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domino harvey wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2024 8:05 pm How is it astounding?

domino harvey wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2024 5:05 pmThat Triet cover is hideous, why would that be what they went with?

Matt wrote: Fri Feb 16, 2024 12:07 amOn Criterion’s page for the disc, you can see the image that was used as the basis for the drawing.

Ribs wrote: Fri Feb 16, 2024 1:38 pm He is not the lead actor, he is the fourth if not fifth most significant character, and I expect having the image of him lying on the ground dead would not exactly be a stumbling block for anyone’s moral compass. I would say based on precedent that Neon has a specific clause/requirement that exists for some reason that Criterion cannot use the extant poster art, which for Parasite at least was likely to differentiate it from the previous release (but possibly remains due to basic “we need to retain right to use it for our own release in the future just in case”? Maybe?), which means they have had to do new art for all of them, to variable effect.

tenia wrote: Fri Feb 16, 2024 9:31 pm I remember an article mentioning this matter specifically about a cover (Sweet Smell of Success), and how the original contractual clauses were still valid and dictating what could or couldn't be designed (in particular, it required both actors' faces to take about the same space on the cover). (It's not on Criterion's website so I guess it was on Phillips' blog.)

Basically, the big hurdle on this title was a clause in the contracts stating that the likenesses of both Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster MUST appear, and both MUST be the same size. And given the power imbalance between the two characters in the film, the idea of having the two of them just standing there, on equal footing with each other, felt really wrong… but the solution we came up with in the briefs meeting, was, I think, a really great one… here's a description from the letter I sent to Sean explaining the project:

…As I mentioned, we've got some fairly specific ideas of what we want for the cover, mainly because we have some limiting restrictions from the studio we're licensing the film from. Specifically, they require that likenesses of both Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster appear, and they must be the same size. Once you watch the film, you'll realize that this is, conceptually, an annoying requirement, because Lancaster's character basically towers over Tony Curtis in every way, both physically and in terms of prestige, power, etc, so the idea of putting them on equal footing is kind of a shame.

Our idea of a solution to this problem is to reference the very first scene in the film, where Tony Curtis is buying a paper from the newsstand in Times Square, and the delivery truck is behind the newsstand with the giant ad on the side for Hunsecker's (Burt Lancaster) column.

I don't think there's any particular shot in the film that captures exactly the idea, so you'd have to create it, but if we get Tony Curtis in the foreground and Burt Lancaster's face on the side of the truck in the background, I think we should be able to get both faces approximately the same size while still conveying a sense of Lancaster's importance and stature relative to Curtis. This idea has the added benefit of giving the opportunity for some nice street scene work in the background, (to give a sense of Broadway/New York), and the newstand/newspaper to reference the specific world the film takes place in (i.e. the world of gossip columnists.) Hopefully all of that makes some kind of sense? Let me know if anything is unclear or seems to you like it might not work.

(It's worth mentioning that I think the Huntsecker ads in the film itself feature his glasses but not his face… or at least some of them do. So you won't be able to copy the ads directly, but I think you can capture the feel of those ads using Lancaster's actual face, right?)