Interestingly, this is possibly the
most detailed and cluttered period drama film poster I have,
personally, ever seen. The poster could feel cluttered or 'busy' due
to the fact that it is built up of many layers that mix characters
with texts and backgrounds. The content does do what every poster
should do, though. It gives us a serious sense of narrative, context
and character relations. To expand:
- The main background with it's dark
colours, smoke and buildings have a connotative sense of opulence,
due to the chandelier, but also an industrial sense because of the
silhouettes of horses and trains. Subtly, Russia's famous building
the Kremlin has been used on the left side in order to imply the
films context – Imperial Russia. This background, then, whilst seen
alongside the main characters costumes certainly confirms to the
prospective viewer that this film is about aristocratic relations in
a, now, historic setting.
- The proxemics of the characters are
also key to the success of this poster in relating to viewers that
this is a period drama and, perhaps most importantly, a romantic one.
The fact that the films main lovers have been placed centrally in a,
rather, dramatic position of lust and longing confirms thar this
story will be about two characters falling in love. The lone presence
of an older male to the left of this couple also implies that there
is going to be some conflict involving him as he is smaller and
angled at a way that conveys hostility and presentation.
- Most subtle, though, is the fact that
the lower poster is trimmed with footlights and a theatre-like
border. Historically, Imperial Russia is known to have been an
artistic flourishing time for both literature and theatre due to
pioneers like Tolstoy, the writer of Anna Karenina. This influences
the way that the film was filmed as director Joe Wright uses a
post-realist perspective that uses the sets of a stage to navigate
the story. Due to this, the bottom-border is a preview to prospective
viewers how the film is cinematographically composed and of its
larger themes.
In my opinion, though, the most
effective part of this poster, apart from impressive composition and
implicative choices, is the text. First of all, the typography is
clear, concise and readable. As the poster is already quite 'busy',
the text is not over-the-top or too complicated in order to not
confuse the viewer. Furthermore, the text is conservatively bold and
flat which means it jumps out of the page and is followable.
A way that this poster challenges
convention is the way that the posters small print is not placed at
the bottom, instead it is placed just below the films title. It does,
however, follow convention because it follows the classic layout of
making the names of production companies and the people
involved larger than their titles. This makes the poster look
professional and integral. However, over all I think the poster is
slightly too-much because of how many visual things there are and I
believe it should be stripped down more, like other period drama
posters.
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