It’s hard to believe that they aren’t overdone theatre sets or installations. It was so extreme and we have done so much sanitizing since then and that made it hard to make our Gotham. But that old New York was in us and we finally were able to let it out in all its glory. So no, we didn’t look at the previous DC Movies or Texts as inspiration. T0 a degree, we looked at the classic cinema of the time of this story from Midnight Cowboy to Network to the obvious Martin Scorsese references, But really, we looked at the city we both knew very well. We looked inside. 

INT: There are so many incredible spaces in the film. Was it challenging to design spaces that already had some visual background in the comics/films in addition to spaces that were original to your Joker universe?

MF: Sometimes, I pitched ideas to plant a little egg by naming a street after something in the comics or maybe sing Amusement Mile in the background outside of Ha-Ha’s, but mostly, this movie lives alone. There’s not very much that is not original to Joker. Arkham maybe, but we looked more at One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest than any actual Joker References. In large part, we looked out the window of the car as we drove all over the Tri-state area trying to map our Gotham over the actual New York area.

INT: What was it about the South Bronx that felt right for Arthur's neighborhood? Can you talk about this setting, as well as the (now iconic) stairs that are featured in the film?

MF: The South Bronx was an original instinct for Todd due to his curiosity about the fact that it has stairs where sidewalks and streets should sometimes be. At the time, they were more significant in signaling how hard Arthur’s life is. He gets beat up in the garbage-strewn streets, he works in a decaying place, he rides crowded buses and smelly subways and then trudges through the poor area he lives in and up those 144 stairs.

The Bronx is quintessentially New York, but at the same time, it’s not the New York that most of us know. That was a positive. We wanted our Gotham to relate to a particular time in New York but not to be it. In the comics, Gotham and New York coexist. I like that even though Gotham is New York-like and Gotham is a central character in the story, Gotham is not New York - it’s a version of it.  Only New York is New York. Gotham can be interpreted by whoever chooses. 

The Bronx is actually coming up, but we were able to find a great set up with the stairs, that block and the exterior of his building, once a Deco beauty. Rather than shoot in public housing projects - which are also in the Bronx - we chose this old Deco strip to make the point that this was once a nice place but it has since fallen. Much like everything in our Gotham. When it was once nice, it’s a farther fall - a more hopeless one. 

INT: We've never previously seen the private space of Joker. Can you talk about Arthur's apartment and coming up with a design for his personal space?

MF: Arthur’s Mother’s (Penny Fleck) Apartment is the key set in the film. It’s the one we keep venturing out from or returning to. One of the few that we see over and over. The main change that happens there is that once Penny is gone, it finally becomes Arthur’s Home. He is more comfortable. He turns the place into a facsimile of the Murray Franklin Show. He also does a murder there.

This tiny place is probably where Arthur grew up, even though he doesn’t even get his own room. The fake niceness of the place signifies Penny’s sense of delusion, and Arthur’s, and lets us in on their bizarre mother-son relationship. It sets a lot of the dissonant tone. Our homes are like our clothing - the way they look can tell us a lot about who lives within. Initially, this teaches us more about Penny than about Arthur but that is also by design. When asked about his background, the Joker has been known to answer “I prefer t0 think of my past as multiple choice.” 

Eventually, Arthur figures out more about his past than he wanted to and we realize that this place is really a torture chamber. By the end of our story, it’s his lair - where he launches the Joker. 

We designed a space that made architectural sense for the exterior building we chose. The Hallway was eternal in a Kafkaesque way but we wanted the apartment to be small and tight and to have some architectural detail.  We wanted it to be terrifying, but also, not a disaster area. There was a great deal of discussion about the wall treatment. In the end, we went with the bolder choice of the checkered geometric pattern which closes in on Arthur and is strangely pink somehow. Penny’s Bedroom is self-styled by her delusional self to be a boudoir for her glam. There is a portrait (my portrait) of JFK and Jackie O in high Camelot mode. The bedding is flowing. The vanity in the Bedroom is key since that is where the Joker uses his mom’s makeup to become the most famous villain of all time. 

INT: Can you talk a bit about the set of Ha-Ha’s Talent Booking? It's almost Felliniesque so we're curious about your process for this space.

MF: I’m so glad you got that about Ha-Ha’s. I wanted it to be a set by Fellini and camera by Lumet. What a weird place. A tough guy locker room where guns are passed around in paper bags, but in the same place, the men doll themselves up in makeup and put on clown clothes. It’s my favorite set in the film. We built it into a warehouse under the West Side Highway in Harlem. Besides the window, it’s basically a built set. Urban, tough and in a way, the closest Arthur gets to feeling at home, until he takes over his mom’s apartment.  

INT: In your essay for MovieMaker Magazine, you mention that you and Todd Phillips physically mapped out the Gotham Transit System in order to better understand how Arthur moves through the city. In fact, you ended up mapping all of Gotham by area and by street. Can you describe what this process was like to map out an entire city? Not only in terms of production design, but architectural design and urban design, what did you start to learn about Arthur and his journey as you tried to create your own Gotham?

MF: One day, Todd mentioned that we might have to map Arthur’s Journey to understand his relationships between the places he journeys. I took this to heart and started to lay out the city in Neighborhoods. I do that wherever I go and always relate the neighborhoods in a city to the ones in New York. But For Gotham, it was really fun - to look through a cubist lens at the city I know more about than anything else in the world. 

We knew it wanted bridges. We knew that it was on the East Coast. We decided that it had an overground and an underground transit system and this is where we started. How Arthur gets around and from where and to where he goes. Part of this was done on a drawing table and a lot of it was done just driving around to all the places you never want to go alone. Todd was totally gung-ho. He wanted to see the extremeness. So we looked all over and all under.  

The South Bronx, Harlem, Newark and Chinatown all went into our imagined interpretation of past Gotham’s. The Buses, The Trains, the Stairs. We wanted to make the iconic version of New York City at this time and at the same time, not have it be “New York City” at all. We ditched Lincoln Center and other recognizable New York City locations in favor of those that had the feel but not be “tourist postcards”. In that way, we made our own Gotham - a real place that doesn’t exist.