Classiq - An online journal that celebrates cinema, culture, style and storytelling.

21 October 2020

Le Paris de Claude Sautet: Romy, Michel, Yves et les autres…

I have always wanted a book with Romy Schneider on the cover. After all, we carry not one, but two Romy portraits exclusively in our Classiq Journal Editions. Not a book about her life (there are a few German publications on the subject), which would certainly veer away from her prolific career of talented actor and towards her tragic personal life, but one which honours her work, her films, the filmmakers and actors she worked with. Finally, that book has arrived (it came out this September). It’s a book about the cinema of Claude Sautet, Le Paris de Claude Sautet: Romy, Michel, Yves et les autres…*, written by Hélène Rochette, and on the cover there is a shot of Romy from Max et les Ferrailleurs, the film Sautet considered his best.

Max et les Ferrailleurs is a bleak, dark detective story that taps into noir while drawing two fine character studies: Michel Piccoli’s Max, a former judge converted into a cop, and Romy Schneider’s Lily, a prostitute linked to a gang of hard-luck, two-time crooks whom he wants to catch in order to restore his recently tarnished reputation in the department. Sautet inverts in fact the moral dilemma of the crime film and makes the criminals more sympathetic than the lawman. Nothing can disturb Max’s icy exterior, nothing distracts his attention, not even Lily. She is no ordinary prostitute either. She is the brain behind the gang of small-time criminals and it is her ambition that will get them all into trouble.

Romy is wearing Yves Saint Laurent in Max et les Ferrailleurs and in this particular shot depicted on the cover of the book she is wearing the black patent trench coat – the revival of the vinyl trench five years after Catherine Deneuve wore hers for another prostitute role, that of Severine in Luis Buñuel’s Belle de jour. Yves Saint Laurent had an “immediate and astounding sense of costume”, in the words of Roland Petit, and he chose a very sexy, character-appropriate wardrobe for Romy in this film – violet or red low-cut dresses, form-fitting black dress with plunging neckline, ribbon tied around the neck – but it is that trench in particular that stands apart, both shielding her away and marking her off.

The fact that the book is in French has both a positive and a negative side. It is written with the cinema knowledge and passion the French are capable of (it is much less often the case with American books about film), which always takes your own knowledge and passion for cinema one level up, but if it were to be translated to English it would certainly benefit of a much wider appreciation, as it deserves.

Organized in six chapters that analyse not each film in particular, and this is what I loved so much about it, but the elements that are defining for Sautet’s cinema (from that special portrayal of Paris, the image of the eternal capital, with its urban vitality depicted not through geographic landmarks but subtly, by slipping into the dark little streets and the boisterous yet intimate atmosphere of its cafes, bistros and bars, to the use of the car as modern instruments of destiny, to the free and audacious Parisienne, especially the characters of Romy Schneider, to the influence that the American culture had on the most Parisian of cineasts – westerns, the films of Raoul Walsh, Howard Hawks, John Ford, jazz music, as “he was capable of conducting certain cinematographic sequences like a jazz solo”, were a great inspiration for the French filmmaker), the book truly seizes the essence and uniqueness of Claude Sautet’s universe. “Sautet invented his own reality, and that’s why his films endure,” film analyst Jacques Fieschi is cited. And the marvelous thing about that reality is that, “in contrast with François Truffaut, who believed that cinema surpassed and amplified life, to the point of wanting to perpetuate the artistic excitement of the shoots,” notes Hélène Rochette, Claude Sautet’s films “cherished all life’s simple pleasures”.

It is the little details the book focuses on, in the true spirit of Sautet himself, who “always liked to scrutinize these little things, these constant trials and errors that anchor an individual in his singularity”. He was sincerely interested in life as it was, in its every moment, in the smallest gesture, in the simplest joy, to be lived in the moment, one of the reasons he liked open endings to his films. “Sautet never intellectualized his approach to filmmaking, that’s why he is considered a craftsman, a good maker,” Olivier Péray, assistant director on Mado, concurred. Claude Sautet reminds me of another great favourite of mine, John Cassavetes, who loved life just as it was and made his films about it, films that are raw, unfiltered, unpredictable, complex, overwhelming, just like real life is – “In Faces I wanted to show the inability of people to communicate; what small things do to people, how people can’t handle certain things that they hear and read in newspapers, see in films; and how, when they are not prepared to think with their own minds and to feel, how all this can become tragic circumstances,” the American filmmaker would confess. The emotions, the reflections on human behavior, the complexity of sentiments, we encounter them in Sautet’s work and we encounter them in Cassavetes’. And Cassavetes is rightfully mentioned in the book, too.

The interviews included in Le Paris de Claude Sautet, all of them recently conducted, in the spring of 2019, with Jean-Claude Carrière, Brigitte Fossey, Myriam Boyer, Arlette Bonnard, Sandrine Bonnairde, further add a new, intimate dimension to Sautet’s cinema and characters: “Claude Sautet did not just capture the authenticity and the truth in a shot, he also achieved this extraordinary balance that does not often exist in cinema, this rare musicality, and you sense that even today, when you hear a scene by Sautet, even on the radio, there is this rhythm in the dialogues which is always right,” Brigitte Fossey confesses.

And, finally, Romy. Romy, who became the impersonation of “the perfect French seduction”, Romy whose “photogenic power and beauty represented at least for a decade the image of femininity on the big screen”, Romy who taught Sautet that “women were courageous, vivacious”, because before he met her, “he didn’t know how to direct actresses and female characters didn’t interest him so much, except as objects,” Graziella Sautet, his wife, recalled. Incandescent, implacable, imperious, ferociously humorous, fiercely independent, Romy, the actor who was the new icon of freedom and modernity.

A while ago I wrote about Romy’s character in César et Rosalie, how I believed that Rosalie came very close to Romy’s own personality. The book draws an incredibly conclusive portrait of Rosalie, Sautet’s heroine who “is never afraid to claim her tastes, her desires and her insatiable quest for freedom”. She is the image of the determined, confident woman driven by her inalterable will to live, because the woman alone guides her destiny and her male alter egos must resolve to accommodate themselves to her decisions. Romy’s presence on screen was unequalled and she came alive in Claude Sautet’s films.

*Note: For an easily accessible, official synopsis of the book, I have linked to the publishing house (and to their credit, Parigramme has an incredible selection of books, some of which in English). However, in these trying times, our intention is to support artists and small businesses of any kind, especially bookstores, therefore I will not link to global online book chains or corporations, leaving you to make the choice of helping your favourite independent bookshop and placing your order with them. If you don’t have a favourite indie bookstore, here is how to find one you can support.

Every Day Is Opening Night

Beyond Character: Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider in “Max et les Ferrailleurs”

Posted by classiq in Books, Film | | Comments Off

9 October 2020

Editorial: She’s Earned Those Stripes

Jean Arthur in “The Talk of the Town”, 1942 | Columbia Pictures

The Editorial: thoughts, short stories
or essays about the world of cinema

Nora Shelley is wearing a men’s striped oversized pajamas when the entire town barges into the house she had rented to Michael Lightcap, a law professor who has come here in search of a quiet place to write a book: her mother who is trying to understand what she hadn’t come home, the furniture moving men who are bringing in a few finishing-up pieces for the guest, the policemen who are looking for Leopold Dilg, a troublemaker who has been wrongfully accused of burning down a mill and killing the foreman and who has escaped jail, believing he has no chance of escaping jail, the lawyer who is trying to help him. The fugitive, played by Cary Grant, happens to be in the attic, with an injured foot, and Jean Arthur’s Nora Shelley is helping him hide, and she had to make up an excuse the stay the night to watch him so that he is not discovered.

“Listen, I can’t hang around here even if I wanted to. Lightcap’s ordered me out 50 times since last night. I’m here now only by the grace of being in his pajamas. One minute I’m out of these and I’m out on my ear!”, Nora says to Dilg in The Talk of the Town.

Isn’t Jean Arthur one of the best comedic actors? And she’s at her best in this quick-witted comedy directed by George Stevens. I rewatched it last night. And I just love watching Jean Arthur in it. She is so naturally funny. Comical yet not silly ridiculous. So gracefully yet confidently making her way among all the men. And I love how the romantic story remains in the background and the film does not lose sight of the main plot, of acquitting a wrongfully accused man. And it’s wonderful how Jean manages to strike such a balance between humour and never losing sight of the bigger picture, of what’s right and wrong.

And so she is wearing Lightcap’s pajamas, a wardrobe piece that here plays first and foremost a comedic role (as opposed to Adrian’s costumes on Greta Garbo in The Single Standard), but not quite just. The next morning, before the town barges in, she does an impersonation in front of the mirror, dressed in the pajamas and playing with her hair pretending she has a mustache and changing her voice: “lovely, lovely, really lovely…” She is being watched, naturally, by Lightcap (Ronald Colman), which makes the scene even more hilarious. And, yes, it makes her charming and attractive, in a way only menswear clothes worn by a woman in full confidence of her seductive power can.

“The Talk of the Town”, 1942 | Columbia Pictures

There is another piece of clothing that makes a great point, too. This time, it’s one of the wardrobe items Irene designed for the character, the pinafore dress, a piece that’s menswear inspired but made for a woman. Nora is wearing it when Leopold arrives in search of a hideout. At one moment, between trying to keep Dilg out of sight and trying to accommodate her tenant who has arrived one day early, she has to run up the stairs. I have always found this sequence so naturally hilarious and unforced, because she does run alright… as if she was wearing trousers. Only she’s not and that’s the best part. She does not sacrifice one drop of femininity while being adventurous, quick and active and, well, physically funny in ways few female actors have been.

Jean Arthur had already demonstrated her humour, fearlessness and appeal in menswear inspired clothes three years earlier, also alongside Cary Grant and interacting with another bunch of men, pilots in that case, in Howard Hawks’ Only Angels Have Wings (more about that, in a future article). But it’s the attitude and body language, the verbal wit and physical humour, that distinctive voice that could be low and husky or going into a high pitch, simply put, so much more than what meets the eye that completes the picture here. She knows how to be romantic, smart and grown-up without forgetting to be a tomboy and free-spirited and funny. She’s right up there, next to another trailblazer of thought and action style and screwball comedy, Katharine Hepburn (Katharine wore a pinafore dress, too, in Woman of the Year, directed by George Stevens and costumed by Adrian, an ahead-of-his-time designer who put an ahead-of-her-time movie star in a tuxedo in the same movie). She was her own person and had a unique screen presence. She was good at what she did. She owned the craft of acting. That’s the brilliance of Jean Arthur.

“The Talk of the Town”, 1942 | Columbia Pictures

Why Movies Still Need Cinemas: Filmmakers Weigh In

Art Directing Film Posters: In Conversation with Illustrator Akiko Stehrenberger

Posted by classiq in Editorial, Film, Film costume | | Comments Off

4 October 2020

The Culture Edit: October Newsletter

Photographic print to the left available in the shop

“I had to contend with boredom. Meaning,
when I was bored, I had to be bored and keep
walking. As opposed to: sling up the ‘ole smartphone
and walk-n-suck on another list of headlines. ”

Craig Mod

It is a narrow, winding road through the hills. It is nestled by the bowing hardwood trees that line it on both sides, and as the well-tuned engine pours on the road, the fallen golden leaves fly off, a brisk sign of more blustery times ahead. The car window is down, just enough to feel the crisp autumn air. It is a pleasant feeling, one of the best. The rush of summer is finally over and nature seems to breath a new life and start to slow down and get cosy at the same time, until it enters the deep silence of winter. The road is almost empty. You watch. And listen. A Mazda MX5 sports car picks up speed – you can’t blame it, the road is inviting – but finally agrees that the ride is best enjoyed when shifting the gear down. By taking any turn left, the road goes up, still meandering, and the view is clearing up as the forests fall sideways, turning into an idyllic countryside scenery of meadows guarded by wooden fences and bushes of rosehip, sea buckthorn, cranberries and blackberries. You can leave the car on the side of the road and pick up a hiking trail, the leaves turning rusty on the ground starting to ruffle under your feet. Four boys with their bikes have stopped by the side of the road, gathered around and plotting away. It looks like a scene from The Goonies. Back in the car after you’ve put in some good effort and taken the steepest path up to the hilltop that offers a panoramic view of the surroundings, you return to the main road. The hour is still early. The road is stretching ahead. On and on it goes. You follow it. How can you not? There’s still plenty of gas in the tank.

Nadya Zim photographic print to the left available in the shop

The Classiq Journal newsletter goes out the first Sunday of each month. It’s a culture trip.

Reading

Books
The Lost Pianos of Siberia* is a book you have to take your time with. Because the book itself is slow-paced and revealing such depth of history and thoughts and feelings that it reminds you that not every book, as good as it may be, should be read in a one-go. In her literary non-fiction book, Sophy Roberts takes us on a thoroughly researched and deeply experienced journey “into music, exile and landscape,” as noted by Edmund de Waal. A land generally known for its harshness, terrifying, unimaginable exile stories and primitive life conditions, is shown another face, of poetry, humanity, survival and unique beauty, as Sophy Roberts sets out to track down a piano for a piano player friend of hers, and then to find out how music entered and was cultivated in Siberia throughout its troubled and dark past. And I am glad it is a westerner who brings this view up in the open. This kind of writing and this kind of book could only be possible by the deep understating and deep bond the author, though her repeated trips there and relentless passion and honest interest, had of and formed with this outlandish part of the world and its people, the people’s people. And there is no other time when I would recommend this book more than at the moment: art and culture have this subtlety in revealing some truths in an impactful way that can change thoughts and minds. In this case, it’s this: there were other moments in history when people were forced, most of the times unjustifiably, to immobility for years or maybe a lifetime and yet found beauty or created beauty out of misery and hardship. The world at large is formed of ordinary people. Cold hands, warm hearts. To hear or read their story is a privilege. It makes you question your perspective.

When she left her Hollywood career behind, Louise Brooks re-emerged as a serious film historian and critic. Lulu in Hollywood, her compilation of film journal essays from the 1960s, was considered by Roger Ebert “one of the few film books that can be called indispensable”. Her Thirteen Women on Film, her book of essays on Hollywood icons such as Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo and Clara Bow reveals Brooks as a pioneer of Hollywood star and celebrity studies.

Magazine
Each issue of Légende magazine focuses on an iconic figure, personalities who embodied and defined the times they lived or have lived in. The first issue, launched this summer, was dedicated to Zinédine Zidane. The second issue, just out, is about Angela Davis. Each story is told by historians, journalists, illustrators and photographers. “It is conceived as a collector’s item. Only on paper can we produce this effect,” says editor-in-chief François Vey.

Online
I have to mention once again Craig Mod’s weekly newsletter Ridgeline. This week’s letter in particular rang extremely close to home.

The interview
The Pretenders have released a new album, Hate for Sale, and Chrissie Hynde talks to The Rolling Stones about it and about life lately. Lockdown has not kept her down and she doesn’t see the point of socially-distanced shows either: “Why do artists think that they’re going to heal everybody, and their music is so important? It’s a little bit pompous.” I love her way of thinking. You just have to wait. It doesn’t apply just to music. And it is true, music can not be played just anywhere and anyhow.

Viewing

Watching a good film noir I hadn’t yet discovered can still make my day. The Good Die Young (1954) features John Ireland, Gloria Grahame, Richard Basehart, and the great Laurence Harvey, whom I especially loved in Room at the Top (1959) alongside Simone Signoret. It was directed by Lewis Gilbert, who also made three Bond films (You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker), which could be a good idea to revisit in the run-up to the release of No Time to Die. This conversation may also inspire you to do just that.

I have finally caught up with watching the last three seasons of Homeland and it is as good as ever (episode 5 of season 6, and the entire season 6 altogether, is one of the best – Claire Danes, Mandy Patinkin and Rupert Friend, what a team!). I rarely watch tv series (the interesting thing is that not even in the last six months of sheltering in place and socially distancing have I watched any), but give me something like 24, Breaking Bad and Homeland and I may easily get caught up in this bindge-watching thing.

Right: Illustration part of the Angela Davis issue of Légende magazine

Listening

Music
The music of David Broza. The playlists he creates are so incredibly beautiful, too, and his latest one is Autumn: The year’s last, loveliest smile.

Podcast
On margins is a podcast about making books (this is as good as it gets), hosted by none other than Craig Mod. Among his guests have been book cover designer Jon Gray, photographer, author and backpacker Kevin Kelly, and designer, letterer and children’s book best-selling author Jessica Hische.

Audio book
Anthony Bourdain took the profession of cook as an adventure, just as he did life. For him, it was a calling, a reason to live. Cooking was for him “the last meritocracy – where what we do is all that matters”. He wrote Kitchen Confidential while he was still working the line, giving you the feel and beat of the buzz of the kitchen, a real taste of that frantic world – the life of a rock ‘n’ roller, but also the life of a craftsman. I loved the honesty, the humour, the verve, and how he threw movies into his stories about food: “Please treat your garlic with respect. Sliver it for pasta, like you saw in Goodfellas”. To listen to his follow-up to Kitchen Confidential audio book, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People who Cook, narrated by Bourdain himself, should be nothing less than a real treat.

Making

Each month I highlight one fashion and/or lifestyle brand I believe in 100%. This October, it’s & Daughter. Slow knitwear brand, English sensibility, timeless appeal. And it’s even more worth exploring this time of year.

Exploring

The concept of “friluftsliv”, or open-air living, encourages outdoor adventures for all ages in all weather. How a Norwegian idea of outdoor living could help us all this winter.

On an end note

Give up Google: don’t hit “accept all”. In her book, Privacy Is Power, professor Carissa Vériz wants to shake us out of our complacency and fight for our privacy. There have been many online publications and websites I used to visit and which I don’t anymore, because the multitude of ads they had was disorienting, annoying and just too much, but, most importantly, because of their harassing cookies pop-ups. No piece of news or film review is worth an invasion of my privacy. There are plenty of independent publications, just like this online cultural journal, that are worth reading, not just because of their high quality content, but because they respect their readers’ privacy and value their time. Or better yet, read more paper books, magazines and newspapers, and check in with real life more often than you check in on your Instagram.

“Sometimes you just have to wait. That’s what
I’ve learned. You just have to wait, but that
doesn’t mean you stop doing what you do.”

Chrissie Hynde

*Note: For an easily accessible, official synopsis of the books recommended here, I have linked to the respective publishing house or author. However, in these trying times, our intention is to support artists and small businesses of any kind, especially bookstores, therefore I will not link to global online book chains or corporations, leaving you to make the choice of helping your favourite independent bookshop and placing your order with them. If you don’t have a favourite indie bookstore, here is how to find one you can support.

Posted by classiq in Books, Culture, Film, Newsletter | | Comments Off

30 September 2020

Ruggedly Masculine: Rod Taylor in “The Birds”

Rod Taylor in “The Birds”, 1963 | Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions

Who else believes Rod Taylor and his style in The Birds are underrated? Because this is what I think. He is just as underrated as Tippi Hedren and her place among Alfred Hitchcock’s heroines are.

Rod Taylor is not the first leading man one has in mind when thinking of Hitchcock’s films, especially in terms of style. It goes without saying that it is Cary Grant that occupies that place, and there is no denying that it’s with good reason. “He somehow managed to make the plain grey banker’s suit seem impossibly glamorous, sexy, elegant, even daring. The shirt, flawless white, the tie, knotted with surgical precision, completed the look. And that was it. That was enough. His suit spoke for him, sang for him,” as noted here.

Furthermore, in To Catch a Thief, Cary Grant made the perfect case for casual wear, a little less his trademark than the suit, but one which he excelled at again. But that’s why I appreciate even more Rod Taylor’s understated look in The Birds. Somehow, it was expected of Cary to rise up to his image on screen, although without ever failing to benefit the plot. Rod Taylor, on the other hand, lets the character lead the way – he makes him real – and his style is just as subtle yet strong as his performance. I believe he is the most modern of all Hitchcock’s main male characters.

Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren in “The Birds”, 1963 | Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions

When Mitch Brenner first meets Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) in the bird shop in San Francisco, his look is impeccably executed. In his charcoal grey suit, in a fit cut, slim tie and white shirt, an urban careerist in San Francisco (he is a defense lawyer), he is equally brash and charming, arrogant and worldly. The suit sits well on him, and actually, it is much more modern than the ones Cary Grant wore in Hitchcock’s films, more tailored to the body, a suit that would make very much sense today. Mitch and Melanie are both sharply dressed, both very much in control, both provoking each other under false pretense – so wonderfully concealing-not-revealing Hitchcock.

On the weekend however, we find him, and so does Melanie Daniels, at his family home in Bodega Bay, a few hours up the coast. With its boat-dotted harbour, winding roads through green meadows, and sturdy trucks, it is a tranquil fishermen’s village, where one meets a slower pace of life – it all sounds a little too familiar for what many of us have been gravitating to during these times, doesn’t it? The Brenners’ front lawn, with the bay and mountains behind, is particularly comforting… until it is not – all that open space will provide the ideal place for hundreds of birds to gather and attack.

Mitch is much more practically dressed around the house. Naturally, one may say at first sight. But the fact is there wasn’t often a clear delineation between office and off-duty wear in the classic films before the 1960s. When shown at home, the man would usually be depicted with his office shirt still on, only slightly unbuttoned to loosen the tie and with the sleeves rolled up to suggest he is during his down-time. I like how Rod Taylor’s character is so distinctly different out of town. It is here where he seems to come into his own, in the bucolic setting of Bodega Bay. That may also be a subtle analogy to Melanie’s transformation who gradually becomes “more natural and humane,” as François Truffaut described her character to Hitchcock, after she arrives in Bodega Bay, a clear departure from her sophisticate, cool and collected look when she first meets Mitch in San Francisco. Everyone is irrevocably changed after the birds start attacking for no apparent reason. Man does change, gains a new perspective on things in the face of unforeseen adversity.

Rod Taylor and Jessica Tandy in “The Birds”, 1963 | Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions

In his off-white fisherman’s sweater and blue neckerchief, Mitch Brenner gives a nod to the British heritage of both style pieces, and also to the working fishermen of Bodega Bay. What better garment with a storied past than the fisherman’s sweater, born out of utility, symbolising the importance of clan and unity within, something that Hitchcock’s character indeed seems to denote, with all the women in his life flocking around him?

His rugged masculinity does inspire strength and firm convictions and stability, so far-off from the combative flirtation and arrogance displayed when wearing a suit in the big city, and that’s why the tender moments and inner conflicts that occur after the birds start to attack and his vulnerability in the face of danger make him very relatable. And that’s exactly what Hitchcock counts on when the audience sees Mitch Brenner on screen.

Dressed in green side-pocket cargo trousers and white shirt, he starts to nail up the windows to the house. He has just taken off his tweed jacket. Previously, at his sister’s birthday celebration, he had sported the tweed jacket with the white shirt, slim tie and tweed trousers. The tweed jacket, with structured shoulders, flapped side pockets and short vents and worn with military pants, is a perfect blend of traditional English sports tailoring and American modern sensibility. Mitch Brenner ushers in the modern man, one who appreciates the classics but rejuvenates them to bring them up to the times. He also shows that he is not just a substitute for his late father, as his possessive mother considers him, but someone who strikes the right balance between the old and new world. Practical and rugged looking, he knows he must take everything in his hands.

Only you can not control what you don’t understand and what seems to have no logical explanation. And this “ambiguity makes the threat operate at every level of audience consciousness,” as observed in Ian Cameron and Richard Jeffrey’s interview with Hitchcock, from 1963. It operates on Mitch’s consciousness too. You feel the danger and sense the fear just by observing Mitch Brenner in the most suspenseful moments: his concern when he comes to Melanie’s aid after she is hit by the seagull in the boat, his reaction to the birds coming down the chimney, his repeated attempt to get away from the birds that keep packing his hand as he tries to close the shutter, the excruciating care with which he passes by the burbling birds lining the fences, trees and roof as he aims for the garage. By choosing Rod Taylor as his leading man, Hitchcock gets his message through in the most effective way: there is “too much complacency in the world, that people are unaware that catastrophe surrounds us all”.

“The Birds”, 1963 | Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions

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Posted by classiq in Film costume | | 1 Comment

25 September 2020

Real Emotion and Visual Power: Interview with Matt Needle

Film poster design by Matt Needle for “Casino Royale”, 2006, directed by Martin Campbell

Art is about living. Not in fear and uncertainty, but in hope and with all our being. Trusting real emotion and giving free reign to imagination and artistic creativity are the best formula for communication. We need art more than ever.

Movies are one of the most accessible ways for people to experience art. The movie poster (a good movie poster, that is), an art in its own right, is the gateway to the bigger picture, and part of the movie experience. Not only does it go to the very heart of the story, simple, elegant, witty, through a revealing and striking image and typography, but it captures the mood of the times. It holds you in the thrall of that distinct story and, later on, whenever you see the poster, of that distinct memory.

This kind of artistic sensibility doesn’t come too often nowadays, but it is exactly what sets the work of graphic designer and illustrator Matt Needle apart. Just one look at his Bond movies posters series, completed this week, in the run-up to the release of No Time to Die, a daunting yet impeccably pulled off personal task, and I instinctively knew that this is how the Bond movie posters should always have looked like. And I guess that comes from the fact that the greatest impact on Matt’s art is his instinctive feeling to create. He is true to his work. Real emotions seep through into his art and further reach the audience. And I am once again convinced that movies are an extension of oneself, of the one making them, of the one watching them.

In our interview, Matt and I are talking favourite Bond films, Bond girl Vesper Lynd, design process and influences, and what cinema is truly about.

Film poster design by Matt Needle for “Dr. No”, 1962, directed by Terence Young

I would like to start with your poster for Casino Royale. Not just because it is one of my favourite Bond films and because it features the best Bond girl (I love how your artwork spotlights Eva Green), but because your poster is brilliant and such a class act in itself. I was looking at the official poster for the film when it was released and felt very disappointed. And that is because when seeing your posters I realised that this is how I have always wanted the posters for the Bond movies to be and that something has been missing from the Bond experience, at least from the Bond experience of the last two decades. Why do you think there is still this reluctance in approaching the official Bond poster design more creatively, to engage the viewer rather than serve as name placement for the actors starring? Does the audience of the Bond movies, which are so well established, still need to be sold the films this way?

Firstly, thank you for such high praise and kind words about my work. This project has been such a great creative outlet for me to distract from the horrific 2020 we’ve all been living through. I started the project right as the pandemic hit and it kept me sane and creatively enthused when potential projects were put on hold or cancelled all together.

From the outset, I knew I wanted to work on something that focused on my favourite film series (James Bond) to coincide with the release of the 25th film (No Time To Die) and that I wanted to created a modern, fresh, yet simultaneously vintage feeling alternative to the existing key marketing art that’s out there.

The newer key art pieces from the past few decades have fit the modern constraints of film advertisement and marketing, which is to stay a clean crisp, star and name driven photographic pieces that can be chopped and cropped into various formats, mostly consumed on a screen at a small size/resolution. Whilst I respect that (and work on a lot of it for my day job), it doesn’t always excite me personally, but I don’t need to be sold or persuaded to check out a new Bond film, I’m a life-long fan and these types of posters are aimed at the mass public.

The problem is the new posters lack the energy/action of the instantly iconic painted pieces by McGinnis, Gouzee et al. and that’s something I wanted to address. My main objective with the project was to create a free flowing, abstract series of artworks, that harkens back to the vintage routes and played on nostalgia, whilst also being modern, fresh and contemporary. Each piece was to be a different creative expression and exploration of style and technique whilst being instantly recognisable as Bond and also part of a series even though they are all vastly different and stand alone at the same time.

The Casino Royale piece in particular needed to feel elegant and classic, and as Vesper Lynd is one of the most iconic and strongest Bond girls in the series and the catalyst for a lot of the Daniel Craig era films direction, there was no doubt she needed to take centre stage. The film is essentially all about her.

Movies come to us, so why go to the movies? Never has this idea loomed larger than in the last few months. Do you think artistic film poster design, the kind that goes beyond “photographic pieces that can be chopped and cropped into various formats, mostly consumed on a screen at a small size/resolution” will face new challenges in the current environment?

To be honest, thanks to the power of social media and the rise of fan art, I think studios are looking into it as an additional online marketing tool more and more. In the past few years, I’ve worked on many projects for Disney/Marvel/Pixar and other studios such as 20th Century Fox and Sony Pictures that have adopted this method, and although the pieces are not always printed out, the reach of the channels this art is posted and shared on is great for both the film they are marketing and, if correctly credited, the artist as well. Hopefully, this is a trend that continues as it allows you to see a different side of the film, supports and grows a creative community and the fan base.

Film poster design by Matt Needle for “No Time to Die”, 2020, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga

Will you go to the cinema to watch No Time to Die?

No, unfortunately I won’t be venturing back into the cinema. I have a small child, so I barely get the time to go much anymore, plus I just don’t feel safe in the current climate. I would’ve loved to have seen both this and Tenet, but I’ll just have to be patient and wait for home rental/streaming.

With the No Time to Die poster, released this week, you’ve arrived at your 25th James Bond poster. How intimidating was it to create a whole series on the James Bond films?

As mentioned above, I’ve been a huge Bond fan from a very young age, I remember catching a re-run of Goldfinger on TV when I was probably around 5 or 6 and from then I was hooked, I would video tape (remember them?) every film in the series when it was shown on tv and rewatch them over and over again. I even watched the terrible James Bond Jr. Cartoon and collected a fan magazine. It’s fair to say I was obsessed.

I’ve been designing film art and alternative posters for the last 15 years, ever since I was at college, I created side projects for myself to keep busy and experiment with styles and techniques whilst honouring my favourite films. I’ve wanted to do something Bond-based for years, but never really known how or when to approach it. Being a now 25 film series, it’s such a sprawling/daunting task, but the pandemic has actually paved way to giving me a little more time to work on some personal projects, due to my day to day design jobs being put on hold.

Film poster design by Matt Needle for “Spectre”, 2015, directed by Sam Mendez, and for “Goldfinger”, 1964, directed by Guy Hamilton

Do you have a favourite Bond film?

It’s a tough choice. It’s either Goldfinger, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service or Goldeneye though. I love all three for different reasons. As mentioned, Goldfinger was the first Bond I saw, and Goldeneye was the first I saw at a cinema. And On Her Majesty’s Secret Service just feels so different but integral to the series to creatively move the franchise forward.

What other movies from your childhood stand out as having had an important impact on you?

So many it’s hard to list, but here are a few… Everything from Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Goonies, ET, Back to the Future. I was also obsessed with reruns of 60s/70s tv shows like The Avengers, Prisoner, Twilight Zone, Mission Impossible.

”That is a project that is completely by me and for me.
I made them as a love letter to Bond and something to
keep me creatively occupied during the global pandemic.”

Licence to Kill is another favourite of mine, less fun and far-fetched, grittier, and introducing a tougher, darker, more serious, and, in my opinion, a damn good Bond played by Timothy Dalton. I like your take on the poster. Different (as each poster in the series is different from the rest). And I would like to ask: What is your design process like?

I love the Dalton films as well. They feel more gritty and grown up and very 80s. Those posters feel quite close in style compared to the rest of the series. But my process for all the posters was informed by the themes/story elements of the films as well as the time period that the film was from, so the older films feel more classic compared to the more modern films posters. For each piece, I rewatched the movie, jotted down some notes, quick sketches and come up with some strong concepts which I would then play around with stylistically (for example, the Dalton films posters needed to feel moody/gritty, hence the chosen colour scheme for Living Daylights).

Film poster design by Matt Needle for “Licence to Kill”, 1989, directed by John Glen

Your film poster design style taps into an earlier age of graphic design. Both simple and complex, in a pared-down palette, unearthing new thoughts and ideas, attracting and holding instead of overwhelming the viewers’ interest and eye with subtle yet effective details. How would you describe your style and were there any early influences on your work?

For years I kind of got pigeonholed in a certain vector minimalist style, as that’s the style of work I kind of broke through with, fresh out of university in 2009. As mentioned, I was creating alternative poster art which was being circulated online through WordPress/Tumblr/Twitter/ Pinterest. That work was heavily inspired by the work of Saul Bass, Milton Glaser, Paul Rand, amongst others. That style was fun to work in and I dip into it now and again for certain elements, but my heart has always been in strong experimental/abstract collage/montage work.

This is the work I always used to produce and I’ve been shifting back towards this style for the past 5 years or so. As well as film posters, I also work pretty heavily in editorial illustration (recent clients include The Economist, GQ, Total Film) and this style works so well across all of the mediums/outlets in which I work.

I’d say my work nowadays is inspired by Bill Gold, Andy Warhol, Hans Hillman, Richard Hamilton, Polish Film Poster design movement, Dada Art Movements, Pop Art, and many more.

”I had no idea what this film was, but I knew I needed
to see it based purely upon that iconic/mysterious artwork.”

Does this style of illustration make it less challenging for you as an artist to relate your personal, freelance work to your commissioned work?

I pride myself being a fairly adaptable person, but I do prefer working in this style purely because it’s more of a creative journey and an experimental process which is way more exciting as a creative person.

Film poster design by Matt Needle for “1917”, 2019, directed by Sam Mendes

What makes a good movie poster?

Something that is instantly recognisable, iconic and lasting. A lot of studio output is kind of slick but disposable nowadays, whilst a lot of people still fondly remember the iconic work of someone like Bill Gold or Saul Bass from 40-50 years ago.

I also like a poster that makes people think, so that when the film begins the viewer has a resonance with it. Do you remember when it was the first time that a film poster made you want to watch a film you had’t yet viewed?

I totally agree. That’s why I try to work in some easter eggs/subtle references into each of my designs. As for the first poster that made me want to watch a film I hadn’t seen was when I stumbled upon Drew Struzan’s poster for John Carpenter’s The Thing as a kid. I had no idea what this film was, but I knew I needed to see it based purely upon that iconic/mysterious artwork.

Drew Struzan once said that his work is an expression of him, and that “the filmmaker has his story but I cannot do more than have my understanding of that, my feelings for it.”

Totally agree. That is the essence of my approach on almost every project, I try to process my own emotional response to the source material and apply an effective method for visually conveying that and the key story points as well.

Film poster design by Matt Needle for “Thelma & Louise”, 1991, directed by Ridley Scott

I would bring into discussion so many posters of yours, but I first want to mention Thelma & Louise. I love that you captured the ending, that ending that Ridley Scott insisted on, a symbolic ending, focusing on the women, on their keeping driving on in the air and then the cutting off from view mid-air. “I wanted it to be a happy ending… It’s noble… a touch of class.” I know that this was a project for Scott Free, Ridley Scott’s production company. How much of a collaborative idea was your design approach?

I’ve been lucky enough to work with Scott Free on a few projects and the process is always a smooth collaborative one. They give me a free reign to come up with some ideas and then we discuss the strongest one and develop from that point. We all knew that the ending needed to factor into the piece as it’s so iconic. The final piece is actually pretty much the rough draft that I pitched, only with a few minor artist tweaks.

Film poster design by Matt Needle for “Roma”, 2018, directed by Alfonso Cuarón

Your Roma poster really captures the feeling of the film. With a clean design but specific and beautiful texture, you once again provoke an interest in the story of the film, a film that brings you into a different life and time. Can you say a few words about your work here?

Roma was an absolute masterpiece, a beautiful piece of visual poetry, which evoked a few of my favourites from cinema history (from the movies of Fellini to The 400 Blows by François Truffaut). The idea behind my poster was to take a fairly mundane scene from the film and use this to focus upon “Cleo” in her day to day work and almost iconise the image, the use of strong textures, muted colour pallete and font inspired by Italian typography from 1950s-70s, all of this came together fairly quickly as the poster was pretty much how I envisioned it when I was watching the movie.

Film poster design by Matt Needle for “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood”, 2019, directed by Quentin Tarantino

“It is probably my most personal. I think of it like my memory piece. Alfonso [Cuarón] had Roma and Mexico City, 1970. I had L.A. and 1969. This is the year that formed me. I was six years old then. This is my world. And this is my love letter to L.A.,” Tarantino said about Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. Quentin Tarantino is one of the last purveyors of movie making. He loves cinema. He shows that artistic freedom is still possible, that you can still think in terms of making movies just for yourself, that he puts every thought and every sense and every emotion into making a film, that, yes, he can do what he likes and say what he likes – it’s his story. But behind the black comedy crazy bravura and auteurist excursion, he showed restraint, too, in the way he depicted Sharon Tate, her image looming over the entire film. And, with your poster, you carry that feeling on, knowing how to trust real emotion and its power – I believe that’s a good summation of cinema.

That is the perfect summation of cinema and when a director is firing on all cylinders like Tarantino was with OUATIH, that is exactly what I bring to my work as well. It’s a sense that why should there be too many rules, why can’t we just make stuff that pleases us and is accessible for all at the same time?

Circling back to my Bond posters, that is a project that is completely by me and for me. I wouldn’t really care if no one else liked them. I made them as a love letter to Bond and, as I mentioned, something to keep me creatively occupied during the global pandemic. But it turns out a lot of people have resonated with the series of work through my personal vision/twist on some iconic movies.

A limited edition of Bond movie alternative posters are available for sale on Matt’s online store: needledesign.bigcartel.com

Website: mattneedle.co.uk | Instagram: @needledesign

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