Customer Reviews

Art of the Modern Movie Poster: International Postwar Style and Design

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Huge book that tries to cram in every movie poster ever made.
This book is about the "art" of the movie poster. If you are looking
for a great film with bad poster art, it probably will not be in here.
This book is more than a book on movie posters, but a great book on graphic design! Anyone going into advertising or graphic design has to have this book! The only problem I have with the book is it's lack of coverage given to American and Independent film posters. I think there is way to much coverage given to foreign movie posters. Having said this, you will find that the foreign poster art really is amazing and gives the film a whole diffrent "feel" than the Americian poster art that we are used to. All in all, you will find poster designs for movies that you have never seen before. Last, but not least, the book is an excellent refrence/shopping guide to the wonderful world of movie posters.

This book weighs nearly 8lbs. and is filled with 1,500 different film posters arranged by country or region. It's a wonderful collection, well put-together with a keen eye on what is included. More than just a collection of posters, the book also has spotlights on iconic poster artists (Saul Bass of course!), and examinations of multiple posters from different countries for one film.

I was so taken by the book that I got in the spirit and ordered a poster as a Christmas present. It's a relatively affordable way to get into collecting.

This is a great book with movie posters and poster artists from around the world. It also contains spreads of differing approaches to the same film by various countries. It gets one less star only because the pages are very thin, which makes them more susceptible to tearing than other art/poster books. A slightly heavier paper stock would have made it less delicate.

Sometimes when you see the 'list price' of items on Amazon they seem a little inflated to make the 'Amazon price' look like more of a value. This listing, however, was telling the truth. This hardback, oversized 500 page coffeetable book could certainly go for $75 in your neighborhood bookstore. I picked mine up used for $19.00 in like-new condition-- making it the best book I've certainly ever purchased for $20.

Most of the posters chosen-- even though they span from post-war era to present-- have a strong 60s feel to the composition and style. The book is packed with images; most of the spreads consist of six 5 inch-ish tall posters to a page, larger 4 posters to a page spreads, occasional 1 huge poster on an entire page and even select horizontal posters spread across 2 pages. The types of posters cover Europe, the Americas, Japan, and a small 'rest of the world' section. The book covers classic movies in film history as well as rare art-house, cult, and B-grade movies.

So there I was in the snobbish bookstore in Mexico City (yellow and purple logo) looking around the new releases before going into the search of the book I was really into to buy (that by the way was not in stock) when I stopped in front of a huge book standing in the art section, I noticed in the front cover the poster one of my favorite movies of all time "Solaris" and next to it one of the most eye-catching poster for the film "Blow-Up", looking closer I saw a poster for "The Seventh Seal", "La Dolce Vita", etc. I could not resist grabbing the sample book and opening it to take a look to a few pages just to quickly discover it must be a definite purchased item.

Any film lover, who by the way should have the eye to appreciate any type of art, must have this book, 1,000+ posters are inside, along with all the proper info, divided by country; comparing film posters like for example "Apocalypse Now", "Psycho", "Star Wars"; giving a brief but very useful designer information liken Saul Bass, Zdenék Ziegler, Peter Strausfeld, etc.

This book deserves a 10 star rating.

This is the most comprehensive studies of modern film posters I have ever seen. One of the most interesting aspects is that it shows many alternate posters of very familiar American films from other countries. It truly is a culture shock to see what type of artwork is preferred in other countries. Some it is far more intriguing than American posters, some not.

Excellent overview of post WWII poster art, neatly organized by country, great selections of high quality reprductions. Worth every penny.