Gotham City (Burtonverse)

"Decent people shouldn't live here. They'd be happier someplace else."

- Jack Napier Gotham City was Batman's home city and base of operations.

The Joker's Reign of Terror
"And there will be entertainment, the big dukeroo, with me in one corner and in the other corner the man who has brought real terror to Gotham City...........Batman."

- The Joker

The Penguin's Siege
"The liberation of Gotham has begun !"

- The Penguin

Background Information and Notes
In the opening lines of the Sam Hamm screenplay for the 1989 film, Gotham is described as if "Hell erupted through the pavement and built a city". The logic is that when elevators were utilized for taller structures, the buildings that reached over a few stories were built around the existing structures of Gotham City. These skyscapers cast a shadow over the city coupled with the smoke from Gotham's industry kept the city in perpetual dusk.

Anton Furst's set designs for the movie were an attempt to imagine what might have happened to New York City had there been no planning commission and had it been run by pure extortion and crime. Hence, there were no height restrictions, the skyscrapers were cantilevered toward the street rather than away, there were lots of bridges over the streets. In return, the city appeared to be extremely dark and claustrophobic. Burton even stated himself that his take on Gotham was "As if Hell came sprouting out of the concrete and kept right on growing."

A majority of Gotham's street scenes in Batman (1989) were achieved with model buildings and matte paintings in the background. Furst deliberately mixed clashing architectural styles to make Gotham City the ugliest and bleakest metropolis imaginable.

For Tim Burton's second Batman film, Batman Returns, Bo Welch took over the production design duties from Anton Furst. Welch for the most part, based his designs on Furst's concepts. Whereas Anton Furst's designs showed a considerable amount of sinister visual grandeur, Bo Welch's designs had a more whimsical approach. Welch blended "Fascist architecture with World's Fair architecture" for Gotham City. Russian architecture and German Expressionism were also studied.

Legacy
In a 1992 comic book storyline, a man obsessed with Cyrus Pinkney's architecture blew up several Gotham buildings in order to reveal the Pinkney structures they had hidden; the editorial purpose behind this was to transform the city depicted in the comics to resemble the designs created by Anton Furst for the 1989 Batman film.

Trivia

 * A map of Gotham City used in Batman (1989) was actually an inverted map of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
 * The flag of Gotham City closely resembles the state flag of Indiana. It can be seen briefly in Harvey Dent's office
 * At least 50% of the Warner Brothers lot was taken up with Gotham City sets for Batman Returns. The massive Gotham City sets were all constructed to be mobile, and were often shifted between days of filming. Michelle Pfeiffer routinely got lost on her way to filming each day.