Inglorious Basterds Poster Analysis

Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth and Mélanie Laurent. The film tells the story of two plots to assassinate the Nazi Germany political leadership, one planned by a young French Jewish cinema proprietor (Laurent), and the other by a team of Jewish Allied soldiers led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt).

Its marketing campaign was a simple one with the trailer being released at the same time of a set of posters. I have chosen a poster which isn't the main film one but is one you could of seen on billboards or at the cinema on the walls. The list below is the main points I took from the poster.

• The background of the poster is a grey clouding look colour. It resembles a cold feeling, something you might imagine during a war film. Straight away it is a genre indicator of a war film.

• All the titles are slanted suggesting that it might not be the usual clichéd film you are expecting and might have a different outcome.

• Next is the main point of the poster. The centre picture of a blood stained baseball bat dangling a German soldiers hat suggests that there has been conflict and you can expect in the film. Also if you look carefully on the bat, mixed in with the blood, is the names of people, suggesting they could be appearing in the film. With the hat facing down and blood spilled over the side, it suggests that the film could involve people killing Nazi's, which is a main selling point of the film.

• The simple layout of the film allows the audience to focus on the picture and the director. He is one of the main selling points of the film as he is a well known acclaimed director known for quality films.

• Quentin Tarantino's name is on the poster and the actors names are not. This shows that he is one of main selling point of the film.

• The title is in black suggesting again that the film could be dark and twisted. It may also show that there may be violence and gore.

What we can take from this poster is the layout of the text. As our film will involve death we will have to decide what colour text we are going to have to use. The other thing I think is really good is the size of the picture and the way it is the centre point of the film. If we centre an image of our location and a weapon to symbolize the horror genre.