Criterion & Eclipse Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on Vol.5

[Psicosis]

Any screenshot grabbed at random would have made a gorgeous cover for The Letter Never Sent. Instead it looks like a puppet theater or a Lotte Reiniger animation.

I quite like it actually but I also admire cut-out silhouette animation.

[Buttercream]

I love Lotte Reiniger. But Letter Never Sent is not puppet theater.

[movielocke]

And Make Way for Tomorrow is not a cartoon, it's still a great cover, as is this one.

[cdnchris]

Traffic

[godardslave]

Did anyone ever figure out what the front cover of the three colors box set is meant to "be" or "represent"?
It just looks so meaningless to my eye.

[CSM126]

It's the telephone wires from the opening of RED.

[domino harvey]

You know, the iconic image everyone associates with these films. Some wires.

[ellipsis7]

It's the telephone wires from the opening of RED.

Yes, the wires going through a telephone exchange.

[colinr0380]

As briefly shown in Criterion's 'Three Reasons' video for the film.

[godardslave]

It's the telephone wires from the opening of RED.

Thanks for the information, at least i know what it is now.

The artwork is still ugly, meaningless and stopping me buying the set though.

Suggestion to criterion: whoever designed the three colors artwork, never give them employment again.

[med]

It isn't "meaningless"; it's an iconic image from one of the films.

[swo17]

You know, the iconic image everyone associates with these films. Some wires.

[cdnchris]

Belle de jour

[TheGodfather]

Belle de jour

I LOVE the artwork for the booklet and disc. Very nice

And the "pop-up" thing for Godzilla must be a first....



Not my pic by the way, but my copy is on the way from planetaxel.com

[Dona Santa]

YES! that pop-up more than makes up for the horrible cover art

[SpiderBaby]

Though Godzilla fans are throwing fits that the Godzilla pictured isn't the one from the film but instead one from the more recent films. Kind of weird for Criterion to put a picture for another film on the artwork.

[TheGodfather]

hmmmm that is strange indeed...

[SpiderBaby]

It's kind of like putting a picture of Anna Karina from Le Petit Soldat on say Made in U.S.A.'s artwork (and that is being kind, because there is like a 40 year difference between this Godzilla movie and the picture).

[thatobscurecharm]

Here's what Criterion had to say about the packaging:

Hey everybody, regarding the Godzilla artwork:

Artist Bill Sienkiewicz used the original, '54 Godzilla as reference for his artwork, but all of the renderings are nevertheless, in the end, Bill's personal vision of the creature, albeit one that is Toho approved. We can see why some viewers consider it to be more akin to the 2002 incarnation of Godzilla because the back plates seem more sharp-pointed and jagged than the curved tips of the '54 original, for example, or the tail tapers more to a point, but those plates don't exactly mirror the ones from the 2002-3 monster either.

We pushed Bill to address Godzilla as a force of destruction, an elemental being, to step away from a rendering that would be purely literal and fetishistic in detail, and think he came up with a terrific interpretation. This is also why there is color in the packaging art. Although the movie is a beautifully-photographed B&W work, we kept leaning towards the elemental aspects of fire and water and wanted the color palette to evoke that.

[mfunk9786]

We also explained to Bill that Godzilla was a very low-budget and artless fictional puppet character, that while eventually iconic, was still rather silly from the outset. We told Bill that if people were that attached to Godzilla, beyond enjoying the films and perhaps the merchandise and iconography that was spawned from said films, they should probably take a nice hard look at their lives and wonder if suicide really is the worst option at their disposal.

Love,
Criterion

[Tribe]

Yeah, Sienkiewicz has a history of re-inventing the appearances of fictional characters...he made Elektra look all scratchy looking and stuff in Elektra: Assassin.

[zedz]

We also explained to Bill that Godzilla was a very low-budget and artless fictional puppet character, that while eventually iconic, was still rather silly from the outset. We told Bill that if people were that attached to Godzilla, beyond enjoying the films and perhaps the merchandise and iconography that was spawned from said films, they should probably take a nice hard look at their lives and wonder if suicide really is the worst option at their disposal.

Love,
Criterion

Imagine my outrage when I finally got around to watching Make Way for Tomorrow only to discover that NONE of the main actors had a thick black outline!

[knives]

Actually I would love to see the film remade in that art style. It suits the characters that well.

[swo17]

[cdnchris]

Frampton rocks