Posterwire.com is a movie poster weblog. From images of the latest Hollywood one-sheets to vintage movie posters, this film poster weblog hopes to offer a bit of insight into film key art.
Ang Lee’s new film, Brokeback Mountain, starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, isn’t your run-of-the-mill western… or love story. Commonly referred to as the “gay cowboy movie” (although the film’s trailer and Oscar buzz imply it could rise above that label), the film could prove a tough sell to certain audiences.
For the Brokeback Mountain movie poster, the film’s producer James Schamus wanted to emulate the one-sheet for the biggest film of all time — the ultimate “chick flick” — the Titanic movie poster.
When it came time to design the poster for the film, Schamus didn’t research posters of famous Westerns for ideas. He looked at the posters of the 50 most romantic movies ever made. “If you look at our poster,” he says, “you can see traces of our inspiration, ‘Titanic’.”
In this case, “traces of our inspiration” means “traces of an exact copy”.
Comparing the two posters side-by-side, the similarities become clear — the layout of Heath Ledger’s shoulder even matches the clothing “steam iron” ship of the Titanic one-sheet.
From my blog:
Take your man to see Brokeback Mountain!
Your husband, boyfriend or Match.com date needs to see Brokeback Mountain. You must insist that he see this movie. Beg. Plead. Withhold sex. Do whatever you need to do. Watching two cowboys get it on will do him good.
If he resists, drop this line on him: “I’d wonder about the sexuality of a man who isn’t secure enough to watch a gay-themed movie.†In a world where straight men have evolved to be cool with pedicures, moisturizer and plucking their eyebrows, they can certainly get over their issues with a little same sex nookie on the big screen.
Yeah, sure, he laughs at Will & Grace, but his queasiness with male affection is why Will has had about as much on-screen romance as Jessica Fletcher. We’ll never have a truly open society until straight men get over their visceral reactions to seeing two men kissing.
Most people, especially men, are still way too hung up over man-on-man action. Heath Ledger, who plays the role of Ennis, knows why some men are uncomfortable with the movie. “I suspect it’s a fear that they are going to enjoy it,†he told Newsweek. “They don’t understand that you are not going to become sexually attracted to men by recognizing the beauty of a love story between two men.†Ladies, give your man permission to shed his macho veneer for two hours. And bring enough tissue for both of you.
The buzz is that this is a universal story of love that anyone can appreciate. You don’t have to be gay to relate to a gay love story any more than you have to be straight to cry at the end of Titanic. I didn’t watch As Good As It Gets just to see Greg Kinnear play the prototypical gay neighbor. I’m gay, but I could relate when Harry and Sally. Jerry Maguire had me at hello too.
In Details magazine, Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays Jack, observes that the movie would have made just as much sense if his character had been a woman. Yes, but I’ve seen that movie—about a thousand times. It’s our turn.
I’m so excited about this movie, I can hardly see straight. Yes, I want to see some hot, steamy love scenes, but even more than that, I want to see your boyfriend cry.
Start off by reading the short story that the film is based on.
It’ll get your eyes used to crying . It has soooo much “soul”. It should have been titled Brokeheart Mountain.
Getting back to the poster design… I think this treatent is very clever. I could not have seen the Titanic inspiration without you pointing it out, but now it is clear.
Smart design.
Are you crazy? Stop trying so hard to be clever.
Hello BLT. ;)
Yes, the similarities are stunning. I was intrigued when I read that quote in the Newsweek story, thanks for digging it up to compare.
(But I’m still more amazed that they managed to airbrush Jake into Jared Leto in that pic. Prettier than Jake has ever looked before, but I greatly prefer the more rugged Jake in the film. (Though I would take either. hahaha.) Especially when Jake has the three-day growth . . . yow.
What a load of crap…Marty, I’m sorry your parents were too selfish to teach you the facts of life. My cats knows the difference between human and animal, but apparently you haven’t figured out the birds and the bees yet. All of the “gays” I have ever known are 100% selfish, shallow and immature.
Now we’re rating posters for something that our grandparents would have been ashamed of (or should be ashamed of). Shame on us for letting this get this far.
America is done. This is exactly how it ended for Ancient Rome. How sad for our great country. I know someone will write some scathing reply to my post (and I won’t return to this site to read it), but I have history on my side.
So what you’re saying is your cat prefers Titanic to Brokeback Mountain? That must be one amazing cat. ;)
(I’m sorry you won’t be back to read this.)
Loved the poster. It also reminded me of The Hunted with Tommy Lee Jones:
http://www.keepmyfile.com/image/734fc9256858
Frak, history will brush you off its sleeve and forget about you, just as it did your ancestors who heralded greater rights for women and minorities as the end of our great country. We are now a more tolerant nation than we ever were before, and America is still here, and better for it.
I guess you did come back to read this, didn’t you? ;)
Actually, Frak, it ended for the Western Roman Empire after they adopted Christianity as the state religion and began persecuting pagans and adopting Pauline views on sexuality.
It ended for the Eastern Roman, that is, the Byzantine, Empire after centuries of assaults by Roman Christian Western Europe and the Mulsim Ottoman Empire.
Perhaps you should learn something about history before seeking to draw lessons from it.
hahaha. Right. And the pigs fly.
Give me a fucking break, They share similar design structures, one uses a huge picture of a fucking boat and the other doesn’t, maybe you overlooked that one. Titanic uses a faded image with a mask on it, the other doesn’t. Do some homework or have some design sense before you call people out for stealing a design.
Don’t recall saying they “stole” the design — we simply were drawing attention to the “traces of inspiration” producer’s quote disparity — the image comparison is there for people to judge for themselves. (Some judging more harshly than others, apparently.)
But yes, you are right, there is no “huge fucking boat” on the Brokeback Mountain poster — you got us there.
Marty, your first post is so typical of the desensitizing agenda. I even read a writeup on MSN’s frontpage that said all the same stuff. “get over it and just go see the movie.” No, I will not get over it. Thank goodness it’s rated R, I would hate for my 10 year old boy to see this and fall in love, the way my 14 year old daughter did when she saw Titanic. Oh but wait, your BORN gay…right? No. The human race is so totally influencable, as evidenced by the huge increase of the gay population, which parallels the ‘tolerance’ that the media has forced on the people for the past 30 years. How about a movie where a gay man becomes aware of the truth, rejects homosexuality, and finds true love with a woman? Can I force you to go watch it? Maybe I’ll have your boyfriends withhold sex until you do. I really think you are all kidding yourselves, and the more people in society that is tolerant, the more people that are “out”, the easier it is to keep your blinders on and ignore the truth. That in itself is selfish, because you corrupt others to feel secure in the lie. You know that little itch in you mind that says “I suppose it is possible that I am gay because of envirnmental factors in my life”…but you never dare say it, because it is contrary to your movement. You lie to yourself to justify your self imposed gag order with “just because I MIGHT have been influeced into a gay orientation doesn’t mean that’s the typical way it happens to my fellow gays. I’ll keep it to myself.” Well you know what? You ALL are doing it. For a while, I had many addictions. I know what it’s like to justify your actions. It’s the easy road. But ahhh the joy of making through the long tough journey to abandoning the lies.
Wow Mark, learn how to spell before you spam.
By the way, I’m sorry I had to do that on a weblog that is meant to appreciate poster art. But Marty started it. It really doesn’t belong here, but as long as his post is left up, so too should my post be left up.
As for the artwork, I think it is pretty well done. But the parallel with the Titanic poster is not meant to be the “huge f—ing boat” that’s missing. It is with the general method of utilizing a large black space of the actual artwork to house the printed text, instead of just having a picture above the text at the bottom. It’s a common method that works well. Since no baot was available for this movie, they used the jacket area.
“”have some design sense”" ??? Tyler, You are showing your own ignorance.
Sorry about the mispellings and grammer. They are mostly from typing too fast.
Interesting comment though. You are insinuating that I’m stupid. Therefore my comments have no validity. That’s a pretty common tactic, but meaningless and irrelevent. Re-read my post, and try to ignore the irrelevant typos.
“Marty started it,” brilliant, what a stellar display of maturity!
I truly hate to parallel homosexuality with mental illness, but for this one example I feel it’s got enough similarities to justify a comparison — schizophrenia is not considered to be genetic by psychologists — in that there doesn’t seem to be a gene that directly causes it. Researchers think there could be a gene that causes people to be susceptible to whatever causes it, but apparently it has “external” causes. That said, do you think you could go up to a schizophrenic and tell him he can fix his affliction with the power of prayer? Or that, because a schizophrenic became that way because of environmental factors (which are probably out of his control), he chose to become that way or could consciously change it? Just because someone isn’t born a certain way (and most schizophrenics don’t “become” schizophrenic until adulthood) doesn’t mean they decide to be that way or that they can change it, otherwise people wouldn’t need to spend so much money on medicine. (It’s not a perfect parallel, of course, since schizophrenia is a chemical imbalance and homosexuality doesn’t seem to be — hence why the former can be changed with medication and the latter can’t. Because you can’t change homosexuality with medication, you’re pretty much out of luck, Mark.) So, even if what you say is true and people become homosexual because of environmental factors and no genetics are involved, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they can change it.
Just so people don’t get on my back about comparing homosexuality to a mental illness when the APA states that it isn’t, I chose schizophrenia because it’s a condition that doesn’t appear to be genetic, is something that people try to change or reverse, and can’t be done just by willing it to be so. I hate to post this off-topic rant, but I can’t stand to see poor logic go unquestioned. It’s an unfortunate compulsion of mine.
To get back on topic, I definitely see the similarity between the two posters, and it has much to do with composition. A large, dark, triangular shape at the bottom/centre, criss-crossed heads at the top, clouds at the side(s), even the words are in almost the same place. Sorry to burst everyone’s bubble, but the composition is pretty much a direct copy; the subject matter in the poster is irrelevant (even though it’s still pretty similar, despite the lack of boat). If someone made a dress and someone else made exactly the same design of dress but in a different colour, it wouldn’t be a totally different dress. I guess there were some interesting changes to this poster, but rather than an entirely different person’s work, it feels like maybe two different sketches an artist did for the same painting to see which composition he liked better. Just my opinion, though.
Wow. Another post that attacks me personally before discussing the issue. My point with “Mark started it” is relevant because I would not have posted this in a ‘poster art forum’. But wherever the homosexual propoganda is displayed without a counterpoint, impressionable minds are in danger. It has nothing to do with my level of maturity. One thing we agree on, it does have “external” causes.
But the big problem with your schizophrenia analogy is this: There is not a group of schizophrenics that are trying to validate schizophrenia as an acceptable condition that we should all embrace. In fact, it is very troublesome to those who suffer from it and would gladly go through the work required to be free of it’s grip.
You call my logic poor, but did not give any examples of my poor logic. Again, a tactic that discredits me without actually saying anything.
Here’s the cliff’s notes of what you said that actually pertained to my post. “You are immature” “You have poor logic”. Mixed in with a long comparison to schizophrenia. The reader is left thinking I’m the bad guy.
Really, I’m not angery at gay people. I have family members that are gay. I love them very much. The problem that I have is the way the world is being desensitised to accept a behavior that does not make God happy. If you love and defend something that displeases the Lord, you are lost. You become angry at the Lord for imposing such rules. Eventually, bit by bit, you stop going to church, you find vilidity in worldly things, and then…you deny Christ. It’s not just homosexuality, it’s pornography, prostitution, theft, adultry, ect. Please note, that I am not without these sins, and the least of mine is as bad as the worst of any. But I detest my sins. I try to repent of them. I do not defend them. I do not try to convince others that my sins are acceptable. If I did then not only am I separating myself from the Lord, but separating others as well. I become no better than the serpent who said, “Did God really say that? It will be Okay. Go ahead and do it.”
You may find yourself somewher in the middle of the journey, or well beyond the choice. But if there is at all a chance, hold tight to Christ. You can argue and even win, but please don’t let it get to the point that you deny Christ.