Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541514
We didn't begin with a standard discussion of color palette. Scott Cooper (our director), cinematographer Masanobu "Masa" Takayanagi, and I all agreed the project wasn't about aesthetics in the traditional sense. It was about restraint. I wanted to strip color away. The goal was not to choose colors, but to eliminate them. The black-and-white childhood flashbacks are based heavily on the photography of Robert Frank. We pushed the contrast; no midtones, no grays. It was about isolation, starkness, memory, and emotional distance. Some of Saul Leiter's black-and-white work influenced that as well. For the scenes in color, I turned to Bruce Davidson's subway series, images with coarse, urban textures punctuated by punches of yellow and red. Jane Dickson's Times Square paintings, and Joe Maloney's photographs of Asbury Park also helped build that visual vocabulary. Designing iconic locations like The Stone Pony, the Asbury Park boardwalk and carousel, and the Power Station meant tapping into the spirit of the places that helped shape Bruce's story and sound. These are sacred spaces to Springsteen fans, and I wanted to honor that. The approach was one of excavation—lighting The Stone Pony, opening it up to reflect the space as it was. We studied the 1983 film, Variety by Bette Gordon for its gritty aesthetic, neon, and how it captured the textures of 1980s urban life. At the boardwalk, we focused on places Bruce touched personally: the carousel, Palace Amusements Fun House, the arcades, Madam Marie's, the Asbury Park Convention Center and Paramount Theater. Even when we included flashbacks, we treated every surface and texture as a memory. THE STONE PONY, NEW JERSEY - SET PHOTO FREEHOLD, NEW JERSEY - MOVIE THEATER - SET PHOTO FREEHOLD, NEW JERSEY - MAIN STREET 1957 ASBURY PARK PALACE AMUSEMENTS - ARTWORK