Review by C.J. Bunce
Only a few Hollywood movie stars have reached icon status as Clint Eastwood has, from TV actor and film star in Westerns to street-smart leading man and pop culture idol, playing against type and then back again, and onward to award-winning director. Eastwood has made his mark, and it makes sense that enough movie posters have featured his image and films to justify a book focused exclusively on the subject of the artwork instead of spotlighting any specific artist. Not so much a survey of artwork as much as a comprehensive guide to movie posters featuring the star, Clint Eastwood: Icon–The Essential Film Art Collection is available this month in a revised and expanded edition for the first time in a decade.
In many ways Clint Eastwood: Icon would make for the ultimate auction catalog were all the items pictured for sale. But it’s more than that. Writer and compiler David Frangioni’s approach to collecting and his details about key posters will educate and inform even the passing film fan and collector. Film expert and professor Thomas Schatz provides commentary on the context of Eastwood and his films within each decade. Every area of collecting should be so lucky to have such a presentation in this format for its fans to admire. Frangioni and Schatz include references to the artists when known, which is rare over the course of these hundreds of images. The collection of work from these artists provides another niche study area for the history movie posters, including an international array of artists like Michelangelo Papuzza, Renato Casaro, Sanford Kossin, Peter Max, Jack Davis, Hans Braun, Lutz Peltzer, Lorenzo and Giuliano Nistri, Ron Lesser, John Alvin, Frank Frazetta, Bob Peak, Birney Lettick, Roger Huyssen, and Gerard Huerta. Definitely a few names movie poster and pop art fans will recognize.
The posters represented aren’t only those styles seen by audiences entering American movie theaters. These include many variations that appeared in theaters across the globe, some by artists whose names are lost to time, with decade-appropriate type styles and language to match. As time marched on, more and more posters featured photographic images of Eastwood from the films, or other marketing photos of the actor inserted with or without additional artwork and text. Why use a painting of Eastwood to advertise a Dirty Harry film when a photograph is most likely to reel in filmgoers?
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