EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 24 © 2018 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

85 Michel Landi Another great figurative artist with a keen eye for design as well. Landi, one of the fewremaining classic French poster artists still active, falls into the figurative style of artists like Mascii and Soubie, but nonetheless was as great a graphic stylist as some of the earlier French poster artists. He claimed that he usually did the posters with what first came to his mind, sometimes without even looking at the film or knowing what it was about. A simple title could let his mind go wandering until he picked on an idea (posters to two DePalma films, ‘Blowout’ and ‘Dressed to Kill’ may attest to this, as they have little to do with either film, aside from being “intriguing”). On the other hand, his poster for ‘Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence’ captures the portraits of its two main protagonists perfectly, suggesting photo- references was used here. And at times, when no ideas came, Landi would use photographs, which he photocopied at high density so as to eliminate any grey tones, which he would then paint in black stippling (as for the poster for the 1968 film ‘Bullitt’). Although he would say at other times that the only way to work on a film poster was to actually see the film first. However, in certain circumstances, when a film wasn’t available for him to see, it was the producer or director who would guide him through it. Or as FACING PAGE: ‘ Bullitt’ (1968). Although based on the original American poster, Landi stippled the main image and added the chasing cars at the bottom, all within a silver background, creating an image with a much greater visual and graphic impact than its American counterpart. BELOW LEFT: ‘ Don Giovanni’ (1979). In what ended up being a sort of contest, various artists were asked to create a poster for this Joseph Losey film based on Mozart’s opera. The one by Landi ended being used for the film. BELOW RIGHT: ‘ Harem’ (1985). During the César ceremonies (the French equivalent of the Hollywood Oscars) of 1986, the category for best movie poster was added, and Landi won with this one.