‘Ripley’ Production Designer on Crafting a Murderous Black-and-White World
variety.comJazz Tangcay Artisans Editor In building the world of Netflix’s “Ripley,” production designer David Gropman needed to incorporate grand Italian train stations and works of art from the early 1960s.
The series, shot in black and white, is based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” about a con artist named Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott), who befriends a wealthy shipping heir, Dickie Greenleaf, played by Johnny Flynn.
Gropman began his plunge into designing the look of the show by studying photography books with images of the time and place. “Neo Realismo: The New Image in Italy 1932-1960” was his style bible.
He further utilized work by legendary photographers Pietro Donzelli, Bert Hardy, David Seymour, Herbert List and Mario Cattaneo to help visualize what this 1960s world would look like.
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