The Batman’s production designer James Chinlund reveals the cut Joker scene was inspired by the 1963 Japanese police procedural, High and Low. Writer and director Matt Reeves’ detective noir thriller (fully equipped with moody narration) debuted in theaters earlier this year. Inspired by comics like Batman: Year One, the film introduces audiences to Robert Pattinson’s “vengeance” in his second year as the Caped Crusader. The Batman’s main villain is Paul Dano’s Edward Nashton/Riddler, a serial killer targeting Gotham City’s corrupt elites and leaving clues for the “World’s Greatest Detective.”
With the help of its dimly-light and neon Gotham City, The Batman introduces iconic locations such as the psychiatric hospital that houses members of DC’s rogues’ gallery, Arkham Asylum. The latter location plays a key role in the film; including in its final moments when the Riddler is befriended by a shadowy figure (Barry Keoghan)—who says there are worse things than being a clown. While everyone naturally assumed this inmate’s manically laugh belonged to the Joker, his identity wasn’t confirmed until Reeves’ released a deleted scene. It sees Batman consult the Clown Prince of Crime about the Riddler early on in the film a la Silence of the Lambs. Now, The Batman’s production designer has revealed the specific inspiration for the Arkham set and how it influenced the Joker’s reveal.
In a recent interview with The Illuminerdi, production designer James Chinlund—who previously worked with Reeves on his two Planet of the Apes films—talked about building Gotham, the Iceberg Lounge, and Arkham Asylum. According to Chinlund, he took inspiration from the prison visit that ends Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low to design Arkham and frame the Joker's deleted scene. Read the full quote below:
“There’s a Japanese film called High and Low. That was very inspiring to Matt where there’s sort of a reveal, the screen goes up and they’re in this interrogation room. So I think we were really looking at different ways of revealing the characters. We knew that we wanted the Joker, for example, to be there, but not there, and sort of layers of glass and mesh and shadow and light. So a lot of the design was coming from that place. Like how could we reveal the characters in different ways and still maintain mystery?”
The speeches given by The Batman's Riddler and High and Low‘s imprisoned kidnapper, Ginjirô Takeuchi (Tsutomu Yamazaki) are eerily similar, focusing on class resentment as they explain their motives. That said, the Japanese film clearly played into both the Riddler and Joker's interrogation scenes. In the above interview, Chinlund goes on to talk about how the focus of the Joker's scene is to keep his identity a secret for as long as possible; gradually revealing his green hair, diseased skin, grotesque smile, and laugh without showing his face in full. Unfortunately, most fans didn’t consume The Batman’s deleted scene until after seeing the film’s final cut in theaters. By then, the Joker had already been spoiled in an inferior process of discovery with the Riddler. While it would’ve been nice to see Pattinson and Keoghan establish their dynamic a la Christian Bale and Heath Ledger in theaters, it likely would’ve distracted from the main narrative—which is why Reeves decided to cut it in the first place.
With a look and feel comparable to a graphic novel, Batman: The Animated Series, and the Arkham games, The Batman has resonated with comic book fans and cinephiles around the world. Its unique take on Gotham has already spawned Penguin Arkham Asylum spinoffs set to release on HBO Max. On top of that, Reeves confirmed that he was officially working on The Batman 2 at the recent Warner Bros. panel at CinemaCon. Reeves has said that the Joker’s cameo in the first film and deleted scene were not specifically meant to set him up for The Batman 2. Whether he appears in the sequel at all remains to be seen. Regardless, it seems safe to say Warner Bros./DC Films and Reeves will continue working with Chinlund on Gotham’s aesthetic, its locations, and the introduction of more characters.
Source: The Illuminerdi
