{"id":12166,"date":"2012-10-13T02:20:29","date_gmt":"2012-10-13T01:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=12166"},"modified":"2012-10-13T05:08:47","modified_gmt":"2012-10-13T04:08:47","slug":"petulia-film-posters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2012\/10\/13\/petulia-film-posters\/","title":{"rendered":"Petulia film posters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"petulia1.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Illustration by Bob Peak.<\/em><\/p>\n

Further examples of those things you find when you’re searching for something else, these posters for Richard Lester’s Petulia<\/em><\/a> (1968) are a good example of just how differently the same film can be presented by its advertising materials. Petulia<\/em> (“the uncommon movie”) is a fascinating, unjustly neglected gem, a serious adult drama quite unlike the comedies (or comic dramas) Lester was making before and after. Nicolas Roeg photographed\u00a0Petulia<\/em> shortly before embarking on his own directing career, capturing San Francisco just after the Summer of Love in a more documentary fashion than the exploitation films<\/a> of the period. There are nods to the psychedelic scene with party appearances by Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the Grateful Dead, but the narrative concerns the flipside of hippiedom with a group of middle-class professionals ensnared in adultery and marital failure.<\/p>\n

A commonly remarked feature of Petulia<\/em> is Antony Gibbs’ fragmented editing style which flashes backwards and forwards throughout, even showing events that never happen. The technique is usually taken to be derived from Alain Resnais although Gibbs had earlier edited The Knack…and How to Get It<\/em><\/a> for Lester which is often as fragmented, albeit for a more comic effect. What’s notable about the technique is that Gibbs went on to edit Nicolas Roeg’s first two features, Performance<\/em><\/a> (co-directed with Donald Cammell) and Walkabout<\/em><\/a>, both of which take the fragmentation even further, creating the style which Roeg made his own.<\/p>\n

\"petulia4.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The poster that caught my attention was the marvellous one by Bob Peak<\/a> who manages to depict the awkward relationship between the two leads\u2014holding hands yet facing away from each other\u2014whilst alluding to the psychedelic backdrop in the details. It’s difficult to tell at a small size but the sheet music design above shows that Peak’s drawing is a complex arrangement of blended faces, the reflected figure of a woman and a pattern of Bridget Riley swirls. If I was still collecting film posters I’d be sorely tempted to buy one of these.<\/p>\n

\"petulia2.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Illustration by Jean Fourasti\u00e9.<\/em><\/p>\n

Compared to which this pair of French designs veer off in opposite and unsatisfying directions. Jean Fourasti\u00e9 seems to have been under the impression that the story concerned a San Francisco flower child not a bored housewife, while Jean Mascii’s painting isn’t inaccurate but is more suited to a romance paperback. Big heads were apparently Mascii’s m\u00e9tier<\/em> even if there were no people in the film<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"petulia3.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Illustration by Jean Mascii.<\/em><\/p>\n

Petulia<\/em> has been available on DVD for a while now, it’s well worth seeking out. Watch the trailer here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
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\n\u2022 Metropolis posters<\/a>
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Illustration by Bob Peak. Further examples of those things you find when you’re searching for something else, these posters for Richard Lester’s Petulia (1968) are a good example of just how differently the same film can be presented by its advertising materials. Petulia (“the uncommon movie”) is a fascinating, unjustly neglected gem, a serious adult … Continue reading “Petulia film posters”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,7,48,3,17],"tags":[2384,4152,4150,1320,741,371,4153,4154,461,306,2922,123,4151],"class_list":["post-12166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-film","category-illustrators","category-music","category-psychedelia","tag-alain-resnais","tag-antony-gibbs","tag-big-brother-and-the-holding-company","tag-bob-peak","tag-bridget-riley","tag-donald-cammell","tag-jean-fourastie","tag-jean-mascii","tag-lucifer","tag-nicolas-roeg","tag-richard-lester","tag-salome","tag-the-grateful-dead"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-3ae","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}