About the artistic and the trivial movie poster The difference between the star poster, as it is characterized by Hollywood and the so-called artistic film poster is obvious to all observers: the latter lacks the portrait of the star! The absence of this primary "sales catch" already indicates that different interests and objectives are relevant to this type of poster and that it is directed toward a different audience and thus inevitably subject to other means of production. It is therefore not surprising that the artistic film poster is as good as non-existing in the United States, which is, after all, the no. 1 movie country. (The few works by Saul Bass confirm merely the exception to the rule.) The commercial pressure, competition, and the immense production costs of American movies do not seem to allow big distributors any choice other than to play it safe and continue with the reliable trend of the trivial star poster. In contrast is the position of those distributors who are being praised for their poster design: their market is small, their audience is calculable and the distributed films ordinarily cannot afford any big international star that would enhance the film's publicity. (Interestingly enough, the director's names often appear in larger print on the poster than the names of the leading actors.) The fact that these films are different in their aesthetics, narration, and substance has trained an audience whose sensibility and attitude toward the cinema differ from those of the masses. The "cineasts" rightly expect an advertisement that allows "their" form of identification with the film. In addition to economic considerations, political differences also play an important role in the development of artistic film posters. This is demonstrated in the example of a few eastern bloc countries which are famous for their extraordinary (film) poster creations: the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia and, to some degree, East Germany the former GDR. Since there exists neither pressure from competition nor any rivalry for market shares, advertising had a rather insignificant function in the former socialist countries. Is the state as a patron indifferent to the form and content of a poster, the artist has the opportunity to take liberties with the design, provided that he does not question the ruling regime. (Thus more artistic film posters were created in countries like Cuba than in a country like Italy.)

Poster for the "star system": Bus stop Poster for the "artistic system": Storm over asia Two sides of "The blue angel" Two sides of "An american in Paris"

The GDR Filmposter Despite similar prerequisites, no comparable modernist poster culture developed in the former GDR. For the first few years following World War II, the typical east German film poster did not differ from that of the West. (A sought-after graphic designer like Kurt Geffers could just as well have worked for the capitalist West.) It was not until a diversity in style blossomed in Poland, after all a sister country, that the bulk of the GDR's graphic designers started producing more individual and liberal works. There were only few outstanding personalities in the early sixties. Such as Klaus Wittkugel, who was closely connected to the Bauhaus and created severe functional photographic posters for the film, Werner Klemke, a sensitive humorous draftsman and book designer, Peter Paul Weiss, Hans Baltzer or Paul Rosié. Most works, however, appear rather conventional and colorless. Finally, in the mid-sixties, a name appeared that could not be overlooked in the east German film poster: Erhard Gruettner. His innumerable convincing and extremely modern designs were the exception until the political turning-point in the fall of 1989. Extremely sparing in the use of surface-area and motive, these posters often seem like they were spontaneously thrown on paper. The intellectual condensation of the film material always stands in the center of attraction and each poster gives a signal which forces the spectator to look. Gruettner's works are clearly more up to date than the film posters by his best colleagues, including Klaus Segner, Ronald Paris, Heinz Handschick or Albrecht von Bodecker and they never quite fitted in with the ordinary film advertising in the GDR. The smaller West German distributors poster The artistic film poster can only develop in the hard competition of the free market economy if it restricts itself to the small niches of smaller distributors and their special audience. In post-war West Germany there existed above all two companies that were able to hold their own, competing with the big US companies. Walter Kirchner founded the "Neue Filmkunst" in 1952 and Hans Eckelkamp in 1960 established the "Atlas"-Filmverleih. Both knew very well in advance that they would be unable to reach their cinematic audience with the usual, naturalistically drawn star posters. Consequently, they sought artists who worked differently and who, aside from the posters, also designed the programs and the logo. Hans Hillmann, who over many years almost single-handedly developed the advertisement of the "Kirchner Filmkunst", internationally counts as one of the most famous film poster designers. His sheets of "Potemkin", "Seven samurai" or "The trial" have been considered classics for a long time, which does no harm to Hillmann's other posters. Despite their stylistic versality and the different techniques used, each one of them consistently shows a high standard with regards to aesthetics and the respective film theme. At times, Hillmann gets assistance by some of his friends and students - he is meanwhile professor at the Academy in Kassel. Among them, Isolde Baumgart and Wolfgang Schmidt must be mentioned. The "Atlas"-Verleih was also able to stand out with an interesting house of designers. Aside from the married couple Fischer-Nosbisch, who designed the lion share of the posters, a number of other influential names producing impressive works appeared again and again in the course of time. Among them the Pole Jan Lenica and Heinz Edelmann (Yellow submarine), whose early works for "Atlas" continue to be inexcusably underestimated today. The designers Karl Oskar Blase and the team Hans Michel/Guenther Kieser, mostly known for their theater and concert posters, also conceptualized some designs which are in no way inferior to their later works. It should be emphasized that the artistic film poster owes its development and complexity not least to the artistic film for which it has been designed primarily. The gap which divides the star poster from the artistic poster continues to remain immense. In the introduction to the film poster exhibition in Munich in 1965 it reads correctly: "In mostly small movie theaters (on the other hand), one can see graphically outstanding posters. These are two worlds - not only of the poster, but of the film as well. Each has its audience, its distributors and its posters." Karlheinz Borchert (first published in PLAKAT JOURNAL)

The west- and east-german style of "Funny Girl" of "Once upon a time in the west" of "Cabaret" "Atlas" Posters by Fischer-Nosbisch by W. Schmidt by Heinz Edelmann "Kirchner" Posters by Walter Hillman