Movie Posters; The Art Of The Sell

Good and honest film-going people of the world, lend me your eyes...

In a bit of break from my usual sombre and analytical tone, I have decided to venture out into something more visual. Fitting, I think, for a blog that owes its existence to such a glorious aesthetic medium.

The impetus behind this picture-based jaunt is simple. On a typically lonely visit to the cinema some time ago I was stood on an escalator and felt, not for the first time, my face contort and twist with confusion as I gawped at the various gaudy banners dangling from the walls like Olde English drapes. As if witness to a motorway crash, I was unable to look away from the gargantuan moody faces, side-lit and airbrushed, that I could only imagine were meant to be advertising some sort of film. But for the life of me I could not seewhat film that was. There was no title. No director's name. Not even a release date. Nothing.

What, I wonder, are they promoting? I thought. Is it so monumental an event that it need not even advertise its own title? Are they waiting until the last minute to decide on one fitting enough? Or is it that Tom Hanks is merely in need of a little boost, a little pick-me-up, and has resorted to paying for his own face to lit by burning embers in front of a stone-carved angel and then stretched to super-size and dangled from Wandsworth's premier multiplex for all to see?

The answer, of course, was the former. Angels and Demons was clearly anticipated by the general public with such earth-shattering intensity that to put the title on the posters would have been nothing short of irresponsible. Men and women alike would have dropped to their knees on the rising escalator and burst into tears of joy before being hoovered up at its peak, disappearing into the dark cavern that lurks below, just above MacDonalds. The only way to avoid this terrible feat, it seems, was to drip feed us lowly mortals with glimpses of steeples and clouds, therefore building our excitement gradually before delivering the title, the money shot, a few months later. That way we would be safe, and able to handle the news rather than pissing ourselves in the foyer like nervous old men.

Had I been so naive as to think this was the only way that film posters could exist, I would perhaps have lived a life until now of blissful ignorance. But no. I have been plagued ever since, desperate to prove that cinematic advertising, a once proud and respected artform, does not have to exist purely to provide page space for an actor's face or a bulbous list of a-list names. No, I was sure that film posters could be more than that, that they could still be beautiful, alternative. I was sure that they could stand alone as pieces of art or design that could be appreciate not just by film fans but by art fans.

This feeling was left unsatisfied for a long time, as more and posters came and went; all of them lacklustre, lazy and incredibly, undeniably ghastly. All shocked expressions, flashing lights and acrobatic silhouettes, they had sacrificed aesthetic beauty for functionality, wanting to deliver a clear message of what would be involved, but most did nothing more to enlighten me as to their contents than a picture of a basket of fruit would have done.

Take this lovely creation for example...

Now tell me, please, how this abomination of design advertises anything other than the fact that Robin Williams has children who really, really, like him, and have decided to show this appreciation of his whimsical parenting skills by crushing him to death with a huge, tumbling pile of over-sized letters. Honestly, what a bag of shite.

And if you didn't think it could get any worse...

Again, another film starring the once-respectable comedy beanbag that is Robin Williams. This time he's brought his one-handed hairdresser with him. Oh, and a nosey dog with a black eye as well...

The only thing that makes me happy about this poster is that fact that Williams looks like he is HATING every moment of it. Maybe it has finally dawned on him that he'll never receive another script like Good Morning Vietnam!, or maybe Travolta has leant over and whispered in his ear that he likes his new hair plugs. Either way, I am cheered by the fact that Robin looks moments from smashing that coffee mug on the table and stabbing the handle into his temple.

MORE! And to remain in the extremely loosely defined genre known as "comedy":

Now I can hear you, the few of you who saw this film and didn't think it to be a steaming great pile of unfunny, misogynistic, ego-maniacal tripe, claiming that 'no, come on, this one isn't that bad...Look! They're on a boat, and, okay, it's not rocking exactly in a literal sense, but at least they're walking like the Beatles so we know that it's a film about music...".

Well, okay, they are walking like the Beatles, I'll give you that. But in reality this isn't a film about music, and especially not about the Beatles. It's a film about a load of water-bound wankers who think they're the Beatles, instead of just a bunch of sad old perverts with vinyl collections.

What this poster actually is is a fantasy. My fantasy. That every character in this pointless film would march like lemmings along a splintered plank and into the deep blue sea. I would watch them from the deck, bobbing away towards the horizon as I cackle maniacally to the wonderous sound of Metallica's 'Battery' blasting out of the speakers.

Next, another beauty, and a cracking offering from a new genre, sponsored by Kleenex and based almost entirely on literary adaptations of things like The Kite Runner, that I like to call 'misery-porn'...

If you couldn't tell already from the heading that reads 'From the director of The Notebook', this is a film that is going to do nothing, I repeat nothing, but make you cry like a little girl. Like a little girl that, judging by the character in the bottom right corner of the poster with the beanie on blowing innocent puffs of her childish breath into the weirdly aquamarine sky, has some sort of debilitating disease. Because clearly, as shown by the girl in the beanie, this film is going to be nowhere near as much fun as the smiley people at the top would have you believe. No, no. This is going to be a sobfest. How do I know? Well, for starters, there are no men on the sheet, and men don't cry in films. Not unless they've lost at football or stubbed their toe on their shotgun. And secondly, those droplets on the right side, next to Cameron Dizzle, are tears. They are tears, I tell you, filmed in one of the film's preview screenings and replicated perfectly on this poster.

For another example, see this beauty, due for release soon, just in time for a new type of razor blade to be introduced to the market I'm sure...

Now I can only presume that whoever designed this poster for the film adaptation of "acclaimed bestseller" 'The Time Traveller's Wife' was so blinded by sadness, his eyes awash with salty droplets of emotion, that he neglected to realise that he's printed the image of a romantic embrace on it's SIDE.

Look at it! It looks ridiculous, and all it tells us about this film is that apparently Eric Bana likes to surprise the lovely Rachel McAdams, before she's even had a chance to untangle herself from her lovely bed sheet, and involve her in a reconstruction of the iconic moment in Spiderman where Kistern Dunst puckers up and gets a faceful of Maguire. Down he comes, harnessed to the ceiling, half asleep and with a silly goatee, ready to receive her. And LOOK, he's even managed to recreate the rain by severing an electric cables in the ceiling and filling the room with orange and blue sparks. Oh, no, wait, those are tears. Sorry, should have known.

Now, I understand that this rant seems somewhat biased, what with me having picked out a series of posters for films that I clearly am NOT a fan of, and therefore cannot wait to pick apart. And its true, I do indeed dislike these movies greatly. But then again, there are some very good films that have bad posters and also some very bad films whose advertising is perfectly acceptable.

Par example...

24 Hour Party People was a great film. A great film. But this poster... Well it's shit, isn't it. Not only does this film appear to tell the story of what happened when Neo from The Matrix discovered he could earn good money as a Parisian rent boy, but it also seems to suggest that he would befriend a group of pikeys with debilitating spinal injuries. It's awful. The colour is awful. The bizarre ransom note lettering they've used for the title is awful. The tagline is about a million words long, and awful.

So proof, there, that good movies do not necessarily produce good advertising campaigns. But what of the bad movies that have produced successful artwork. Well a bad movie is hard to define, as is a successful artwork. But in this, I may have found both:

Now I defy anyone to look at that poster and tell me that there's not something inherently cool and suave about the way it's been put together. The idea of designing the poster in the format of a graphic novel cover is great, and even though the image of Jackson and Ricci is clearly a photograph, there is something lovely about the use of contrast and saturation that makes it look dark and dirty, everything the film wanted you to lust after, believing that it could satisfy those urges.

Unfortunately it couldn't, it was a bit rubbish. But still, you'd have that on your wall, wouldn't you? And not in a sexist, 'ooh it's a man holding a woman capture in chains, like all woman should be...' way, but in a kitsch, Grindhouse-revisited, artistically inventive way.

Anyway, I'm getting to the end, but I'd like to share with you some of the recent posters that I think show how movie posters can be truly, truly pleasing whilst still doing their job. The most recent is an alternative version of the poster for Duncan Jones' 'Moon', and is, I think, a truly classic piece of poster design; intriguing, beautiful, informative and true to the film's own personality.

For those of you wondering why I have not used any foreign language posters, I have absolutely no answer for you. I just haven't. Maybe because I was using largely English websites to yank the photos from, or maybe it's just because I hate foreigners. Who knows. Well, I know, it's the first one, I just didn't spot any. I don't hate foreigners. I love them. All of them.

To prove that, I dug up some posters that are absolutely, truly and indescribably odd. They were designed by various Polish artists and designers who, when Polish distributors decided that it was no use trying to use English language posters in their own country (the loglines, faces and names that would usually have been used to sell the film at home would have been near useless), were assigned to different films and given the freedom to create whatever they pleased, however they pleased.

The result is a collection of distinctive and bizarre images, some more recognisable than others, but all of them infinitely preferable to the mugshot parade that we have come to accept as the norm here in the UK...