Why aesthetic conformity is symptomatic of a genre in decline.
October 13 last year marked the passing of Drew Struzan, the pre-eminent film poster artist whose hand-painted work bestowed over 150 films, including the cult classics E.T. (1982), the original Star Wars trilogy and Back to the Future (1985), with popular aesthetic recognition (outwith their respective cinematographies) that endure today. Struzan’s death was announced mere days following fellow artist Renato Casaro’s, the ‘Michaelangelo of movie posters’, departure from the obituary pages, after his own passing on at the end of September. At this point, one might contend that I am engaging in a rather colourful period of lamenting, but I would counter this accusation by arguing that I am instead an exhausted individual suffering from prolonged exposure to the same floating heads again, and again, and again — and find myself in pursuit of an appropriate explanation as to why this is the case.
The floating-head poster has evolved into film’s default dialect; the lead actor front and centre, orbited by their satellite-esque supporting cast, a strip of cityscape or fire beneath and all bathed in the same carefully graded dusk. This poster phenotype is everywhere (which means it is effectively nowhere) and has come to represent an artistic shrug rather than the emphatic statement posters of yesteryears sought to make. Do they work? Well studio bosses will gleefully tell you they do — while simultaneously drawing your attention to plummeting arrows on marketing-cost graphs which distract from the Looney Tunes-esque pound signs bulging from their eyes. What is more consequential however (for both the average consumer and the general trajectory of film) is what this dominance reveals about the health of the stories it seeks to sell.
In the age of streaming and entertainment on demand, the industry’s defence is straightforward; modern audiences scroll while their attention is fleeting and waivers easily, and the supplier is more likely to encounter audiences on the feeds of streaming services and social media as opposed to street corners and cinemas. The calculation is therefore simple, at thumbnail size subtlety evaporates, but familiar faces do not. Jamming a few famous faces in the consumer’s face is made all the more viable a tactic as a result of how well faces transcend borders. Cheekbones don’t require a translation and recognisability is a valuable currency in the competitive global market. In this sense, the floating-head poster exists as a rational adaptation to a rapidly evolving entertainment environment — legible, exportable and simple.
But therein lies my issue; legibility is not seduction — a poster should not serve as a mundane announcement of a film’s existence but as an alluring agent that attracts the individual and demands their attention, instead the floating-head template represents the promotion of marketing concerns at the expense of films’ souls. These posters are a cast-list under the glow of mood lighting, and when the entire prism of broadcast entertainment, blockbusters, franchises and prestigious series share the same visual grammar, the perception that film products rely on labelling over interpretation is fostered.
Perhaps this development is simply symptomatic of a general pivot to economic, rather than artistic, concerns in cinema, as the genre continues to wade into the servile swamp of mass appeal. Good Will Hunting lead, Matt Damon, lamented the death of DVD in a 2024 interview, remarking that ‘DVD was a big part of our business…our revenue stream, and technology has just made that obsolete’, elucidating why studios are seemingly unwilling to gamble on lower budget flicks with a smaller audience pool. ‘Exactly! but how does this tie into the floating-head poster?’ I hear you exclaim in complete, if somewhat inquisitive agreement, well, think of the confident, artistic genres which embrace cryptic, and sometimes borderline strange, posters; they trust what lies behind the image to reward audiences’ curiosity. A tired genre, the one represented by the hordes of streaming services today, instead over-communicates, promising familiar faces and a stale narrative to guarantee client satisfaction. Conformity in this sense is akin to an insurance policy, as studios attempt to assure audiences of enjoyment in order to attain mass engagement, and ultimately, pad their bottom line.
Yet ironically, conformity is in itself, largely self-defeating in commercial terms. In a stagnant market littered with floating-heads, distinctive posters would themselves accrue attention, sparking a memorability and nostalgia in audiences who yearn for a return to the ante bellum period of film (that is, the period before streaming services began tampering with filmmaking — which certainly marked the eruption of an artistic war on the genre). This memorability possesses an afterlife, as films accrue a cult-following, repeatedly viewed, shared and their spin-offs and merchandise snapped up — here lies the essence of my impassioned stance. There evidently exists an avenue through which studio bosses can maintain artistic fidelity to the history of filmmaking and marketing, while still turning handsome profits; it is now up to audiences to draw a figurative line in the sand if they wish to revisit the golden (or silver, or bronze or maybe even the lead age of cinema, which all rank above the contemporary period). Studio bosses, marketing directors, logistical managers, an array of actors and directors and perhaps even you may not agree with this précis, but if I might be so bold as to assume Drew Struzan and Renato Casaro would, then that is enough for me to bestow vindication upon myself.
Image Credit: The Hollywood Reporter
