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Poster for the new rerelease

dadaistnun wrote:Poster for the new rerelease

Isn't it awful? Looks like an advertisement for feminine products.

Agreed. It's the damned delicate blue tint. In crisp, high contrast B/W it would have the visual majesty of the film itself.

FerdinandGriffon wrote:

dadaistnun wrote:Poster for the new rerelease

Isn't it awful? Looks like an advertisement for feminine products.

Yet another answer to "Why don't women post here?"

Aside from you, of course, with your revisionist feminist take on Westerns.

domino harvey wrote:

FerdinandGriffon wrote:

dadaistnun wrote:Poster for the new rerelease

Isn't it awful? Looks like an advertisement for feminine products.

Yet another answer to "Why don't women post here?"

Was I being offensive? The poster has the cool bluish pastels, pretty script, and benign(ified) imagery that I associate with tampon advertising. I wasn't making a crack about tampons, I was just pointing out that the poster shared design elements with another form of advertising and that it was a poor choice for the film. It wasn't even intended as a joke.

I'm surprised that this was never used as a poster concept:



It has mystery, drama and excitement!

Seriously though, the light blue tones of the poster don't quite work.

FerdinandGriffon wrote:The poster has the cool bluish pastels, pretty script, and benign(ified) imagery that I associate with tampon advertising. I wasn't making a crack about tampons, I was just pointing out that the poster shared design elements with another form of advertising and that it was a poor choice for the film.

Was it a poor choice for the marketing, though? Let's face it, people who know what L'Avventura is aren't going to be put off by a mere poster, and if it gets other people curious, then bingo: you've expanded your audience at a stroke.

When I worked on 35mm revivals of well-known classics twenty years ago, we generally weren't too bothered about what the film's natural audience thought of our marketing: we assumed, usually correctly, that they'd turn up regardless.

Hey, excellent Italian greyhound! Man, I'd already given up on Antonioni but maybe I'll give this one a spin after all.

MichaelB wrote:Was it a poor choice for the marketing, though? Let's face it, people who know what L'Avventura is aren't going to be put off by a mere poster, and if it gets other people curious, then bingo: you've expanded your audience at a stroke.

When I worked on 35mm revivals of well-known classics twenty years ago, we generally weren't too bothered about what the film's natural audience thought of our marketing: we assumed, usually correctly, that they'd turn up regardless.

One of the trailers for L'avventura tried desperately to make it look like a sex film - "a new experience in motion picture eroticism".

Robin Davies wrote:One of the trailers for L'avventura tried desperately to make it look like a sex film - "a new experience in motion picture eroticism".

We did that with Belle de Jour - "the Rolls-Royce of sex films". It broke the house record at both venues - and in the process taught me a valuable lesson about effective marketing. Yes, purists probably hated the new ads, but I don't imagine anyone boycotted the film as a result - not least because it was the first time it had been shown in Britain since a TV screening a decade earlier.

I don't know - if ever a film was appropriate for a giant floaty head poster creating a sense of detached isolation L'Avventura would be it.

(Although French Revolution films would be OK too I suppose)

MichaelB wrote:When I worked on 35mm revivals of well-known classics twenty years ago, we generally weren't too bothered about what the film's natural audience thought of our marketing: we assumed, usually correctly, that they'd turn up regardless.

This is all very good, even neccesary for most arthouse distributors, but we're talking about Janus, who are going to make far more money off the eventual DVD/Blu-ray rerelease than theatrical, and who are very likely to use this art for that cover (maybe even extending it out to the other titles in the long rumored "Vitti "Trilogy"" Box). Also, though we all know sex sells, do pastels?

They as often don't use re-issue for DVDs as they do so there's no guarantee.

It would make more thematic sense to put Lea Massari's floating head above the island. Because also, who wants to look at Monica Vitti?

knives wrote:They as often don't use re-issue for DVDs as they do so there's no guarantee.

Of course not, but as I said, it's very likely. If they are doing a box, it would seem like poor business to commission new art for a longstanding property like L'avventura twice in a matter of months.

Oh dear lord, please don't make it a box, unless of course the rereleases are available separately, as well.

jsteffe wrote:I'm surprised that this was never used as a poster concept:



It has mystery, drama and excitement!

Ah, the moment before that scrawny dog eats the guy's face. Never got why critics found Anna's disappearance a 'mystery', what with those packs of zombie dogs roaming around the island.

(Actually, maybe the big unanswered question of the film is which island they stop at. Dr Moreau's? Summerisle? That one in Who Can Kill a Child?)

colinr0380 wrote:I don't know - if ever a film was appropriate for a giant floaty head poster creating a sense of detached isolation L'Avventura would be it.

"Monica Vitti IS. . . Zardoz!"

FerdinandGriffon wrote:

knives wrote:They as often don't use re-issue for DVDs as they do so there's no guarantee.

Of course not, but as I said, it's very likely. If they are doing a box, it would seem like poor business to commission new art for a longstanding property like L'avventura twice in a matter of months.

If they are doing a box, it is even less likely they will use this art, as the style of the design suits the other two films even less than it suits L'avventura.

Mastroianni, Moreau and Delon would make great floating heads to go with Vitti's.

Ashirg wrote:Mastroianni, Moreau and Delon would make great floating heads to go with Vitti's.

All playing dodgems in the sky.

This may sound crazy but I see the poster as having distinct areas: Vitti, the title, and then the island. Just because there's an image above the title and one below, it doesn't mean that the upper one is seen as in the sky. Visually, to me at least, it reads quite differently from the posters and covers that show the stars' heads surrounded by clouds, or appearing right above a skyline, beach, or mountain range as part of the same image.'
I also don't necessarily see a problem with choosing a desaturated color.

The more I look at the poster, the more I find myself warming up to it. As Gregory points out, the composition is interesting. Monica Vitti's face is beautiful and expressive in the image they chose of her. It conveys the modernist feel of the film better than the original posters of the 1960s, which emphasize romantic passion. (Though that also works as a different kind of marketing strategy.) I don't even think the light blue tone looks that bad, though I think I still prefer grayscale. I just downloaded the image and converted it to grayscale myself. It looks very nice, though perhaps they felt it isn't visually distinctive enough for a poster. I'm sure they must have considered it as an option, though.

The new poster is a Sam Smith design.