Analysing Movie Posters – True Romance.

The film poster for crime, drama genre cult film, True Romance, represents the narrative and genre perfectly just threw its house style and use of characters. By using the characters within the film poster, it allows the target audience to familiarise themselves with the cast and the relationships between them, such as Christian Slater’s and Patricia Arquette’s characters as they stand side by side, clearly indicating to the audience that they have a close bond and are in a healthy relationship.  The colours used within the poster are white to represent purity. However when you delve further into the narrative the symbolic purity is not based on any of the characters but the purity of drugs, such as cocaine, that is a huge factor within the narrative and the common use of the drug within the narrative itself brings the characters together. The other colours are those of the character’s clothing, such as Patricia Arquette’s character wearing pink, leopard print bottoms, symbolising she is flamboyant and a free spirit in contrast to other characters such as her partner who is wearing dark reds and blacks.    I think that this posters unique selling point is simply the images and names of its all-star cast, featuring Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hooper, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken and it also features Samuel Jackson and The Sopranos lead man, James Gandolfini. This cast will sell the movie on it’s own, due to amount of followers these actors have, featuring some of the best actors that have featured in Hollywood within the last decade.  The poster does have some weaknesses. Such as the lack of quotes from witnesses of the film, proclaiming how they enjoyed the film, indicating to the audience that this film must be ‘one to watch’. The colour scheme is not brilliant and does not truly, in my opinion, capture the narrative well. However you must consider this film was made in 1993, and with an all-star cast, marketing would have been less complicated than for the majority of films. However the narrative is summed up within eight words towards the left of the poster, at eye level, directly in the middle of the poster, stating, ‘Stealing, Cheating, Killing. Who says romance is dead?’. This tagline is perfect as it helps the audience understand the narrative brilliantly and with the image of the gun towards the right, it sums up what the film with feature.