Robert McGinnis Part 1 : Defining Bond and his Women

"An artist is a one-man theater.  He or she conceives the plot, writes the script,  stages, directs,  and acts out the roles.  In my career, I have covered an enormous range of subject matter and hope to never be confined to just one.  But to the community of art critics there is something unsettling about about a person who won't be indelibly stamped with a narrow label. "   - Robert McGinnis  (The Last Rose of Summer)  


ROBERT MCGINNIS is not just an illustrator but an artist who deserves to be a household name just as Norman Rockwell or even Andrew Wyeth.

Responsible for more than 40 movie posters (such as Breakfast at Tiffany's and Barbarella) his artwork was the last (and possibly the first) driving force to make movie-goers put down money for that movie ticket.

In an age of digital dependency,  illustrated movie posters are rare today.  (See previous blogs:  Bob Peak - Father of the Modern Movie Poster )  However an illustrator can bring more to the subject matter than a photograph, altered or not.  Sometimes skin-pore depth realism is not always what stimulates the imagination.

Robert McGinnis is a significant contributor to the modern James Bond myth as he painted and illustrated seven James Bond theatrical posters. Half of which during the defining 007 Sean Connery years.

McGinnis, didn't simply illustrate scenes and faces from the film, but he gave an artistic "thematic sense" of what to expect from the story and the characters as well as adding his own slight personal artistic insight and touch.

His women have a heightened appearance of sensuality that can more haunting and appetizing than a simple photograph.  His illustrations touch the imagination and the deep sexual psyche.  Sultry eyes, perfect hourglass silohuettes, slightly elongated legs is the stamp of the Robert McGinnis woman.

His concept of using tarot cards for Live and Let Die was a brilliant compositional choice as well as a boldly creative statement about the film.   A choice elevating the poster from a disposable advertisment,  to a work of art.

Works of art people like to keep around and revisit and again and again.  The same can't be said for something that simply wants to sell you a just product.   More to come on Robert McGinnis.  Much more to be said about his other movie posters and his 1200 (!) paperback illustrations.  

Bob Peak - Father of the Modern Movie Poster

I can't go since I'm stuck in Tokyo at the moment, but I hope someone catches this since this is a one day shot.

Bob Peak exemplifies everything that is good and important about what an artist or illustrator brings to the movie poster. When movie posters could still be considered coveted illustration art and not photoshopped fashion photos----Bob Peak revolutionized what we know as the Hollywood movie poster. Bob Peak is to the modern Hollywood movie poster is what J.C. Leyendecker is to modern illustration.

His work didn't just advertise the movie but it arguably made and artistic statement about the concept, theme and energy of the film.

The Society of Illustrators is having special event today to honor Bob Peak. It would behoove anyone who still appreciates illustration and taste to go. ONE day only.

http://www.societyillustrators.org/Events-and-Programs/Lectures/2011/Bob-Peak/An-Evening-with-Tom-Peak-honoring-Bob-Peak--Father-of-the-Modern-Hollywood-Movie-Poster.aspx

The Death of the Movie Poster

Excerpt from Frank Darabont’s forward for “The Art of Drew Struzan”:  “There’s no sugar coating this. Movie posters suck these days. They’re going to suck even more tomorrow.”  “Almost without exception, present day movie posters are merely computer-manipulated composite photographs of actors that fall into two mind-numbingly predictable categories: a) the “big head” approach, wherein the actors stare at you from above the title; or b) the dull witted “police lineup” approach where a hip young cast stands in a line striking saucy poses and staring like a troop of lobotomy victims.”

“These posters are slapped together in-house by marketing gerbils who’ve fooled themselves into thinking they’re artists because the can operate a Mac.”

Reading that, this is what immediately came to mind.

The question really isn’t about studio execs working their greasy pork chop hands into the creative process of movie posters. Frankly that has been going on since the birth of movie posters.  Photoshop and the digital age has maybe given the illusion of speeding up the process but movie posters have used a variety of media from illustration, photographic compositing , and a combination of the two.

Frankly Photoshop-ing movie poster art is nothing new in my opinion. In the old days it was called “airbrushing”.

However, I feel where Frank Darabont is coming from on the seeming death of “illustrative movie art”.

Films from the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, or even the first Harry Potter film created a feeling of timeless classics that are not just entertainment fare but works of art. Note, I am referring to the films having the capacity to be seen as as works as art. Not just the posters.  


Not a fan of Harry Potter at all, but every time I see that poster for that first film. I just can’t help feeling there is something “special” about it.   Harry Potter is not my thing, but that poster makes me look at that first film as something that should be respected. Enough to even make me revisit that film someday. Maybe I missed something…

Come on, which movie would you rather see?

Dave Hickey in his essay on Norman Rockwell, impled that around 1962 (one of his last paintings for the Saturday Evening Post), “Lunch Break With a Knight” perhaps reflected a change in though in culture. A waning interest in the traditional. The direction of future thought. If this is true, then perhaps it’s also reflected in Rockwell’s previous 1962 cover, “The Connosseur”.

Peter Rockwell noted in an interview it was also around this time, that the Saturday Evening Post in competition with television, decided not to print the traditional American images of Rockwell on the covers anymore.  Is this all about the death of illustration?

I took a quick look at the Apple Trailers page. Not one illustration. Even the animated films like 'Rango' or 'Tangled' looks like they just posed the CG models onto a background. Hardly an illustration.

This was a great deal of my case for hand-drawn animation. Like it or not, illustration invokes a sense of care, craft and yes, dammit, humanity in what is being communicated.

Where are today’s Frank Frazettas? Today’s Norman Rockwells? Our Howard Pyles?

Comic book artists like Jim Lee or Frank Miller as well as other comic book artists may be some of the last bastions of illustrative art appreciated by a mass audience. People want to see their art because of their unique touch and expression.  That is until someone comes up with the idea to do CG 3D comic books and companies can do away with artists all together.

Darabont in his preface summed it up, fifty years from now, nobody is going to have a poster of “Mean Girls” or “Knocked Up” on their walls. “But people will have Drew Struzan’s masterpieces proudly displayed. They are works of art that, like all great art, will last.”

In the meantime here's an interesting thread worth looking at:   The Death of the Movie Poster.