E.T., the Indiana Jones movies, the Star Wars movies, the Back to the Future trilogy, the Goonies, Harry Potter, and Frank Darabont’s Stephen King adaptations are all movies that Drew Struzan created all the promotional art. From the late 1970’s until his retirement at the end of 2008, Struzan was THE movie poster artist. His artwork came to define some of the movies he helped promote.
THE ART OF DREW STRUZAN isn’t a collection or treasury of all of Struzan’s movie posters. Instead, it is more akin to an author’s favorites or best-of collection. Struzan worked on the movie posters and promotional materials for around 200 different films; only 40 are collected here. In addition, there are a series of sketches, some in black and white others in color, as well as comments from Struzan about each of the movies. The book contains a forward by Frank Darabont that laments the fall of the movie poster artist and the rise of digital and PhotoShopped posters.
The book is a bit larger than an average book, but smaller than most art books. It’s about 9”X12” in size with a black cover. The writing is easy to read and a person can read the entire book within a few hours or less.
Besides the artwork, some of which hasn’t appeared before in the other two Struzan books available, what I liked most about the book was Darabont’s foreward and Struzan’s comments. Which is to say, I liked the entire book. Even though it’s a book about the work of a particular movie poster artist, it provides a glimpse into the business side of motion pictures and how that often conflicts with artistic side of the movie business.
This is an excellent book that any visual artist or movie fan will enjoy and is almost a must-have for either one.
No comments:
Post a Comment