An official poster for Quentin Tarantino’s forthcoming slave saga Django Unchained was just released. It’s a bold graphic, in red and black, reminiscent of constructivist, primitivist, and mid-century modern aesthetics, and particularly, as others have observed, Saul Bass’ work. But the text on the new poster is isolated and terribly buttoned-up; it looks more like a caption than a title. The imagery doesn’t soft-pedal the theme, but it lacks the kooky emotionalism of some of the unofficial fanboy posters that have been circulating online. I want so much to see a hand at the top shaking the chain, like the hand in posters for The Godfather.
It’s a shame the designers didn’t try to incorporate Tarantino’s handwriting, which resembles that of an obsessive, over-stimulated, ten-year-old boy. I’ve been smitten since seeing the title page he crafted for the final draft of Inglourious Basterds, where he draws S’s like those in the Kiss logo. His hand, with its sloping, bloated block letters, looks like a serial killer’s, and yet there’s real tenderness in it. Look at the tenuous closing of the capital G in the Django poster and the tiny, trembling quotation marks. It’s a rich graphic.