Textual Analysis-Poster: Django Unchained

This poster is for the 2012 film, Django Unchained. The interesting thing about this poster that strays from convention is its reliance on the expectation of the film. Straight away the audience notices that there is no title for the film. Instead, it is advertised as 'the new film by Quentin Tarantino'. For a lot of people, this piece of information would have already sold the movie to them since Tarantino is such a praised director. This confidence in its creative team is further shown with the release date of christmas being shown. This will ensure that the film will be talked about for having its release on christmas, since it is such an uncommon date but at the same time it will ensure a new year box office.

The poster gives only essential information about the film away. The poster sticks to a very minimalist layout. The colours associated with the film are the base of the poster, using reds and darker reds. These colours offer connotations to violence and blood. The use of these connotations set the tone for the story, showing revenge and blood for blood. The two main characters are put in the front of the poster, although we cannot see details of these characters, we can assume their identity after watching trailers related to the film. We can see a chain in the centre of the poster. This shows the aspect of Django becoming a free man after being enslaved. The poster also does a great job of establishing the genre of the film. The washed out effect of the poster give the impression that it is old. The use of font type combines with this in order to give the impression that this film is a western.

To conclude, the poster gives away minimal information but at the same time guarantees that large audiences will go see the film. Quentin Tarantino is made to be the focus of the poster which will draw all types of film fans to the project. Genre is established clearly with the expectation of Tarantino's unique violence and revenge story telling. We can see other key story elements such as the two main characters and the broken chain which suggests freedom.