"There is much to be said for temptation in two dimensions. A menu, stuck against the window of a restaurant or framed on the wall outside, calls out to our salivary glands and draws us over the threshold. The same goes for posters at a cinema: their primary purpose, no doubt, is to lure us into the dark. But there's a difference. Seldom is a menu an object of beauty, whereas the history of movie posters is strewn with images so luscious, or so startling,"
"Getting hold of that history, these days, can be a costly business. In November, at Heritage Auctions, in Dallas, a poster for the 1938 rerelease of "King Kong" went for $68,750. Some brave bidder spent more than a hundred grand on a "Dracula" from 1947. Talk about blood money. Every art form has its grails, and it seems that the holiest of relics, in this field,"
An exhibition in New York showcases Strausfeld's thirty-plus years of cinema graphic designs that are clean, strong, and scornful of embellishment. Movie posters function to lure viewers into darkness while often transcending commerce to become objects of beauty. Menus entice appetite but rarely achieve the aesthetic heights of notable posters. Rare vintage posters command high prices at auction, with examples like a 1938 King Kong rerelease and a 1947 Dracula selling for tens of thousands and Metropolis originals fetching hundreds of thousands. Poster shops such as Posteritati offer more affordable access to significant film posters, including Antonioni works from the early 1960s.
Read at The New Yorker
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