aluminum Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 This topic was imported from the Typophile platform I watched the Ninth Gate last night from Netflix. IMHO, a rather unremarkable film that I normally would have just shut off if not for the fact that it all centered around antique books. Type didn't play a huge part, but got me thinking about what other semi-mainstream movies might use graphic design and/or type centric plot elements. Any come to mind? Any romances set in a print shop? Any murder mysterious surrounding a sign factory? The Scarlet Letter? Link to comment
AndrewSipe Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 Stranger Than Fiction has some very interesting graphic elements to help illustrate the written words. Link to comment
pattyfab Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 Prospero's Books? I haven't seen it in a while. Link to comment
k.l. Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 American Psycho. (The business card scene.) Link to comment
Si_Daniels Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 Shop Girl - the bloke (who isn't Steve Martin) is a failed type designer. Domino – Chris Walken’s character rants about design apparently I’ve not seen either movie. Link to comment
Ignacio Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 Truffaut loved books. In the "Mississippi Mermaid" there is a scene of the printing process of a tobaco package with the face of Catherine Deneuve, and if I remember well, in "The Man Who Loved Women" there is one or two scenes about books and printing. I also remember a cool scene in an antique book store with Bogart in The Big Sleep. Di Caprio is arrested in a french press in "Catch Me If You Can". Link to comment
Si_Daniels Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 Here's some... The Printer's Devil from, 1923 -http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0014375/ The Font of Courage, 1917 -http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0953400/ The Mafia Type, 2004 -http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0459451/ The Wrong Type, 1994 -http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402593/ Times, 2002 -http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308985/ etc., etc., Link to comment
david h Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 There're a lot of them. -- The New Age - Judy Davis is a graphic designer. Type/typefaces (movies & tv) see the documentary: Hollywood at Last Link to comment
Stephen Coles Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 It's a small part, but there's a great scene in The Lives of Others, in which a Stasi expert describes to an investigator the letterforms of the typewriter model used by a dissident writer. Link to comment
Stephen Coles Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 > Shop Girl - the bloke (who isn’t Steve Martin) is a failed type designer. Not exactly. He just says he's working on a font. It's more of a funny little line than an actual intended profession. Link to comment
Miss Tiffany Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 American Psycho with Christian Bale. There are a few great scenes where the yuppie lawyers compare typefaces and paper stock, they also mention letterpress. Link to comment
Miss Tiffany Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 I should add that the initial meeting where the cards are shown and compared gets Christian Bale's character mad enough to kill the guy who supposedly has a nicer card. Link to comment
Nick Shinn Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 Dustin Hoffman played an art director in Kramer vs. Kramer. His marriage was ruined staying up all night working on ad layouts. Link to comment
delve Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 There's that obscure film that recently came out. I doubt anyone on here has seen it. It's called "Helvetica". :) Link to comment
sihep Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 The main female character in De Niro/Pacino film “Heat” is a graphic designer with a copy of Fuse on her desk in one scene. As mentioned above Patrick Bateman being upstaged by someone else’s business card is the classic one: “Oh my God, it even has a watermark!” Link to comment
canderson Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 It's not a movie, but I've always liked the Twilight Zone episode "Printer's Devil." Burgess Meredith plays an expert Lin-o-type operator who turns out to be Satan. Link to comment
pattyfab Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 Any film involving a ransom note. Link to comment
david h Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 > Any film involving a ransom note. The Clearing, for example. Link to comment
russellm Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 There was a German film I saw a few years ago on TV... I think it dated from the'80s. A famous graphic designer - head of a big firm is always wrapped up in his work. Eats sleeps and drinks design. Design design design. His wife is bored. She has an affair and runs off with a hip young artist. Uber cool young artist. The husband responds by taking the young atist (who reminds him of himself) under his wing and turning him into an uber successful, famous designer - With whom his wife quickly becomes bored and she returns home. The young artist's life is destroyed by success. What a terrible revenge. I don't remember the name of the film though Link to comment
Choz Cunningham Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 There’s that obscure film that recently came out. I doubt anyone on here has seen it. It’s called “Helvetica”. :) Here, you need this: .~ (Sorry, I just had to.) Link to comment
aluminum Posted August 24, 2007 Author Share Posted August 24, 2007 Whoa...my NetFlix queue is now 3 years long! Some good recommendations in here! Link to comment
ChuckGroth Posted August 24, 2007 Share Posted August 24, 2007 here's a horrible film (based on a wonderful play), but the demi moore character was a graphic designer, if i remember correctly: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090583/ and again at:www.fast-rewind.com/alnight.htm Link to comment
Knight Posted August 24, 2007 Share Posted August 24, 2007 I always loved the opening title credits for Dr. Strangelove. As for the type being a plot element, I thought that the recreation of Times Square was well done from the recent King Kong. On a side note: I always loved the map in Goonies, even though it is not well done, but I thought it was still cool. -Joe Link to comment
AndrewSipe Posted August 24, 2007 Share Posted August 24, 2007 The "Out-of-Towners" starring Steve Martin as an Ad Executive who has an interview in New York. His hilarious hijinx throughout the movie become the concept for his interview presentation. In "Catwoman" Haley Barry's character is a Graphic Designer during the day. Also, if you goto www.imdb.com and search for Graphic Designer or Web Designer under plots, there's like 4 or 5 movies that come up with characters who play such roles. Recently, I watched a show on the Sci-Fi Channel called "Mind-Control with Derren Brown" who manipulates people with subliminal messages. Here's a video of him tricking two employees of the Saatchi and Saatchi ad agency that they'll pitch him an idea he has already written down.Sci Fi Pulse Link to comment
typofoto Posted August 24, 2007 Share Posted August 24, 2007 In the 1991 Scorcese remake of Cape Fear, Jessica Lange's character is a graphic designer. She has a conversation with her daughter, played by Juliette Lewis, about how to draw a logo for a travel agency. Later on, the villain Max Cady (Robert De Niro) taunts her about her "pesky little sketches". Not quite a crucial plot point, but not a bad reference either. Link to comment
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