In Gefahr und größter Not bringt der Mittelweg den Tod movie posters
Intrigue in use for a series of posters made for the promotion of In Gefahr und größter Not bringt der Mittelweg den Tod (English: In Danger and Deep Distress, the Middleway Spells Certain Death). The 1974 West German drama film was directed by Alexander Kluge and Edgar Reitz and features Dagmar Bödderich, Alfred Edel, and Jutta Winkelmann.
The posters were included in a retrospective of works by the “Sickerts” – Margrit and Peter Sickert – that was shown during the 65th Berlinale in 2015. In her review for Kunst+Film, Swantje Seberg points out that the sesquipedalian title dominates all three posters. She criticizes that, in general, many of the posters are quite text-heavy, and claims that in the 1970s, when such “lead deserts” were the order of the day, movie posters were “obviously intended to inform rather than visually seduce, at least in the case of ‘sophisticated’ films.”
For my part, I find the exclusively typographic poster shown above quite … intriguing (pardon the pun). The Logau quote in the unapologetic letterforms has a strong impact, which is further enhanced by the loud colors in combination with the underinked type. Type as image, if you will.
