Flashy visual exhibit lacks depth, context

By Alicia Cheak
Daily Bruin Contributor

Although the name sounds like the tagline for a low budget
science fiction flick, “Marquee Madness: The Attack of the 50
Foot Poster” reveals more about the art and showmanship of
movie marketing than about giant space monsters.

“Marquee Madness” is a new exhibit on display at the
Fowler Museum through June 24.

Visitors walk into the small rotunda transformed into a giant
advertisement board of movie posters, buttons, cutouts and standees
with hyped-up images and catch phrases on them.

While “Marquee Madness” does overload viewers with
visual stimuli, it fails to present a coherent study of the attack
on contemporary consciousness.

The pieces, which range from a towering Sandra Bullock in her
pageant stance from “Miss Congeniality” to a host of
smaller posters and movie memorabilia, use exaggeration to entice
potential moviegoers.

Some photos and graphics are excessively dramatic, such as Tom
Cruise’s profile in the poster for “MI:2.”

Posters are accompanied by equally over-the-top slogans such as
“Red Planet’s” “Not a sound, not a warning,
not a chance.”

As children’s films are fast securing a niche in the
entertainment market, cutouts of characters from
“Rugrats,” “Chicken Run” and “A
Bug’s Life” also make an appearance.

Included are photographs of ostentatious promotions, including a
giant shark’s head promoting “Deep Blue Sea”
standing in front of Fox Westwood Village theater and figures of
the “Three Kings” sitting atop AMC’s ticketing
booth in Century City.

The aggrandizement of film releases results from the lucrative
and competitive nature of the movie industry. For this reason, it
is difficult to determine to what extent the public relishes the
hype and to what extent a film’s impact depends on a
studio’s marketing divisions.

The exhibit could have explored this psychological aspect of
product promotion in greater detail rather than merely displaying
the pictures en masse without any thematic delineations.

In fact, the exhibit would have been more informative if it had
expanded on the development of movie showmanship. Only a couple of
pictures of the marquee’s early uses were included. For the
1914 showing of “The Crucible,” promoters used a
horse-drawn cart, positioned at the side of the theater as a
makeshift ad board.

The glimpse of what would now be considered small scale efforts
makes viewers wonder about the interim period before American
culture arrived at its current state of film frenzy and just how
grandiose future productions and marketing ploys will become.

The most intriguing aspect of the exhibit is a video
installation detailing a Paramount Picture’s promotional
device at the opening of Alfred Hitchcock’s
“Psycho.” It demonstrates the public’s
susceptibility to marketing gimmicks, as a recording by Hitchcock
plays over a loudspeaker outside a crowded theater.

The director’s voice reassures long lines of movie
patrons: “The point of all this is to help you enjoy
“˜Psycho’ more.

“You see,” the recording continued, “we really
only have your enjoyment at hand.”

This tactic proved successful, ushering docile crowds swiftly in
and out of the movie as the voice pacified those in line for the
next screening.

A more explicit study of the interplay between movie showmanship
and public response could have framed the exhibit and provided the
substance that is lacking in the current one.

“Marquee Madness” could be described by its own
comments on contemporary movie ads: hype on the most extravagant
scale.

One would expect something more than a parade of film posters.
These would have been germane for a movie theater, but one expects
more from a museum exhibit. This one, replete with images, was
short on content and failed to deliver.

MUSEUM: “Marquee Madness: The Attack of
the 50 Foot Poster” is on view at UCLA Fowler Museum of
Cultural History through June 24, Wednesday through Sunday, 12 p.m.
to 5 p.m. Thursday, 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. General admission is $5; UCLA
students with ID is $1. Admission is free on Thursdays. For more
information call (310) 825-4361.