Design on Film – Lost in Translation

Last night I decided to take a midweek break and relax with Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. It wasn’t the first time I had seen it but was the first time I noticed the amazing interior design, most noticeably in Bob Harris’ (Bill Murray) Park Hyatt Hotel room.

I can’t imagine any Tokyo interior style but the ultra-sleek and modern, which was executed marvelously in Bob’s hotel room. Our local surroundings have an obvious effect on how we decide to design and I loved how the cityscape visible through the window popped out from the rest of the room almost like a painting. You can see the immense, bustling city, which is a wonder in and of itself, and the more delicate and quiet room that it inspired in the same field of view. It’s like listening to a piece of music and knowing exactly what the musician was thinking when he or she wrote the song.

I feel quite differently about the bar and lounge area where Bob and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) meet for drinks. In that room I was struck by the contrast between the cold looking city and the warm, welcoming bar. The deep colors and velvety textures do a lot to warm up the room, and I think the candles placed under the opaque shades add a nice finishing touch.

The design themes presented in these pictures showcase the different ways interior designers can play off the contrast between indoor and outdoor environments. The first room focuses on modern style and the second exudes a more familiar classic approach.

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Design on Film – The Dark Knight Legacy

This is the first installment of our new weekly series Design on Film, where we look at interior design as portrayed in some of our favorite cinematic adventures

A lot has changed in the past decade, but one thing’s still certain: people love Batman. The 1995 production Batman Forever was hot…when it came out.

A recent look at Bruce Wayne’s (Val Kilmer) Oliver’s People glasses and power ties sent me running back to Christian Bale and The Dark Knight. But not everything is dated; set director Elise ‘Cricket’ Rowland kept Bruce’s office spacious and sleek. Neutral color palettes are the smartest choice for an office, but all the gold shades were a little too glitzy for me. I think the light shades of Bruce’s office and corporate life were meant to contrast with the dark, cavernous bat world. This contrast in interior designs is subtle but important in setting the mood. It’s a little more obvious in the disparity between the ritzy, uptown sections of Gotham and the rundown back alleys: Wayne Enterprises’ ball versus Robin’s joyride and street brawl mishap. All the neon lighting used in the city, especially the glow stick creations that the city-people wore, reinforced the contrast between the uptown corporate and downtown worlds.

In Dark Night they made Gotham look more like normal Chicago, but the design inside Wayne’s inner sanctum had this wonderful minimalist-industrial look that I can’t resist (well done Peter Lando). Batman’s underground equipment room, where all the gadgets came to life, was simply an empty, fluorescent swathed garage. Usually, movie “equipment rooms” are plastered with clutter and animated thingamabobs (think Back to the Future or James Bond films) so the use of empty space in Dark Night was surprisingly effective.

Wayne interiors have this wonderful dark and sophisticated edge. To bad the outside view of Gotham looked so boring.

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