Scene from Drew: The Man Behind the Poster

Poster for Drew: The Man Behind the Poster

Drew: The Man Behind the Poster (2013)

Name: Drew: The Man Behind the Poster
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2013-07-19
Duration: 97 min
Rating: 7
Cast: Drew Struzan, Michael J. Fox, George Lucas, Frank Darabont, Guillermo del Toro

Drew: The Man Behind the Poster (2013), directed by Erik Sharkey, starring Drew Struzan and Michael J. Fox.

07/19/2013 BR Documentary 1h 37m

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Synopsis

A documentary on legendary movie-poster artist Drew Struzan.

Greg BoasCinematography, Writer
Thomas MummeCinematography
Erik SharkeyDirector
Jeff YorkesEditing

About the film

Drew: The Man Behind the Poster is a 2013 American documentary film about the career of film poster artist Drew Struzan. It is directed by Erik Sharkey and premiered on July 19, 2013 at San Diego Comic-Con.

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Synopsis

The documentary features interviews with a number of people, including Struzan himself, his wife, Dylan Struzan, his son, Christian Struzan, directors Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro and George Lucas, and actors Harrison Ford and Michael J. Fox. The film follows Struzan's career painting movie posters for films such as Star Wars, The Thing, Back to the Future, the Indiana Jones franchise, and the Harry Potter franchise.

The film delves into Struzan's art for Alice Cooper's album Welcome to My Nightmare, and also how his artwork for Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and Pan's Labyrinth, though greatly admired by del Toro, was rejected by the studio in favor of more photographic posters. This leads the documentary in a direction about how film studios are interested more in profit rather than quality, how film posters are more often photographs of the actors rather than paintings of them.

The documentary concludes with footage of Struzan at San Diego Comic-Con in 2010, wherein he receives the Inkpot Award for his illustrations. This is then followed by footage of Struzan talking about and showing his personal paintings not related to film, and how he spends his time painting not for someone else, but for himself, and how he often plays outside with grandson, Nico.

Critical reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 44% based on nine reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 59 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.

Andy Webster of The New York Times wrote that the film "becomes a mildly taxing torrent. And Mr. Struzan, while an agreeable presence, is not an especially engrossing speaker". Peter Debruge of Variety called the documentary "sophomore effort [that] is no masterpiece", although noting that he owned a Struzan poster himself and admired Struzan's "impressive oeuvre". Nick Schager of The A.V. Club appreciated that the documentary "makes a valid case for the artist as not simply an all-time great, but as a casualty of a business that prizes bottom-line cost management above unique creativity"; however, he disliked the film's focus on "lavishing adulation on Struzan".

Awards

References

External links

Drew: The Man Behind the Poster at IMDb

Drew: The Man Behind The Poster at Rotten Tomatoes

Drew: The Man Behind The Poster at Metacritic

Text from Drew: The Man Behind the Poster on Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew:_The_Man_Behind_the_Poster

Trivia

It premiered on July 19, 2013, a Friday.
It runs 1h37 — a typical feature length.
This film's quiz has 9 questions — enough to play more than once without repeats.