This poster for Chris Nolan's 'The Dark Knight' is a simple but effective view of a character in the film and his reaction to his surroundings.
The first thing to draw in our eye is the text scrawled by 'the Joker' on the frosted glass in front of the screen, writing on frosted glass is something we associate with mischievous children, that gives us the impression that this character is playful. However the fact that he is writing in blood also gives the impression he is a killer, these 2 images combined show a man who plays human life.
To add to the disturbing images conjured up, he is writing 'Why so serious?' and in addition a smile drawn where his mouth is. This man is drawing with blood very close to where the camera is taking the picture, the seriousness that is not apparent to him is the fact that we know very little about him and his manner is very alien and threatening, this man clearly takes everything too far.
His relationship with his surroundings is shown not just by his urge to deface the glass but also by the towering city in the background which is faded and misty in comparison to his bold and dark shape, he blights the landscape of the city as if posing a great danger to it. The logo 'The Dark Knight' emblazoned on the Batman symbol makes up only a small portion of the screen overshadowed by the looming threat of 'the Joker'. I chose this poster because it really makes makes you want to see the movie because this picture is so frosted you can't see this man, you know nothing about him, but from one look you know this man is evil that is why this poster is very effective
This is an interesting response Ben. It works well as teaser poster as it creates lots of 'narrative enigmas' - like the scrawl on the frosted glass - and leaves us wanting to find out more. We want to know what the character looks like, what has caused him to write this question whilst at the same time we know the character's name so are aware of the pun. A good start.
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