Things Fall Apart Film Poster.

Date: 1971

Link: https://youtu.be/rfAj_wKZRbY?si=o-cc2vb4TUTc16fJ

The above image (FG.1) is the official film poster for a movie adaptation of the phenomenal book “Things fall apart.” Authored by one of Nigeria’s literary legends Chinua Achebe. 

Poster design overseen by the art Director Dave Aradeon.

The book itself was written and released in 1956, which was really a sensitive period in the country as this was considered the colonial era. The book gained a lot of attention as the author was considered to have fictionally penned down how a lot of Nigerians, especially the Ibo tribe felt about the shift in the cultural paradigm, which was induced by the white colonial masters.

The film poster does speak a lot about the country’s advancement in art at the time the movie was released in 1971 and about the culture around the precolonial period set for the story. The designers of the film poster like many other designers at the time, employed the use of illustration to appeal to a broad audience. Although, at this time there weren’t really a lot of major cinemas or theaters so the use of illustrated film posters would only appeal to the upper, middle-class audience as they were considered more learned and would have the skill of interpreting Illustrated art also, they had access to movie theaters as they could afford it. The illustration does tell a little bit about the story or at the very least what to expect from it. We see what seems the face of a woman crying, a man enraged, a man with a torch and an image of a white man wearing a white uniform, which according to the illustration could be one of the colonial masters or missionaries. From the illustration on the film poster, we can see that the movie tells a story of struggle and depicts a potential tragedy. We also see that the designer did use one of the more ambiguous images as a white background to highlight the text on the poster. This poster was considered progressive in the early days of film making in Nigeria.

To appeal to the lower-class audience, the film production companies would design a different set of film posters that would go on VCDs, DVDs and Cassettes like the image above (FG.2). The cassettes were more popular at the time, but those were considered ephemera and because of this a lot of those cassettes and cassette wraps have either been destroyed or lost. In these set of film posters, a lot of designers would employ the use of photography to appeal to the lower-class audience as most were uneducated and didn’t possess the skill of interpreting illustrated art. The image that would go on these posters would be photos of popular actors that are easily identified by the viewer. The text on the film poster would also highlight the names of the cast members to entice the intended audience as it was done here. 

A link to the movie has been attached.

Reference Links

Original Things fall apart film poster link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208779/mediaviewer/rm3906326273/?ref_=tt_ov_i

FG.2 Things fall apart film poster link:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt0208779%2F&psig=AOvVaw0zzSND1YUiAwwHgEEMzo-8&ust=1708280917468000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBMQjRxqFwoTCKD88LuAs4QDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE

Book  Summary Reference link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_Fall_Apart