The aim of the article is to investigate a film poster as a marketing message in 1990–2010. 1990 marks a borderline in Polish culture. However, after years of monopoly, Polish films disappeared from cinemas. Thus, there has been a necessity to face the competitors i.e. US films. The point is not only in quality of the film art itself, attractive topics, better technical quality, but also – considering the ruthless laws of the market – in more intensive endeavors to promote Polish films. The poster is the most common advertising form of the film art and an important part of its marketing strategy. The paper is an attempt to present how the film poster has been functioning since 1990s, how it has played its marketing mission, what instruments have been used and how it has presented the film content. Contemporary film posters function like advertisements of products and services related to free time. They offer experience. Through the schemes applied they relate to emotions, which is justified from the marketing point of view. Poster representation of the film is an iconographic abbreviation of emotions that it offers. A potential viewer can usually read without major problems the author’s intensions and while watching the advertisement she/he chooses the emotions that she/he would like to experience. The promise of the experience is constructed and offered by means of pictures and words in a particular style. The author shows that although the poster is a complex phenomenon it is also standardized, which is helpful in creating a clear advertising message. A successful poster arises desire to buy goods or services. It follows the basic AIDA marketing principles. With the help of iconographic layer of picture and typography, the designer constructs a defined image directed at the target audience. At present, the poster is mostly rather an advertisement. Just like a commercial related to the brand it advertises, the film poster is consistent with the type of film. Thus, the film poster implies what the viewer can expect.
Adaptation of the Dorota Masłowska’s Wojna polsko-ruska pod flagą biało-czerwoną – an example of the adaptation strategy in the present-day Polish film – is an attempt to grasp the specific issues that arise in the transposition of the Masłowska’s prose into the language of film. The Xawery Żuławski’s film is significantly faithful to the text, yet it is autonomous and comprehensible. It reflects the very special climate of the text which is the most difficult element in the adaptation process. The director applied specific means – a comic strip structure, a video-clip montage and suitable music. Moreover, his personality had its impact on the final effect as thanks to his life experience he understood the atmosphere of the reality created by Masłowska. He used – which is most difficult to describe – the intuition. The author proves that the film is the case of the “creative treason” described by Alicja Helman. The director, while taking some elements of the prose, plays a game with the viewer adding completely new elements that do not exist in the text. Thus, he creates a new and successful value.
In 2010 Jan Jakub Kolski published his book: Pamięć podróżna. Fragmentozbiór filmowy. In the book Kolski expresses his opinion on film adaptation from the point of view of a practitioner; in a methodical and practical way he describes how to adapt a literary work of art to the cinema. The present article is a kind of a “case study”: on the basis of Kolski’s film Venice, the author enquires if, to what extent and to what effect the director has really satisfied his ‘adaptative’ demands.
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