From the time Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec showed us that a poster could be a great work of art, the poster has taken its place as one of the great popular arts of the modern age. Film posters are a hybrid art, carving out a place for themselves in the diverse histories of film, art, advertising, and graphic design. Yet, their creation also requires a strikingly singular skill, with masters of the genre like Saul Bass, Richard Pandiscio, and Chipp Kidd claiming the classiest, most distinguished corner of graphic publicity and promotion of themselves. When successful, film posters powerfully and succinctly reflect an entire film’s vision, the way the tiny sled Rosebud does within the snow dome held by the dying Charles Foster Kane in Welles’ Citizen Kane. The best examples of the genre are miniature masterpieces of design economy and artistic audience interaction.

Film posters are also an important part of street life. Imagine walking around New York City’s winter streets without the Crayola box color of hundreds of fresh film posters staple-gunned to building facades in blocks-long, Warhol-like repetition. or an unending stretch of Los Angeles highway unenlivened by vivid stories-high billboards announcing independent and studio offerings ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. Seeing a sexy poster announcing a new film can produce the same excited anticipation as receiving an invitation to a glamorous and exclusive party in the mail even when the movie featured in the poster elicits a, “What the hell were they thinking?” response, it still creates shared cultural experience (even if it’s one of trading jokes at the film’s expense.)

As I write this, I am sitting under the poster from my film, Gummo. It is a mass-produced piece of paper in an inexpensive frame. It is also one of my most prized possessions. From Kubrick’s Lolita rendered in lurid pulp-influenced style to the graphic simplicity of The Man With the Golden Arm, a film poster can leave as indelible an impression as the film itself. Film posters also give the most important impression anything or anyone can give, the first impression.