Movie poster

The movie poster appeared along with the cinema. Initially, movie posters were created based on the primitive display of individual frames of a film using redrawing. With the development of cinema as art, imagery was added to the poster, the desire to show the psychology of the relationship of the main characters, to convey the genre, theme, atmosphere, general conflict of the film.

Russia and the USSR

The first Russian movie poster is considered to be a sheet for the film “Stenka Razin”, created by the artist P. Assaturov in 1908. Already in the early 1910s, the Russian Empire began mass production of films of domestic production, hence the development of an advertising poster for films. In the 1910s, the most prolific artists of the Russian movie poster were P. Zhitkov, M. Kalmanson. Several movie posters of the 1910s are known, made by A. Apsit , D. Moor - artists who later became the founders of the Soviet political poster. Two posters for the films “ Shackled by a Film ” and “ Not Born for Money, ” attributed to V. Mayakovsky , are also known.

In the first years of Soviet power, the release of film posters in the RSFSR was unorganized and unsystematic. The early Soviet posters of the late 1910s - early 1920s were inconspicuous, in many respects followed the outdated artistic traditions of pre-revolutionary movie posters. At that time, movie posters were produced mainly by various cinemas in small print runs; many movie posters of the Civil War period as films they advertised were not preserved.

The rapid development of the Soviet film poster and the organized release of film advertising began in 1923-1924, when the country recovered from the devastation, famine and other consequences of the Civil War , a new economic policy was announced, and film distribution began to develop. The flowering of Soviet genre feature films took place, and a large number of paintings of foreign (primarily American, German and French) production were purchased with a view to profit. Through the efforts of the artist Yakov Ruklevsky at Goskino (later transformed into Sovkino ) in 1924, a lithographic workshop for the production of film posters was organized, in which full-time artists began to work: M. Dlugach, I. Gerasimovich, L. Voronov, M. Evstafiev, the Stenberg brothers , G. Rychkov, G. Borisov, A. Naumov, N. Prusakov and others. In addition to orders for the Goskino / Sovkino, these artists created posters for other film organizations of the USSR, such as Mezhrabpom-Rus (later transformed into Mezhrabpom-film ), Goskinprom of Georgia , VUFKU , Armenkino , Belgoskino , Vostokkino , Gosvoenkino and others. The film company Mezhrabpom-Rus (Mezhrabpomfilm) also had its full-time movie posters, the most prolific of which were I. Bograd (who switched to commercial and industrial advertising in the 1930s), S. Semenov-Menes. In Leningrad, for the local film organizations "Kinosever", "Leningradkino", and the Leningrad factory "Sovkino", their full-time movie posters worked - M. Veksler, N. Sedov. Also in the mid-1920s, several posters for films produced by Leningrad film studios were created by A. Zelensky , one of the founders of the Soviet commercial and advertising poster and one of the leading representatives of the Leningrad poster school.

In the mid-1920s, such artists as A. Lavinsky and A. Rodchenko worked for a short time in the movie poster, who for the first time in history used in poster graphics, including the movie poster, photo collage and photo montage of enlarged photographs using the autotype technique (Lavinsky's sheets for the films “ Strike ” , " Valley of Tears ", " Death Ray "; Rodchenko's sheets for the films " Battleship" Potemkin " ," The Sixth Part of the World ", the film magazine" Kinoglaz "). In 1924, Lavinsky's photo-montage film posters were exhibited at the International Art Exhibition in Paris and made a splash.

Widespread development in the second half of the 1920s was received by the Ukrainian film poster. If film organizations of other union republics outside the RSFSR practically did not have their own full-time artists, and posters for them were drawn by orders of Moscow full-time movie posters Sovkino, then VUFKU in Kharkov, Odessa and Kiev had a lot of their full-time poster artists. The largest representatives of the Ukrainian film poster of the 1920s are K. Bolotov, A. Bondarovich, A. Finogenov, I. Kuzkovsky, I. Litinsky, E. Kordysh, M. Chepovsky and others. A number of movie posters in the 1920s were created by film director and screenwriter A. Dovzhenko .

By many world experts, the second half of the 1920s is considered the most striking period of Russian and Soviet film posters. In critical works of the 1950s and 1960s, Soviet art historians, in addition to the innovativeness, artistic expressiveness and ingenuity of artists in film posters of the late 1920s, also note frequent stamps, excessive stunting and formalism.

The 1930s in the history of Soviet film posters became a transitional period from constructivism and other vanguard-formalist movements of the 1920s to socialist realism.

In 1930, a meeting was held at Sovkino, at which movie posters were criticized for formalism and imitation of bourgeois advertising. In 1931, a decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks appeared on paintings and posters; The organizational work of poster artists was established, and an artistic council appeared. In the early 1930s, the production of the first sound films began , and by the mid-1930s the production of silent films was completed. Then the production of foreign films was practically stopped. All these measures required a new approach to film poster, contributed to a radical change in film poster business in the USSR and gave impetus to the further development of this type of advertising. In 1932, the release of film posters was withdrawn from the conduct of film studios, now they have become centrally released by the State Publishing House of Light Industry (in 1932-1934), then the publishers KinoPhoto Publishing House (in 1934-1936), Art (in 1936 1938), Goskinoizdat (in 1938-1945); in the Ukrainian SSR, as a result of minimizing the policy of Ukrainization, the production of Ukrainian-language film posters was discontinued.

In the early 1930s, many leading film posters of the 1920s, such as N.P. Prusakov, G.I. Borisov, the Stenberg brothers, I.D. Bograd, S. A. Semenov-Menes, stopped working in the movie poster as full-time artists. In this decade, they created only a few movie posters. Some of these artists moved to other genres of the poster, some began to work in other artistic roles. In 1933, George Stenberg died in a car accident; his brother and co-author Vladimir Stenberg began to work in film posters occasionally. The leading movie posters of the 1930s: N. M. Khomov, A. P. Belsky, G. Rychkov, L. A. Voronov, M. I. Evstafiev, who began their work in film advertising in the mid-1920s. Artists who came to this movie poster in the 1930s: L. A. Stenberg (younger sister of the Stenberg brothers, wife of G. Rychkov), N. P. Smolyak, V. S. Klimashin , A. M. Zelensky, E. Yakovlev. Also, several well-known movie posters at that time were created by the painter Yu. I. Pimenov (“ Pyshka ”, “ New Gulliver ”, “ Marriage ”). At the end of the 1930s B. A. Zelensky (son of A. N. Zelensky, who worked in the movie poster in the mid-1920s), L. M. Freiman, A. I. Shamash, who later became one of the most prolific film posters, came to the movie poster. 1940-1970s. In 1938-1939 I. D. Bograd, L. A. Voronov, M. I. Evstafiev, one of the main movie posters of the 1920-1930s, were repressed.

Western Europe

Poland

USA

The first well-known film poster exhibition in Russia was organized by the film committee of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR and was held at the Moscow Ars cinema on January 20–27, 1919. The second exhibition of the Soviet film poster was held in February 1926, at which the works of 27 artists were exhibited.

Movie posters are collectibles. The most expensive ever is the Metropolis movie poster sold at auction in Los Angeles for $ 1.2 million. Constructivist posters of the 1920s, in particular those of the Stenberg brothers, are most valued among Russian and Soviet film posters.

Reproduction Albums

• Snopkov A.E., Snopkov P.A., Shklyaruk A.F. Russian film poster / Russian State Library. - M .: Contact-Culture, 2002 .-- 335 p.
• Polski plakat filmowy / Wybrał i opracował Tadeusz Kowalski. - Warszawa: Filmowa agencja wydawnicza, 1957. - 142 p.

Exhibition Catalogs

Research

• Baburina N. I. Silent movie poster: Russia. 1900-1930. - M .: Art Rodnik, 2001 .-- 191 p. - ISBN 5-88896-0470 -0.
• Onopko N.I. Soviet film poster of the twenties: (Review of film posters for feature films stored in the V. I. Lenin State Library of the USSR) // Transactions / USSR State Library named after V.I. Lenin. - M .: Book, 1958. - T. II. - S. 252-280. - 281 p.
• Soviet movie poster: collection of articles. - M .: Soviet artist, 1961. - 89 p.