Curio: Czech Film Posters
Monday, June 9, 2014 at 8:00PM Alexa here to share my latest movie poster obsession: Czech film poster design. Under the communist regime from 1948-1989, Czech films were distributed by the government without the use of Western advertising. Czech painters and designers were commissioned by the Central Film Distribution Center to create posters, often with little information on the films. In the 60s and 70s, designers such as Zdeněk Ziegler, Karel Vaca and Wolfgang A. Schlosser created a defining Czech style, distinct from other movie posters in Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on typography and photomontage (as it happens, two of my favorite things).
The Seven Year Itch
Blow Up
In God We Trust?
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Jaws
I've been dreaming of a collection of my own lately, perusing those available for sale online. You can find many at this Chzech poster site, as well as here and here. There is also a sweet little etsy shop with a nicely curated collection.
Blow-Up, Curio, Czech Republic, Jaws, movie posters
Reader Comments (8)
Jeezus these are amazing!
I'd say contemporary-designers should study them, except I know that this kind of poster style never actually attracts box office alas. Even in arthouse cinemas (especially in arthouse cinemas!)
AUDREY HEPBURNOVA
you gotta love those czechens
I think the "Audrey Hepburnova" is a matter of putting the name in a different case. It might mean something like "Audrey Hepburn's" or "by Audrey Hepburn" rather than just "Audrey Hepburn". The words before it mean something like 'in the lead role'
craver -- Czechs, not Chechens. Chechens are in Chechnya, also known as the place where Hilary Swank attended the birthday party of a dictator a few years ago.
Interesting
These are great, thanks for sharing. Please do a blog post about Polish movie posters, too. They are bizarre and wonderful and have so many eyeballs. What's up with that?
Audrey Hepburnova means that she is a woman. And for the record, it wasn't the Czech Republic, it was actually Czechoslovakia at that time.
JohnMac13 - for tagging purposes i use Czech Republic since it's current so that any article about Czech cinema would fall under the same page