written by Wioletta Kazimierska-Jerzyk (08.11.2020)
translated by the Editorials Team (31.12.2020)
A poster is said 鈥渢o have to do something鈥�: to talk, shout, appeal, persuade, exhort, sing (we have quoted this Jan Lenica鈥檚 deep truth about a singing poster more than once鈥�). This poster is laughing!
Let us try to imagine the situation that (on the artist鈥檚 work see: oraz ) outlines in an interview conducted by Ewa Reeves1:
The Film Rental Center (the monopolistic distributor in the times of the Polish People鈥檚 Republic), when obtaining another film, organizes a screening for graphic designers. The reader reads the dialogues. None of the artists knows who will receive the commission to paint the poster. So it is better to make sure earlier what they will display, at least for general gist. Because maybe it is better not to come at all鈥�
Jerzy Treutler 鈥� a lover of American cinema 鈥� goes to the screening of The Pathfinder, a film made in 1969, based on the adventure novel by an American author, James Fenimore Cooper. This title is the third part of the famous The Leatherstocking Tales (in Poland more commonly known as The Hawk鈥檚 Eye Pentalogy). The Pathfinder has been present in Poland since 1928, when the first translation of the book was published. Treutler gets a commission for a movie poster.
Meanwhile, it turns out that the film is a Franco-West German-Austrian-Romanian co-production. Moreover, it was extracted from a four-episode television series (broadcast in West Germany and France) and was shown in the cinemas in Eastern Europe as a single picture. Romanian co-director, Sergiu Nicolaescu, whose name appears as the second on the Polish poster 鈥� otherwise a very effective and, of course, a regime-supporting artist 鈥� was not mentioned at all in the German and French TV versions. Polish film magazines wrote briefly about the film at the appropriate time2. To find out more, you have to look for the titles given by the local European distributors, because the film is known under various titles: Aventura in Ontario (Romania), Dobrodru啪stv铆 v Ont谩riu (Czechoslovakia), Indiankaland Ontarioban (Hungary), Die Lederstrumpf-Erz盲hlungen, Teil 3: Das Fort am Biberfluss (West Germany / TV), La legende de bas de cuir, episode 3: Aventures en Ontario (France / TV). As you can see, only the German title emphasizes the adventures of the main character, not the charm of Lake Ontario, which is sometimes said to be the strongest point of Cooper鈥檚 novel. The TV series was said to be an exciting production at the time, prepared as a Christmas gift for viewers and able to get especially young people off the streets3.
Of course, not everyone got caught up in this tale of the myth of American masculinity, which is about being both civilized and wild in a frame of self-conscious transformation4. So we will not find Leather Stocking (the main character of Natty Bumppo) on Treutler鈥檚 poster. The entire composition is filled with a pale face鈥� adorned with an Indian plume in which every other feather is red! The Indians painted them in this colour only when they decided to commemorate an outstanding militant act. However, the poster does not show the expression of a honoured warrior at all. Instead, we can see the shape of a white head filled with a toy figurine of a British hussar, who is about to fall backwards being struck by an Indian arrow 鈥� this is probably Major Dunham (whose daughter Mabel is more important for the plot than he himself). The main colours of the composition 鈥� of course 鈥� remind us that the action takes place during the colonial war between Great Britain and France: the former are the allies of the main character growing up with the Delewars, the latter conspire with the Iroquois (Dunham falls on their arrows).
What to do with this poster which looks like an abstract composition, formally most resembling the rhythmically arranged decoration of the Tutankhamen mask? Well, for Treutler as a poster designer, the main challenge was to add his own contribution to the film5. As in the case of , the artist saw in The Pathfinder 鈥渁 dramatic story, but intended for big children鈥�6. There is no point in looking for a 鈥渞eal Indian鈥� in this composition, as well as Juliette Villard鈥檚 (Mabel) beauty or the landscapes glorified in the novel. Perhaps it looks like 鈥渁 square peg in a round hole鈥�, which the artist himself gladly admitted7. But that is good for poster lovers. The poster was not able to either help or harm the distribution of the film at the time, but it entered the history of the Polish School of Posters under the slogan 鈥渢his is how posters about the wild west are made in Poland鈥�?. The quality of this graphic proposal and the difference it makes can be seen on the website dedicated to spaghetti westerns. All the posters created for The Pathfinder are published . And which one would you choose? None of the serious ones. Am I right?
This movie might have been liked in the 1970s, yet I am only interested in this poster. But not only because it is a kind of ironic representation 鈥� as it seems to me 鈥� referring to the protagonists鈥� stereotypical character, especially their aesthetic representation; not only because Treutler makes fun of the boyish solemnity of the European western. I like the puzzle the artist created and how much it says about posters of the time. When we think of the Polish School of Posters as a accumulation of brilliant ideas, we should also remember how complex they were conceptually.
By the way, the 鈥渞eal鈥� Indian was used by Treutler a year later in a social poster entitled . This poster is laughing too. And so hard!
1 Ewa Reeves, Rozmawiaj膮c z Jerzym Treutlerem鈥�, w: Jerzy Treutler. Grafik Projektant. Retrospektywa, red. Ewa Reeves, Muzeum Plakatu w Wilanowie, Warszawa 2020, s. 128鈥�147.
2 鈥濬ilmowy Serwis Prasowy鈥� 1971, nr 17 , s. 19鈥�20; 鈥濬ilm鈥� 1971, nr 41, s. 15.
3 allerlei2013riffmaster, James Fenimore Cooper 鈥� Ledertrumpf 鈥� Teil 1: Der Wildt枚ter (Film 鈥� ZDF) (1969), 23.03.2017, .
4 Colin A. Clarke, Like a Mirror Reflecting Itself: Natty Bumppo, The Virginian, and the Fate of the American Frontier, James Fenimore Cooper Society Website, .
5 Ewa Reeves, Rozmawiaj膮c z Jerzym Treutlerem鈥�, s. 137.
6&苍产蝉辫;罢补尘偶别.
7&苍产蝉辫;罢补尘偶别.