Tales of a Cinesthete

This first part of the series on the film poster is about collaborations. There have been several filmmakers past and present who have been vocal about control over all visual aspects of their films, including publicity material like film posters. In the process of such a collaboration across several films, the resulting film posters go beyond the publicity purpose and become independent interpretations of the film material in their own right.

A well-known example is certainly the work of Saul Bass (1920-1996) with filmmakers Alfred Hitchcock and Otto Preminger. It was apparently through Bass’ collaboration with Preminger that Hitchcock became aware of his work.

It’s not accidental that Bass was my first encounter with film poster design and titling sequences. In my humble, non-graphic design field opinion, his work with Preminger and Hitchcock are practically unrivaled in their simplicity and effectiveness in conveying a particular mood and/or narrative trajectory that links to the film in question.

Bass’ work first caught my attention through one of my all-time favourite films, Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958). Bass designed the opening title sequence for the film, as well as for North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960). In my mind, the visual-aural-textual collaboration of Hitchcock, the music of Bernard Herrmann, and Bass in Vertigo represents a ridiculously high point in cinematic splendour.

But that’s just me.

The poster on the right is perhaps all-too-familiar to Hitchcock and Bass fans alike, but I had never seen this version before. Compare with the more ubiquitous version below, where the couple is located in the middle of the vertigo spiral in a completely different pose.

Bass’ work with Preminger was actually much more prolific than with Hitchcock, but equally well known. The following film posters are some examples.

I love Bass’ distinct and striking minimalism, down to the typography and colour scheme for each film, in all the film posters displayed here. Whether it’s a question of a hand with index finger pointed to express power and authority, or of another hand to express a crippling/crippled condition both psychological and physical, the simplicity of lines, fragmentations of wholes appeal to lovers of the abstract as well as of the films. No photographic realism here that would just repeat the visuals of the film.

It’s nothing short of a testament to Bass’ creativity and innovation in film poster design and title sequence, and his association with classical Hollywood filmmakers like Preminger and Hitchcock that Martin Scorsese collaborated with him for several films (Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence).

There were certainly other film poster designers/artists working at the same time as Bass. But none managed to rise to an equal plane as the filmmakers he worked with, in the level of popular recognition.

In the work of other designers/artists, Bass’ influence is more than palpable. Bass’ work as a nod to classical Hollywood and as a reference to innovative graphic design crops up in the film posters for Spike Lee’s Clockers (1995) and Pedro Almodóvar’s Atame (1989).

Juan Gatti’s poster for Almodóvar’s Atame brings up their collaboration, which began in the 1980s. In some of the posters born from their collaboration, one can see the film references that abound.  Atame recalls and references quite explicitly Bass’ poster designs, in particular The Man with the Golden Arm.

Gatti’s posters for Almodóvar also betray Gatti’s background in fashion design (ranging from photography and art direction). Gatti’s poster for Kika (1993), in particular, reads and unfolds perhaps more like a fashion magazine spread than a film poster.

Compared to Bass’ work, though with some exceptions such as the poster for Atame, Gatti’s film poster aesthetic/design is a lot busier. I don’t mean that in a negative way, of course.

There is a lot more mixture of colours, an overlapping and collage of shapes, bodies, and text, all of which does find a kind of affinity with the very colourful, convoluted, and connected sets, situations and characters in Almodóvar’s films.

All the same, my tastes have always veered towards the minimalist. So I’m quite partial to the Atame poster above all else, as well as the Hable con ella one.

Gatti also does title sequences, and I have to say that his title sequence for La mala educación (2004) is absolutely superb. Admittedly, there’s a bit (just a bit) of a Bass reference that goes on throughout the whole sequence, reminiscent of Psycho, let’s say. But it’s definitely a lot more elaborate in detail, which is a mark of Gatti’s work. Its plethora of religious iconography, alongside images of death and eroticism, also hearken to the work of Almodóvar’s countryman, the incomparable Luis Buñuel.

There’s not enough room to go through the entire sequence, but I think it worthwhile to share some portions of the sequence, with its black, red, white and grey colour scheme:

Another example of a more recent collaboration is that of Jim Jarmusch and Polish illustrator and poster designer Andrzej Klimowski. Correction: Klimowski’s posters for Jarmusch’s films weren’t conceived with Jarmusch; after their conception, Jarmusch approved of them. A bit of a difference.

There’s a bit of the surreal and dada in Klimowski’s work, in terms of collage and choice of imagery, that I find quite appealing. I think in particular of Georg Grosz’ work in the 1920s/1930s, and the work of German dadaists in general – but more the playful aspect, as opposed to the explicitly political.

“Surreal” is a valid reference, I think. The poster for Permanent Vacation on the left channels the tendency to double and multiply the same image, and detach parts from one another, to play with the act of seeing and the identity of an image, in the work of René  Magritte (yes, a surrealist painter).

The poster below is perhaps even more in dialogue with Magritte’s images. In Magritte’s work, time and again images of the bowler hat, a black business jacket, a person’s back and either its reflection in the mirror or its shadow, appear. Homage or not, the reference is there. I’ve seen several Jarmusch films, but it’s been a while. So I can’t say (or recall at the moment) whether this Magritte reference is valid for Jarmusch’s films as well. You tell me.

Despite the different films that these posters represent, there is a kind of unity at work across all of them. And it’s not just because the artist is the same. I’m not trying to be cheeky in making this point of unity and all that. If this group of film posters come off as having a more “unified” feel than the usual crop, it’s partially intentional. This series of film posters was actually commissioned for the art-house release of Jarmusch’s films in Poland.

The last collaboration to deal with here is between filmmaker John Cassavetes and photographer Sam Shaw. Shaw photographed a great deal of the images that appear in film posters for Cassavetes’ films.

The stress on the photographic image, of the face in particular as in the poster above, in the majority of Shaw’s images for posters is very much in keeping with Cassavetes’ filmmaking aesthetic. There is an intimacy, vulnerability and even intrusion in these images and posters that somehow meets halfway Cassavetes’ own images and stories.  After all, he did make a film titled Faces (1968) – a personal favourite.

Usually I don’t like the use of the photographic image in film posters. It seems to always be a sign of a lack of creativity: just get the star’s face (whether it’s in the context of the film in question is sometimes irrelevant) and slap it together with some funky typography and there you go. Oh, and paste several soundbytes by critics across the image, preferably with a lot of exclamation points, so that the weakness of the image design goes unnoticed.

But not with these posters. Aside from the power of the images, I like very much the images’ interplay with the text. I like the fact that in the poster below, the text occupies half of the poster space. Obviously the Criterion Collection folks liked these designs and posters so much that they used them for the package design for their Cassavates DVDs.