Photographs © Amazon Studios
by Andrew Boughton, Production Designer
THE MAN IN THE
HIGH CASTLE
Amazon's new series The Man in the High Castle
depicts an alternate 1960, in which America
lost World War II and is occupied by the Nazis
(the Northeast and Midwest) and Japan (the
West Coast), with a strip of neutral territory
surrounding the Rocky Mountains running down
the middle. It leans heavily on the disorienting
impact of its Production Design: swastikas
emblazoned on everyday objects like cigarettes;
familiar San Francisco street scenes with the
signage all in kanji; a happy, wholesome
family sitting down to breakfast with their son
in a Hitler Youth uniform. In the threadbare
neutral zone, there is still a bit of a glimpse of
Americana among the shuttered and peeling
storefronts—a Chevrolet sign, for example—all
of it so rundown, grimy and obviously defunct
that it's already half fossil.
