film Posters
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| film Posters |
As
we begin to gain some perspective on the last century, the 1960s take
on an increasingly pivotal role in the creation of today's behavior
patterns.
War, racial strife, assassinations, political turmoil, and a sexual revolution created a powerful brew that affected just about everybody - and no cultural corner escaped, including movies. Gone were the days when everyone listened to the same music, read the same bestsellers, and went to see the same films.
Technology and geography combined forces to create multiple tracks of information and entertainment.
There were movies for mass audiences, and specialty
films imported for art houses, as well as ultra-experimental films
for audiences of a few thousand.
There were American independent films aimed at audiences hungry for cinema-verite documentaries, and black films made for an audience newly sensitized to their racial identity.
Hollywood, ever happy to co-opt any trend that might prove profitable, began not only to reflect the more liberal mood, but also to take full advantage of this new freedom by illustrating the changing sexual attitudes of a movie audience suddenly dominated by the younger generation.
War, racial strife, assassinations, political turmoil, and a sexual revolution created a powerful brew that affected just about everybody - and no cultural corner escaped, including movies. Gone were the days when everyone listened to the same music, read the same bestsellers, and went to see the same films.
Technology and geography combined forces to create multiple tracks of information and entertainment.
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| film Posters |
There were American independent films aimed at audiences hungry for cinema-verite documentaries, and black films made for an audience newly sensitized to their racial identity.
Hollywood, ever happy to co-opt any trend that might prove profitable, began not only to reflect the more liberal mood, but also to take full advantage of this new freedom by illustrating the changing sexual attitudes of a movie audience suddenly dominated by the younger generation.
Although
this bitter-sweet Stanley Donen 1967 comedy has now found its
audience - via revivals and video rentals - Hollywood didn't
understand it. But there can be little doubt that the designer of
this Japanese poster (20 x 28 in) was well aware of the true nature
of
Two for the Road.
One can almost hear Hepburn mouthing her famous last expletive, which
seems mild now but was a bit of a shocker at the time. Paper on this
film is sought after, and has proven to be a popular St. Valentine's
present.
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| film Posters |
The
original poster campaign for
The Graduate (1967) was a
disaster: a cartoonish mountain created by a bent leg and a minuscule
drawing of Hoffman beneath it. Joseph E. Levine, the film's producer
and a master showman, soon recognized the error and quickly released
a poster featuring
Bancroft's leg with Hoffman in the background, on which this British quad was even a slight improvement. The film is often considered the decade's most typical commercial effort; for audiences, it seemed to sum up the changes swirling around them.
Barbarella
is the ultimate '60s babe - armed and dangerous, but not too
liberated to perform a heated striptease during the opening credits.
Based on a French comic-book character the film surpasses the form,
and its vibrant colors and disjointed style put it in a class with
another '60s femme fatale from the same genre,
Modesty Blaise (1967),This 1968 British quad,
designed by Robin Ray, does an even better job than the film of
evoking '60s imagery. While the U.S. was entering the age of Peter
Max-type drug-induced illustrations, U.K. artists were creating their
own brand of L.S.D. (aka Loopy Sinuous Doodles).„
Bancroft's leg with Hoffman in the background, on which this British quad was even a slight improvement. The film is often considered the decade's most typical commercial effort; for audiences, it seemed to sum up the changes swirling around them.
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| film Posters |
The
1969 one-sheet for
Downhill Racer,
was designed by Steve Franfurt and once made close to $900 at auction (it was rumored to have been purchased by a trendy art director for his ski chalet). The prices of all types of posters are subject to various forces: in the world of vintage travel posters those with a ski theme command a premium, and the same is true with film paper Such diverse themes as auto racing, baseball, ballet, and images of food are attractive to collectors, and their appearance on movie posters can drive up the price of the most mundane examples.The style B one-sheet, right, offers an interesting variation using solarized imagery - a technique borrowed from the field of modern photography.
was designed by Steve Franfurt and once made close to $900 at auction (it was rumored to have been purchased by a trendy art director for his ski chalet). The prices of all types of posters are subject to various forces: in the world of vintage travel posters those with a ski theme command a premium, and the same is true with film paper Such diverse themes as auto racing, baseball, ballet, and images of food are attractive to collectors, and their appearance on movie posters can drive up the price of the most mundane examples.The style B one-sheet, right, offers an interesting variation using solarized imagery - a technique borrowed from the field of modern photography.
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| film Posters |
It
is difficult to find anyone who admits to having seen this 1968
Italian film, and sadly there is no information on the poster
designer; who deserves an award for so brilliantly reinventing the
psychedelic experience. Only a handful of posters can have a life
apart from the film for which they were created, but this is one; its
use of illustrations to create a faux photomontage is a stroke of
genius. Shown here is the huge Italian
quattro,
the only piece of advertising paper known to have appeared on this
title.
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