{"id":9979,"date":"2010-11-26T17:24:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-26T17:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=9979"},"modified":"2010-11-26T18:12:45","modified_gmt":"2010-11-26T18:12:45","slug":"anatomy-of-a-movie-poster-the-american","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2010\/11\/26\/anatomy-of-a-movie-poster-the-american\/","title":{"rendered":"Anatomy of a Movie Poster"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the most striking film posters this year was for The American<\/a><\/strong>, but what made it so distinctive?<\/p>\n

When LA-based\u00a0Mojohouse<\/a> released the first one sheet for Anton Corbijn’s film, about an enigmatic American lying low in Italy, there was a lot of talk about the retro design.<\/p>\n

MUBi listed various films of the 1960s<\/a> that seemed to be an inspiration for the basic look and feel of the poster:<\/p>\n

With its two-color printing, its high-contrast photographs, its monochrome rectangle of color and its billing block within a white frame, it could be a lost object from that era.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rod Steiger’s The Sergeant<\/a> (1968) appears to be a particularly strong influence, both in the look and billing of the star.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(Click here for a larger version<\/a> of the above image)<\/p>\n

It is also worth comparing how the lead actor is depicted on the poster: note the similarities between the black and white image of Clooney and Steve McQueen on the poster for\u00a0Bullitt<\/a> (1968).<\/p>\n

Another trend of the late 1960s they appeared to have picked up on is the placing of a small photo, or drawing, next to the title and credits.<\/p>\n

With The American, it is a silhouette of someone getting shot<\/a>, which also could be a play on The Parallax View<\/a> (1974),\u00a0another film involving assassins and paranoia.<\/p>\n

Finally, a recent Danish film, Everything Will Be Fine<\/a> (2010), has a very similar poster: notice the eye, which forms part of an orange backdrop to which a character is running from.<\/p>\n

But who influenced who?<\/p>\n

> MUBi on The American poster influences<\/a>
\n> The American<\/a>
\n> More movie poster links at IMP Awards<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most striking film posters this year was for The American, but what made it so distinctive?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,36],"tags":[2809,1650],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9979"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}