Thursday, January 22, 2015

Blog#1 - Boyhood(2014) poster

Boyhood


          This apparently simple but enticing poster of Boyhood successfully conveys the main idea of the film and entices me to experience it. The three main points of ethos, pathos, and logos with visual attractive elements shown on the poster successfully convince the audience to experience the movie.  
          
          The expressions and setting of the poster immediately catches the audiences’ pathos. The name of the movie, Boyhood, the lighting, and the shot of a boy lying on his back in green grass staring at the sky with much thoughts in his head infuse us with the contemplation of the so-called life and time. It can be easily recognized that this kid (Ellar Coltrane) is the main role of this film. This child is watching the world, and we are watching him, grow up from a baby fat to stubble. The questioning eyes of the kid and his pensive face directly indicates one highest possible film genre, drama of teens and family relationships. Moreover, the poster captures so well all the bright colors of green and blue, and the shadings of the process of “becoming” of certain people.

          The big remarkable tag line on the poster, “A moving 12 year epic - that isn’t quite like anything else in the history of cinema” not only considerably provides logos but also helps build up credibility, beliefs and expectations from the audiences. The movie was filmed throughout continuous 12 years of the characters, which enhance the credibility for itself and also strike the audience with very first new film genre. Filming through the characters’ 12-year lifetime impresses us with the brand new fictional drama contoured but shaped by reality – something uniquely “epic”.  The process of maturity of specific characters is not only filmed on scene but also in real time progress, which is remarkably, fully expressed through the tag. The film let us be the third person, allowing us to contemplate, witness, and think about the protagonist’s life as well as our own life. This tag line does not restrict itself within the enjoyment of adults who would love to remember about their youth but allows younger viewers who could then discover their emotions and the meanings of life. “The moving 12 year epic,” a groundbreaking story of growing up as seen through the eyes of the child, is screened in front of our eyes. The words are concise but absolutely catch my attention right after the moment I saw it. The poster definitely succeeds in enticing me to see the movie, because the best way to understand the film is to experience it.

         Furthermore, below the tagline and the title, the appearance of the writer/director’s name, Richard Linklater, reinforces his own credibility and thus induces audience attendance. Subjectively, I think the movie is experimented with both professional and mostly non-professional actors/actresses. However, Linklater’s experiment with the brand new genre and not too famous movie stars successfully work out thanks to the director’s ethos. Life is always Linklater’s main topic. His subject is always people who walks through specific passage of lifetime, step by step. Such several previous movies of him as “the Before trilogy,” “School of Rock,” then, “Dazed and Confused” all shared the same theme, focusing on the process of “becoming.” Therefore, background knowledge about Linklater gives the audience the expectation of the subject and message of Boyhood. 

          Overall, the poster actually succeeds in illustrating the most important aspects of the movie, conveying its main topic, and enticing people to go for it. The film actually experienced its success on countless top 10 must-watch movie lists of 2014. To me, Boyhood is a worthwhile experience, to see myself there, to look back at childhood memories and think about the so-called lifetime.  

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