Raiders of the lost art: or the lost art of the film poster

I wanted to take a break from discussing horror. This one has been weighing on my confused mind for a while, and after weird epilepsy induced dream, I won’t bore you with the details, it left me very panicky about myself, my artistic ability and how I could have changed things. It would take too long to tell it all, so I won't.

I decided I couldn't hold back from it any longer. I think this felt like the right time because I've been struggling with my own work and because last year I was lucky enough to be asked by Ben and Kjetil to produce (at least some) of the poster for their excellent short film 'The Sandman Awakes' (in my gallery). Getting back into this really made wish I could do more of it, and made me reflect on the art of the painted film poster and just what has been lost.

I can’t really just blame cinema for this move away from the painted image. The American pulp fiction always had breath-taking art; but great artist like Mort Künstler who produced such amazing work, always went uncredited.

Perhaps more alarming was the manner in which this gradually infected the ethos of the Saturday Evening Post, where the likes of the great Norman Rockwell produced so many fantastic covers. The Post had always credited their cover artists, but as the fifties drew to a close this ceased to be the case. The value of the painted cover image was changing.

I’m not arguing that cinema has ever been enthusiastic to promote its poster artists, but the last forty years has seen the gradual extinction of the form. Now bits of various actors in various poses are photoshopped together to produce an image to promote the film, but you're left with an odd sort of beast, neither a photograph, nor a work of art; it's often just a jumbled mess, lacking in form and often poorly composed. It also has that weird ‘uncanny valley’ quality to it. Actors are so photoshopped, or assembled from collaged bits of themselves they sort of look like themselves, but they don't. I find them ungainly and uninspiring; these days, the poster alone is very likely not enough to make me want to see the film. It doesn't fire my imagination about the movie. It's an art that has become cheapened and devalued and now almost lost entirely.

Too often there's no sense of individual investment, there's no sense of artistic skill, vision or authorial stamp to actually make me want to find the poster attractive, never mind want to see the film. Whack a photo over some credits, job done. It wasn't always like this. We've lost so much. It has been a trend for many years, but seems to have reached a crisis point now. Social media privileges the trailer, not the poster. A quick smash and grab of thirty seconds of cutting room hooliganism; which you can see just about everywhere, ten times a day. Sigh. I know it has its lovers and some would call it an art form in itself – and perhaps they’re right, putting together a trailer is hard, it is a skill. Maybe I’m showing my age, but as someone who really loves cinema it’s hard to feel that the form has not been cheapened. Something special has gone.

I didn’t go and see Jaws because of the trailer. I saw it because of the poster. I wasn’t allowed to read the book until some time afterwards because of ‘certain scenes of a sexual nature’.

You can still find exceptions to this cut and paste approach, like the great Drew Struzen, who is still the last bastion of the painted poster in Hollywood. Struzen is an important figure in the world of film posters, not just for his artistic skill (and there’s plenty of it) but because he has managed to negotiate a path through the industry when the painted poster was being slowly overwhelmed by unimaginative photoshopped collages. He’s done this by virtue of his talent and an impressive client list who also value the impact of a painted poster.

Del Toro once quipped he commissioned Struzen to produce a poster for Pan’s Labyrinth, knowing the studio would reject it, just because he just wanted own a piece of magnificent poster art. Perhaps I’m biased, but I’m with Del Toro, Struzen’s image is the one that would have made me want to see the film had I not already known about it.

Struzen has produced a number of iconic images over his career, his work has been celebrated in world-wide exhibitions, films and festivals - and rightly so. He has, almost single-handedly kept the 'art' of the film poster alive. His knowledge of light and composition is second to none. He is instinctively able to balance composition and spectacle in his work. My favourite Struzen piece (The Return of the Jedi) is, by far his least busy, but the spectacular simplicity of the composition immediately tells you the magnitude of what is at stake in the film.

If only the film was as good as the poster. However, not even Struzen himself could hold back the tide and he now considers himself ‘semi-retired’. For all his established brilliance, there’s not the demand for the painted poster that there used to be. He readily acknowledges he’ll continue to produce work for certain directors if they ask, but no longer expects to be in full time work. That’s sad, and it’s so, so wrong.

Perhaps like the directors of the studio-era, the men who produced some of the most startling and iconic images for films remain hidden and unappreciated, known only to a small group. So I want to use the remainder of this blog to just highlight two of them, both of whom are personal favourites of mine. Their draughtsmanship is exquisite and their skill for design is just perfect, but it was so hard to locate them. It wasn't until I was at Art College that I was able to pour over some reference books and dig out some names. Thanks god for the internet and like-minded nerds.

Richard Amsel died so tragically young. Amsel had a wonderful talent for design and a tight draughtsmanship that I envy. I know when I'm beaten. Without doubt, my favourite Amsel poster is his work on The Sting - another case where the artistic merit of the poster exceeds that of the film He was able to take the working style of Norman Rockwell and reuse it for a film poster set in the period. Brilliant stuff! There's a great YouTube montage of some of Amsel's work. I've posted the link below. (Amsel produced some of the original artwork for Raiders of the Lost Ark, which inspired the blog title – my nod to his brilliance). I think you'll be surprised by how much is familiar and be shocked by the breathtaking beauty of the unfamiliar images. The O'Neal/Streisand image from 'What's up Doc' is another favourite of mine, as is 'McCabe and Mrs Miller.

There are so many more, too many in fact, his publicity sketch for New York, New York is just brilliant. The man was an amazing and largely unappreciated talent. I'm delighted to see that some efforts have been made to rectify this and a documentary film devoted to his life and work is currently in production. Thank god someone else cares.

My other hero is Howard Terpning, his style is fast, dramatic, textured and lively. Like Amsel he came from an advertising background and, like Amsel, produced a massive number of iconic images that often elevated the quality of the product. Gone with the Wind, Fifty-five Days at Peking, The Sound of Music, The Warlord, The Sand Pebbles, The War Lover, Dr Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, Cleopatra, The Guns of Navarrone. All Terpning, and so many more too. Google him and you’ll be amazed by his output and the quality of his work.

Tiring of his work in advertising, Terpning turned his back on cinema and began to paint depictions of the old West - that's a terrible loss. These paintings are just as beautiful as any of his poster work. Cinema’s loss has been fine arts gain, but like Amsel, it’s good to see Terpning getting the recognition his talents so rightly deserve.