The other side of midnight

Posters are standing in the line between art and advertising. They attract viewers to the movie and hold commercial purpose but also bear an artistic value. Interestingly, romance movie posters also perform visual effects and convey underlying values which strongly connect to the content. All of which directly cause emotional impact and stay in viewers' minds.

The poster movie 'The other side of midnight' directed by Charles Jarrott produced in 1977 was an adaption to the same name novel written by Sidney Sheldon. The poster is design in half and read vertically with all visual weights on the right, as a trick to make the viewer peruse from right to left. The use of the color scheme is very simple with white, black, red and navy blue. This sets out cold tone and hints a slight difference as most romance genre would leave out the cold palette to highlight the fire of hope and love. Besides, the text, in bold design and gives generous space to the title with main casts sitting above and the tagline residing underneath suggest pretty clear its main topic is about love and romance, tinged with some twists and toss as it ends with 'power', shows this is not a mere love movie. As we can tell in the man's blue outfit, which bears striking similarity to military's uniform, the movie plot may take place in the time where wars dominate.

To the centre is the image of a couple having intercourse crafted in an abnormal way: they are mingling with each other which connotes the movie is full of love and romance. Its title as well as their bodies are partly hidden in the dark also imply secret, passion and possibly, crime. Also, The poster with the white side covered would reveal a black background with only half of the woman body as if there is no man with her, which can be interpreted that either this relationship is clandestine and disapproving so that they are forced to cover it or they are drifting apart eventually. The poster also employs Gestalt theory of closure. As we can detect two difference shapes of the man and the woman with no difficulty although they are mixed with each other. Besides, the salience on the woman's intense face and her de-dressed body also call out attention. Vertically, we scan over that curving line to the rose held in her hand. The red color also directs our eyes to follow the other half of the woman's body covered in the man's blue outfit and finally return to their expression. If our eyes stray away to other figures, the vertical line in the centre will carry us back to the couples' faces. The iconography is used in the prominent red rose hanging in her hand. This may shows she is having strangled with is the man of true love and she is destined to be with him.

Visual elements on this movie poster convey a powerful message, ít excellently gives out the vibe and sells the story even before the viewers actually see it, weaves through the clutter of images and raises a persuasive voice, to grab attention and to inspire . Through a movie poster, movie-goers undergo the process of analysing an artistic object and partly come to the conclusion of whether this movie is worth it or not.

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